Though the Blessed Lord speaks distinctly, still to me, of dull mind, the Lord's words seem mixed; by them you confuse, as it were, my understanding. You set out to remove the confusion of my understanding, yet how do you confuse it? So I say 'you confuse my understanding, as it were'. If, on the other hand, you hold that knowledge and action, having different agents, cannot be carried out by one person, then, that being so, decide which of the two, understanding or action, is fitting for Arjuna, suited to his stage and to the power of his understanding, and tell me that one thing by which, knowledge or action, I may reach the highest good. That request too would make no sense otherwise. For if knowledge had been stated by the Blessed Lord as a mere subordinate part of steadfastness in action, how could Arjuna ask Him to tell the one of the two, with his wish to hear bearing on a single thing? The Blessed Lord had not earlier said 'I shall tell you only one of knowledge and action, not both', such that Arjuna, thinking the gaining of both impossible for himself, would ask for one alone. The Blessed Lord gave an answer suited to the question.

So it seems to me that with words of mixed sense you all but bewilder me. For to say 'action, which is the contrary of the standing in knowledge that consists in the withdrawal of all the senses from their working, is the means to that standing; therefore do that very action' is a self-contradictory, mixed statement. Therefore tell me one statement of unmixed sense, by which I may determine what is to be done and gain my own good.

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.