Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the verse straightforwardly as praise of single-minded devotion. The right resolve is to worship Krishna alone, and by its inner force the devotee throws off his outward evil conduct. One illustrates with the figure of Ajamila, the wicked man redeemed by calling on the divine name, showing that the power of devotion brings sudden change even where ordinary conduct would predict none. The stress falls on the inner resolve as the active force that transforms the person.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the 'very evil conduct' is read specifically as transgression of the conduct prescribed for one's particular caste or station. The devotee who has set his inner direction right is to be ranked the foremost of Vishnu's devotees, held in high regard, equal to the great ones described earlier. The decisive resolve is spelled out richly: that the Blessed One, supreme Brahman Narayana, the single cause of the whole world, is 'our master, my teacher, my friend, my supreme thing to be enjoyed.' These commentators are careful that the verse does not endorse bad conduct; the inner stance is decisive, and the outer conduct will follow once the direction is corrected. One notes a real tension with scriptural texts saying that one who has not ceased from ill conduct cannot reach the goal: such transgression can block the smooth onward flow of each later act of worship, a difficulty the following verse addresses.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This reading is terse and direct: even one exceedingly, intensely of evil conduct is to be regarded as righteous, and the word 'hi' simply marks the reason, which is that with a well-settled mind he has taken his stand on the right path. The emphasis rests on the firm settling of the mind upon the right course.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

These commentators read the 'even if' as guarding against a misimpression. For the most part a true devotee of the Lord is not one of very evil conduct at all. The verse should not be taken to mean that genuine devotion to Vishnu and very evil conduct freely coexist in one person. Rather, if by much accumulated merit someone somehow becomes such a devotee despite a past of evil conduct, only then is he to be held a saint. The 'it is not at all so' corrects the impression that the two simply sit together.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

On the pushti reading, devotion is not a qualification reserved for some special class of eligible people; it is open even to the deeply fallen, and the verse shows the Lord himself to be the great purifier of the deeply fallen. Even a great outcaste who serves Krishna alone, with mind inwardly drawn toward him, is to be regarded by all as a sadhu and the foremost among Vaishnavas. One cites the Bhagavata that a dog-eater turned toward the lotus-feet of the Lord is to be set above a learned brahmana turned away from him. One develops a tender psychology: the devotee is one whose habit is sense-bound sin, who knows the means of release, who cannot yet give up his habit but genuinely wishes to, and who in humility forms the resolve 'apart from Krishna there is none who can remove my great sin.' Once the inward bond is set, the past loses its hold and the Lord lifts the devotee into the company of his own.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

The devotional commentators dwell on the unaccountable, mysterious power of bhakti to purify. One glosses the undivided worship through non-difference: worshipping Krishna as Narayana alone, while seeing that other deities too are in truth none other than Vasudeva, and resolving 'by worship of the supreme Lord alone I shall be fulfilled.' Another grounds the verdict in scripture (the Narasimha), comparing the stained devotee to the moon whose luster is marred by the hare's mark yet which never falls into the defeat of darkness; he reads 'sadhu eva' as a binding directive that even one who behaves in both good and bad ways is yet to be honored as righteous. A third brings in surrender at life's close: one of corrupt ways who bathes in the holy waters of repentance and surrenders wholly to the Lord is joined to him, his very family made pure, and he is reckoned learned and accomplished in austerity and yoga, for his devotion sanctifies all.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

The modern voices stress the transforming and reconciling force of the resolve. One reads it as the holy resolution to give up evil ways, illustrated by Ratnakar the robber who became the sage Valmiki, by Jagai and Madhai, and by Mary Magdalene, holding that remembrance of God destroys sins beyond counting. One says simply that undivided devotion subdues both passions and evil deeds. One renders the resolve as worshipping with the faith that there is no one else, and his Reason's determination being proper. One resolves an apparent contradiction with chapter seven, where sinners are said not to take refuge in Krishna: that earlier verse described only the nature of such men, whereas here, since the Lord bears no hatred toward any being, even they may turn to him; from the very moment undivided worship begins, however dark the past, the person is to be reckoned a sadhu.

Swami Sivananda · Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas