Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse as the signature of Ishvara's knowledge: the Lord's omniscience and the individual being's ignorance are two faces of one and the same maya-relation. The crucial point they raise as an objection and answer is this: if the Lord and the world are non-different, why does maya not delude the Lord as it deludes the world? Their answer is that maya, being itself only maya, cannot obstruct the knowing of the maya-wielder, just as a worldly magician is not himself fooled by his own trick. The difference is one of conditioning: the world takes on conditioning-properties and so is deluded, while the Lord takes on none and so remains all-knowing. The reality of the Lord is known only by the discerning devotee, not by every undiscerning person, and the want of this knowledge is exactly why most do not worship.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī

Viśiṣṭādvaita

These commentators read the unknowability with a strong note of the Lord's descent and refuge. The Lord knows all beings as the objects of his constant dwelling-attention, yet among them not one is found who, having truly known him as the Vasudeva who descended precisely so that all might take refuge in him, then resorts to him alone. So the man of knowledge is exceedingly hard to find. They underline that the asymmetry is by the very nature of the case: the Lord is not known by the powers of any creature unless the Lord makes himself known. The right stance for the seeker is therefore not 'I will plumb the Lord' but 'I will dwell in the refuge by which the Lord makes himself known.'

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators read the verse tightly as setting aside two specific doubts. First, that maya might bind the Lord and leave him ignorant of beings, like two people on either side of a curtain who cannot see each other; the answer is 'I know,' for maya does not bind him. Second, the doubt that even if the incapable world cannot know him, surely some most-capable being such as Brahma could; the answer lies in the word 'no one,' which rules out even the highest. The decisive qualifier is 'by his own power': no being, however able, knows the Lord by his own capacity. This qualifier also removes any contradiction with the earlier verse praising the man of knowledge, since such knowing comes not by the creature's own power.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the asymmetry as by design and tie it to service. The Lord is the cause, support, and indweller of all, so he knows everything as his own; the things known are not in a position to know him until the conscious portion within them is turned by grace. One reads the three groups of beings in terms of service: those who have passed away having failed to render service and so been lost, those now actively rendering service, and those yet to be brought forth for the sake of service, all known by him as his own. Strikingly, this reading holds that even after the knowledge of the Lord has dawned, no one knows him fully as the Lord ruling within the threefold time. The 'Vasudeva is all' realization is here implicitly contrasted with the ordinary state in which the asymmetry stands.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhedabheda

This commentator reads the verse plainly: the Lord knows beings of all three times, but the deluded world does not know him, while the one who is a true knower realizes that 'Vasudeva is all.' He then asks pointedly what has deluded this world, and answers by pointing forward: it is the delusion of the pairs of opposites, arising from desire and aversion, by which all beings fall into bewilderment from their very birth.

Śrī Bhāskara

Bhakti

These commentators dwell on the rarity and the mechanics of the veiling. One distinguishes two veils: the external maya that bewilders others but has no power over its own resort, and the internal yogamaya, holding that even a being of great omniscience such as the great Rudra does not know the Lord in his fullness, owing to the veiling of knowledge by maya and yogamaya as appropriate. Another stresses that no modification touches the Lord on account of maya, which is subject to him, overpowered by his radiance, and serves him from afar as if from behind a curtain; one who knows him is rare even among tens of millions. A third voice gives a vivid non-dual gloss: all beings, past, present, and future, are one with the Lord's being and never outside it, and the apparent separate being of creatures is as false as mistaking a rope for a snake, where one cannot truly say the snake is dark or gray or red because it was never there.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These commentators keep the teaching close to the seeker's experience. One says the deluded, bound by the three qualities of nature, do not know the Lord's real nature and so do not adore him, while the Lord through his omniscience knows beings past, present, and future, and the single-minded devotee comes to know him in essence. Another offers a striking explanation of why the Lord uses three time-words for beings but only the present tense for his own knowing: in the Lord's vision all three times are present at once. Just as a film already contains all its moments while the audience experiences past, present, and future in sequence, so for beings within time there are three times, but for the Lord, who is beyond time, all is present. Beings within time have limited knowledge; the Lord's knowledge is boundless. Some seekers may grow their knowledge by yoga-practice and come to know what they wish when they wish, but the Lord, without any practice, knows all beings and the whole world at all times of himself, and beings forever abide in him and can never be hidden from his sight.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas