Better, more to be praised, is one's own duty, even if it is poorly done, the word 'even' is to be marked, than another's duty. 'Determined by one's own nature' means determined by nature; what was called 'born of nature' is here called 'determined by nature'. As poison, native to a creature born in poison, does no harm to it, so doing the action determined by one's own nature one does not incur sin. It has been said that doing the action determined by one's own nature one does not incur sin, like the worm born in poison; and that another's duty brings fear; and that no one ignorant of the self can stay for even a moment without doing action. Therefore the Lord goes on.

Thus, one's own duty, in the form of the worship of Me, with agency and the rest relinquished, is the duty that is fit to be taken up by oneself. For, for a man conjoined with nature, the duty of the form of the discipline of action, which is of the form of the working of the senses, is easy to do. Therefore one's own duty called the discipline of action, though it lack a quality, is better than another's duty, the duty of a man skilled in the conquest of the senses, namely the discipline of knowledge, which, being of the form of the restraining of all the senses, is liable to heedlessness, even when carried out well at some time. He establishes that very thing: since, for a man conjoined with nature, action, by being of the form of the working of the senses, is by its very nature fixed, doing the action one does not incur the inauspicious, transmigration, since action is free of heedlessness; whereas the discipline of knowledge, being to be accomplished by the restraining of all the senses, is liable to heedlessness, and one settled in it might, by heedlessness, come to incur the inauspicious; so the standing in action is the better; the Lord recalls what was told in the third chapter.

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.