Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read 'ananya' ('no other') chiefly as non-duality. The devotee is 'non-separate', not held apart from God, having gone to the supreme Self, Narayana, as his very own Self. He knows 'I am the Lord Vasudeva himself, the Self of all; nothing distinct from me exists', and ever contemplates that one inner Self. So 'no other' means no second thing exists to be thought of at all. These are the renouncers, the seers of the supreme truth, who see God all round as unlimited. The reason the Lord carries their gain and security is stated as identity: the knower is the Lord's very Self, and dear to him; being non-other than the Lord, their aim is already accomplished through him. To the objection that the Lord supports other devotees too, the answer is that the others strive for themselves out of attachment to their own life and death, while these have no such greed and take the Lord as their only refuge, so the Lord alone bears their gain and security.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here 'ananya' marks not identity but exclusive purpose and single attention. These great souls have the contemplation of the Lord as their one and only purpose, because they cannot hold themselves up at all without thinking of him. They worship him as endowed with all auspicious qualities and joined with all glory, all around, without stint. For them 'yoga-kshema' is given a higher, spiritual reading alongside the practical one: 'yoga' is the very attaining of the Lord himself, and 'kshema' is the keeping-safe that takes the form of no-return, never falling back from him. These sources frame the verse as a practical assurance: the candidate who has achieved inner singleness does not have to carry the practical burden on top of the spiritual one, for the Lord takes that burden into his own hand. They are the ever-joined who long for perpetual union with him.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This commentator gives a spare, direct gloss. 'Ananya' are simply those for whom there is no other object of worship. For these ever-steadfast ones the Lord himself bears the gaining and the keeping. 'Yoga' is the gaining of what is not yet gained; 'kshema' is the safeguarding of what is gained. The reading stays close to the plain words without elaborating a further system here.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

These commentators explicitly resist reading 'ananya' as the non-dual knower. 'Ananya' means rather 'thinking of nothing else', those for whom no other thing stands as an object of thought. They support this with other scriptures: the Gautama hymns say that steadfast ones who give up all in the mind and think on the one God alone, pure and primal, 'without another, enter into the God himself', and the Moksha-dharma says that the Lord, whose orb of light shines, can be seen by those collected through one-pointedness. That seeing of the Lord, together with his radiance, is taken as the means to gain and security. 'Ever, on every side' means those who are joined in every way, engaged in the Lord's service with body, senses, and mind. The relationship is one of devoted service to a Lord who remains distinct, not of identity.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators place the verse at the center of the 'pushti-marga', the path of grace. The devotee's accomplishment comes not by his own means but by the Lord's 'anugraha', his free favor. 'Ananya' means free of any thought or means turned to another deity, another fruit, or another path; the devotee's very bhakti is itself obtained only by the Lord's grace, since bhakti is like a wish-granting tree that gives what no other means can reach. They distinguish two paths to the Lord, the 'maryada' (the regulated way, where means apply in due order) and the 'pushti' (the way of pure grace, where means are set aside and the Lord's free will alone is the cause, as with the dwellers of Vraja). On this reading 'yoga' is the gaining of wealth, grain, and clothing here for the use of the Lord's service, or the conjunction with him in service itself, and 'kshema' is the safeguarding of it, even unto the final good of moksha. Where the devotee's own power fails, the Purushottama himself manifests his power and accomplishes the thing; whatever the 'ananya' devotee cannot bring forth, the Lord brings forth out of his grace.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads 'yoga-kshema' in a purely inward, spiritual register, distinct from any worldly maintenance. 'Ananya' are those for whom there is no other fruit to be desired, none apart from the Lord. The 'yoga', the 'gain', is the winning of the Lord's own nature, not won before. The 'kshema', the 'keeping', is the guarding of that gain once won, a footing now established firmly in the nature of the Blessed One, so secure that not even the fear of falling from yoga can arise. The whole promise is thus about attaining and never losing one's grounding in the divine nature.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These devotional commentators emphasize grace and the Lord's loving attachment to his devotees. The happiness of the exclusive devotee is not gained by his own action but is given by the Lord alone, because in the devotee's desirelessness there is a kind of actionlessness, and so what is seen in his life is the Lord's gift, springing from the Lord's affection for those dear to him. They make much of 'vahami', 'I bear': the Lord carries the devotee's bodily upkeep just as a householder carries his family's, or a mother-bird her young's, forgetting her own hunger. One stresses that the devotee does not lay any burden on the Lord at all; the Lord takes it up by his own will, and far from being a strain, bearing the welfare of a dear devotee is supremely joy-giving to him, like delighting in a beloved consort. Several add that the promise reaches even to moksha, even when the devotee has not asked for it; the Lord himself, and not any host of lesser deities, carries the devotee all the way to himself.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern commentators draw out different facets. One blends interpretations: 'ananya' as non-separate, the devotee looking on the Supreme as his own Self and worshiping the Lord in all beings, so that, having nothing he calls his own and no desire for life or death, all his wants are met by the Lord like a parent attending to a child. Another keeps the worldly reading firm: 'yoga-kshema' is daily maintenance in worldly life, getting what one lacks and protecting what one has, and notes from the Narayaniya doctrine that such solitary devotees, though they worship alone, still belong to the path of desireless action. Another reads the whole verse as the assurance that everything seen, heard, or understood is the Lord's own form and every activity his play; the devotee who firmly holds this stays in the Lord and is 'ananya', and the Lord himself, the indweller, carries both the means and the goal, so the devotee need seek no other guarantee anywhere. One offers no exposition of this verse's content but names three marks of the true devotee: even-mindedness, skill in action, and undivided devotion, which must be harmonized together.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Mahatma Gandhi