Looking to the body, superimposed by ignorance as the Self, ending with the skin, and making it the boundary, 'outside' is spoken; and looking to the inmost Self, making the body the boundary, 'inside' is spoken. When 'outside and inside' is said, a non-existence in the middle might be supposed; so it is said: unmoving and moving too. Even what appears as the moving and unmoving body is that very thing to be known, as the appearance of a snake is the rope. If it is unmoving and moving, then all the things to be known fall within the range of dealings; why, then, is it said that it is not known by all? True, it is the appearance of all; yet, like space, it is subtle, and because of its subtlety, in its own form, that thing to be known, though a thing to be known, is unknown to the ignorant. To the knowers it is ever known, by such means of knowledge as 'all this is the Self' (Chāndogya 7.25.2) and 'all this is Brahman' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 2.5.1). Because it is unknown, it is far off, unreachable by the ignorant even in ten million years; and it is near, since it is the very Self of the knowers. Further.

The self-thing, abiding everywhere, in beings, gods, men, and the rest, is undivided, by the single form of being-the-knower; and yet, for the ignorant, it stands as if divided, in the form of god and the rest, 'this one is a god, this a man'. That it, though dwelt on in grammatical co-ordination with the body in 'I am a god', 'I am a man', can, as the knower, be known as a thing other than the body, was said at the start in 'he who knows this'. Now He says that by other modes too it can be known as a thing other than the body, in 'it is the supporter of beings'. Of the beings, earth and the rest, gathered up in the form of the body, that which is the supporter is to be known as a thing other than the beings to be supported, that is, it can be known to be a thing other. Likewise it is a devourer: of the things made of the elements, food and the rest, it is a devourer; it can be known to be a thing other than the beings being devoured, by being the devourer. And it is a bringer-into-being: it is the cause of the coming-to-be of the food and the rest, devoured and transformed into another shape; it can be known to be a thing other than them. Since in a dead body the devouring, the bringing-into-being, and the rest are not seen, it is determined that the field, of the form of the aggregate of elements, is not the cause of the devouring, the bringing-into-being, and the supporting.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Madhvacharya does not comment on this verse.