Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators emphasize that the verse explains a mechanism without condemning deity-worship in an exclusivist way. The desires veil right knowledge of the Lord's own nature; the disposition given by one's prakriti determines which deity is approached; and the deity's appointed rules are observed in the proper manner. Crucially, the Lord, as the inner self of all those deities, is the real giver of the fruit, but the worshipper, not knowing this, wrongly credits the fruit to the deity itself. On this reading the chapter is training the candidate to look through the apparent diversity of many gods to their inner unity in the one Lord, rather than denouncing the worship outright.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse as marking off the desire-driven worshipper from the jnani, not as a blanket censure. The flaw is that the worshipper fixes the bond on a partial deity sought as a means to a partial fruit, rather than on Bhagavan as the very goal; the conscious (cit) portion in such a person has not yet been turned wholly toward the supreme Purushottama. One develops this further: such people serve for personal desire, not for liberation or devotion, and the Lord does not grant desire-fruit to one whose course runs contrary to liberation and devotion; failing to get that fruit, their knowledge of his essential nature is carried off, and, drawn by their own native bent which is itself only a portion of material nature, they worship other deities who are themselves only portions of that same nature, on the principle that 'each one worships that whose portion he is.'

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators locate the specific false judgment behind the turning away. The worshipper reasons that deities like the sun quickly remove afflictions such as disease, while Vishnu does not act so immediately; their understanding is ruined by this impatience for quick relief, and so they desire fast, easy enjoyment and resort to other gods. One adds that their very corrupt nature is averse to taking refuge in Krishna and actively produces this aversion to surrender. Another, in the devotional Marathi voice, paints the inward picture vividly: once desire enters the heart through greed, the lamp of insight is blown out by the gale of passion; already slaves of Maya, they become helpless beggars for sense-enjoyment, impose elaborate rules of worship on themselves, dedicate riches to the deity, and yet lack the faith to see that Krishna himself is the Godhead present in all those deities and the actual giver of every fruit.

Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Dvaita

These commentators focus narrowly on the precise meaning of 'by their own nature' (prakritya svaya). They gloss it, by lexical authority, as disposition, formative tendency, and latent impression. One raises and answers a pointed objection: since the root Prakriti is everywhere one, how can the verse speak of it as something individual, 'their own'? The answer is that the word 'svaya' (own) marks out the particular, individual disposition of each soul; the word 'alone' is to be connected so that the sense is 'their own nature alone' that governs them.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the deities as subordinate bodies or forms of Krishna himself. Those whose minds are narrowed each by his own particular desiring nature worship just that particular deity which befits that desire, which is itself a lower body of the Lord; hence they take their desire-fruit from Krishna alone, though through a partial form. But that fruit has an end, because it is made measured and limited by their own latent impression. For this very reason those who sacrifice with their aim set on the contemplation of Indra and the rest receive a fruit only of that limited kind, whereas those whose aim is the attaining of Krishna himself receive Krishna alone.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

This commentator gives a careful anatomy of the desire (kamana) that covers knowledge. He stresses the human tragedy first: a body with the capacity for discrimination (viveka) was given precisely for attaining the supreme Self (parmatma-prapti), yet people, not attaining it, stay busy only fulfilling their cravings. He then maps the desires: the longing for union-born pleasure splits into desire to amass wealth (to enjoy here as one pleases, and to feel great and important through wealth) and desire to amass merit (to be called holy here, and to enjoy heaven hereafter). All these cravings cover over the discrimination between the real and the unreal, the eternal and the temporary, the essential and the inessential, bondage and liberation; with that discrimination veiled, people cannot even ask how long the things they hunger for will stay with them, or they with the things.

Swami Ramsukhdas