Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the joining of remembrance and action so that no real 'combination of knowledge and works' is being taught. One way of putting it: when you contemplate that the whole array of action, its instruments, and its fruit is nothing but Brahman, then 'fight' does not set up a domain of action distinct from Brahman, so the apparent mixing dissolves. Another way distinguishes levels of seeker: this whole teaching of remembering the Lord-with-attributes (saguna) and using duty for inner purification is meant for the worshipper, for whom a final contemplation is needed; but for the knower of the attributeless Brahman (nirguna), liberation comes the very moment ignorance ceases through knowledge, so no death-time contemplation is required at all. Action here serves to destroy the impurity of the inner organ, after which the offered mind and intellect carry one to the Lord.

Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī

Advaita Vedānta

This voice reads the 'and' (cha) in 'and fight' as expressly combining action (karma) and worship (upasana), and defends the combination on a particular ground: in one and the same qualified person the cognition of being-an-agent and of not-being-an-agent do not clash, unlike the disallowed combining of knowledge and action. The offered mind and intellect mean the mind and intellect brought to a single fixity on the Lord; and the phrase 'at the end-time, by remembrance' is supplied to complete the sense of how one attains His being.

Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the structure is read as a clear chain of dependence: the fruit depends on the death-time remembrance, the death-time remembrance depends on the all-along contemplation, and the contemplation must itself be supported by an aiding action (karma). So contemplation and its supporting duty are to be carried on together, and the prescribed duties (the obligatory and occasional actions enjoined by revelation and tradition, bound up with caste and stage of life) are precisely the action that breeds the daily remembrance. 'At all times' is taken to mean 'until departure,' day by day, not at the death-moment only. The offered mind and intellect set up the inner arrangement so that the final-hour remembrance happens as a natural inflow, and one then attains the Lord 'in the manner one longs for.' This verse is also read as a hinge: having said in general that attainment depends on the final cognition, the Lord now turns to state the differing manners of worship for the three kinds of seekers.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This reading takes the term-by-term sense plainly: remember the Lord at all times, and 'fight' means perform your own duty. On the mind and intellect, it adds a metaphysical note: in ultimate truth there is but one inner organ, and the labeling of distinct faculties (mind, intellect) is only for accomplishing practical affairs. It also meets a specific fear head-on: one might worry that at the last moment the remembrance could fail or turn out otherwise. The answer is that this need not be feared, because the Lord is omniscient and, following upon one's deeds, He is Himself the controller of the workings of the mind, so the certainty of the verse stands.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

This commentary is occupied with a fine grammatical worry carried over from the prior verse about whether remembering and giving up the body happen at the same time. It distinguishes the clear-witted from the dull-witted and the wrong-witted. For the clear-witted, the grammar (a present participle used as a mark or cause of an action) already establishes that remembering and dying are simultaneous, so no qualifier like 'at the end' is needed. The wrong-witted may doubt this, because at death great pain arises and pain is known to wipe out the mental impression, so a fainting person might give up the body without remembering; for them the word 'at the end' is supplied. But the truth is that such death-pain belongs only to the ignorant, who identifies with the body and takes losing the body as losing the self; the wise one, who all along regards the body as a thing to be cast off, suffers no such pain and has no room for doubt. Lifelong steadiness in that being is named as the means, because end-time remembrance does not arise suddenly.

Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

This school presses the word 'alone' (eva) hardest: the fruit of remembering Bhagavan is Bhagavan Himself, not the imperishable (akshara) or any other goal that those on other paths reach. One voice supplies the refuge-formula 'Sri Krishna is my refuge' and reads 'mind and intellect offered' as laying one's very resolve (sankalpa) and determination (vyavasaya) in Him alone; joined by yoga, one's own work then itself becomes a benefit, so 'fight.' The other develops the offering of the two faculties as a removal of two specific defects: the mind is offered to remove restlessness, the intellect to remove the settling of decision elsewhere; and it adds a grace-note, that by such remembrance the Lord, through grace, holds the devotee in His own remembrance at all times, so that remembrance itself becomes the fruit even now. For this school the verse is the keystone of the Lord's practical instruction: recollection and action, devotion at the Master's command, carried together.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

The devotional reading widens the remembrance into the whole of life and frames the promise warmly. Whatever you see, hear, think, or speak should all be of the Lord, through and through, so that He is found to abide everywhere at all times; once this is secured there is nothing to fear from death, and so nothing to fear in the war. The continuous remembrance is the inner work, sva-dharma is the outer instrument of purification, the offered mind is the bridge, and Bhagavan Himself (not a lower fruit) is the destination. One voice adds that battle and the like are to be done 'for the welfare of the world,' and another offers the teaching as the Lord's own promise: dedicate both mind and intellect and you will be one with His divine being, and if you doubt how this happens, first try it and have the experience of it.

Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha

Modern

These commentators draw out the practical force of 'at all times.' One insists that 'at all times' attaches only to remembrance (smriti), not to fighting, because no action can run unbroken; every action has a beginning and an end. But remembrance of the Lord can be continuous, because the wakefulness of one's true aim is itself continuous, and so to one who can hold this no separate seat or hour is needed and remembrance becomes the very breathing of his being. The reason 'at all times' matters is that every other activity is divided by time (this hour for sleep, this for work, this for eating), whereas the Lord's remembrance must admit no such division. Another reads 'fight' as suggestive (upalakshana) of all the duties of one's caste and stage of life and the regular and occasional acts, which purify the heart and lead to knowledge and to Him; and notes that the mental modification shaped like the object meditated upon (the bhavana) belongs to those who practice worship of the Lord-with-attributes, not to the realized knower of the Self. A third renders the merging plainly: dedicate your mind and your reason to Me, and notwithstanding that you have fought, you will undoubtedly come and be merged in Me.

Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak