Advaita Vedānta

This reading frames each question as a deliberately open doubt that the Advaita answer will close. The word 'Brahman' can name either the conditioned (qualified) Brahman or the unconditioned (attributeless) absolute, so Arjuna asks which is meant; 'adhyatma' may mean the standing array of sense-instruments such as hearing in their bodily substrate, or the inmost Brahman itself; 'karma' may be sacrificial action or some other action, since scripture distinguishes the sacrifice of knowledge from the sacrifice of works; 'adhibhuta' may be a single element among earth and the rest or the whole class of effects; and 'adhidaiva' may be the meditation directed at a deity or the very consciousness present in the deities such as the solar orb. One source in this group reads the previous chapter's Brahman as maya-conditioned Brahman that serves as an indicator of the unconditioned for the highest seeker, while remaining the worshipped for the middling. The address to the best of persons is taken to mean that to the all-knowing one nothing is unknown, since he transcends both the perishable effect and the imperishable cause.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri

Viśiṣṭādvaita

This reading ties the questions to the candidates who will benefit from the answers, and reads the whole cluster as ranking those candidates. The eighth chapter, for those who long for the Lord's feet, teaches the true nature of his sovereign glory and of the imperishable self, together with the distinctions among the states to be known and embraced. The questions are sorted by candidate: Brahman, adhyatma, and karma are what those who strive, taking refuge in the Lord for release from age and death, must know; adhibhuta and adhidaiva are what the seekers of lordship must know; and the one denoted by 'adhiyajna,' whom all must know, must also be identified along with how the Lord is to be known at the time of departure by those of restrained self. The closing chapter of the previous teaching had centered the supreme Brahman, Vasudeva, as the object of worship and named the kinds of devotees, and these seven questions answer to seven heads the chapter will take in order. The address to the best of persons marks the supreme Person whose triad of attributes is to be known, and the phrase 'by those of yoked self' restricts the death-time knowing to qualified candidates, so the question is addressed to a defined company fit to bear the answer.

Yāmunācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

This reading states the chapter's subject rather than parsing each term: in this chapter Krishna teaches what is to be done at the time of death, the course or destination that is reached, and the rest. The word 'and the rest' gathers in the path and so on. What is being described throughout is the very greatness of the Lord, in the form of his being the object of the enjoined remembrance and his being what is reached; on this basis the chapter is shown to belong within its larger section, and its immediate sequence on the previous teaching is established, since it is precisely at the time of death that the teaching about the duty at that hour and the way to be traveled is given.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

This reading stresses that Brahman, karma, and the rest are objects fit to be known by the seers, not by ordinary people like Arjuna, and that out of a doubt under the impulse to learn he inquires in the heard order. One source draws out a striking inner sense of the address to the best of persons: since nothing higher than the Lord exists, the Lord himself is that best of persons, so how can Brahman be said to be something other than him, and what can the 'reality with reference to the gods' be apart from his own form? On this reading the lesser heads such as the 'reality with reference to the self' raise the further question of what use it is to know them and how service is to be performed, and the address 'slayer of Madhu' (in the next verse) is taken to convey that for those who are the Lord's there is no fear of death, so the real question is how, at that very moment, one can utter forth the knowledge of him.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This reading counts the questions differently. What the Lord had broached earlier with 'they know that Brahman' is here settled by raising a set of nine questions, not the five or seven that other commentators count. The first asks what that Brahman is. The mention of the one presiding over sacrifice (adhiyajna) raises two further questions, how that presiding presence is constituted and who it is, and the words 'here, in the body' are to be supplied, asking who it is that dwells within the body.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

This reading frames the seven categories as known by those whose mind is fixed on Krishna alone, and presents the chapter as making plain what was merely named before. The seven questions, posed in two breath-lengths, will structure the whole reply, and the very order of asking will be honored in the order of answering; the eighth chapter is also seen to contain question and answer, yoga, devotion mixed with other practices, pure devotion, and the two paths. One source within this group develops the specific doubts term by term: is 'that Brahman' the consciousness of the Supreme Self or of the individual self; is the 'reality with reference to the self' the cluster of sense organs beginning with hearing or the cluster of subtle elements; is the 'reality with reference to created beings' an effect such as a pot or the gross body; and is the 'reality with reference to the gods' the contemplation directed at a deity or the collective cosmic person (Viraj). The same source reads the address to the best of persons as removing the doubt 'since we two are equal, why ask me,' meaning that because the Lord is supreme all this is well known to him.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These readings present the verse for the modern reader as Arjuna simply asking for elucidation of unfamiliar technical terms, then in one case build a full cosmological picture from the answers. One reading lists the heads plainly: the nature of Brahman, the individual self (adhyatma), action, the objective universe (adhibhuta), knowledge of the shining ones (adhidaiva), and the secret of sacrifice (adhiyajna), and notes the chapter is sometimes called the yoga of practice because later verses treat spiritual disciplines. The fullest reading explains that the Lord's brief terms are open to different interpretations and so the disciple asks for them to be made precise: by 'that Brahman' is meant the immutable self-existence which is the highest self-expression of the Divine; by adhyatma the soul's own spiritual way of being (svabhava) in the supreme Nature; by karma the creative impulse and energy that looses out existences into the cosmic becoming; by adhibhuta all the result of mutable becoming; by adhidaiva the soul in Nature who observes and enjoys; and by adhiyajna the Lord himself, the Godhead secret in the body of every being. This reading places the whole verse within the Gita's idea of the cosmic process and links it to the teaching, suggested at the end of the previous chapter, of final release by knowledge at the time of departure. Another reading keeps the focus tight: 'best of persons, what is that Brahman' opens the first of the seven questions, and the supreme Person will take up each in turn.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Sri Aurobindo · Swami Ramsukhdas