The four marks of one whom action no longer binds, though the body still acts

Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read 'merely bodily action' as action whose only purpose is the upkeep of the body, such as begging alms, taking a loincloth, the bare maintenance the body needs. They reach this by weighing the alternatives and rejecting them. If 'bodily action' meant simply whatever the body accomplishes, then to say a forbidden act incurs no sin would contradict scripture, and to say an enjoined act incurs no sin would forbid what was never in question; the same fault arises for speech and mind. So only the reading 'action just for the body's subsistence' is faultless. They place this teaching within the path of liberating knowledge: all the person's actions have been burnt up by the fire of knowledge, so they are simply free. Some add that the sannyasi who has renounced all property is released by scripture from standing obligations like the lifelong agnihotra, whereas a householder who merely does bodily action would still incur the fault of omitting what is enjoined.

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

Bhedabheda

This commentator argues the opposite about the phrase 'merely bodily.' It cannot mean action for the maintenance of the body, because for someone whose body is already being sustained the instruction would be pointless. Therefore 'bodily action' means action enjoined by the scriptures and accomplished by the body and senses, with the topic restricted to Vedic action, not the forbidden; and 'merely' means devoid of desire for fruit. The freedom from sin is then read by sentence-purport: it is precisely while acting in this fruitless, scriptural way that no sin is incurred, whereas while not acting one would incur sin through omitting the enjoined. An alternate construction reads 'incurs no sin' as 'does not attain transmigratory existence.'

Śrī Bhāskara

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the verse describes the discipline of action itself bearing fruit, not a knowledge-path. Doing only the bodily action as long as he lives, with mine-ness toward matter gone because the single purpose is the self, the practitioner beholds the self by karma-yoga alone, unbroken by any separate standing in knowledge. The word kevala (merely) is glossed precisely as 'not broken by knowledge and the rest': action by itself, sustained, brings the vision of the self. 'Bodily' is read as having only the body's sustenance for its purpose, not heavenly reward, or as being free of intellect-prompted attachment to fruit; and kilbisha is glossed straightforwardly as samsara.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Dvaita

These commentators take the verse as Krishna stating the means to giving up desire and the rest, and they carefully fix the meaning of 'self' (atma) here as the mind. Their reason is grammatical and exegetical: restraining the inner organ's activity is what is established by rule, so reading 'self' as the body together with the senses would be wrong. Letting go of possession is the absence of the sense of mine. Importantly, they correct a prior reading of verse 4.20: it is wrong to say that 'though fully engaged in action he does nothing at all' because actions are unreal. The intent stated in this verse is otherwise, and the phrase 'does nothing at all' is to be taken as a secondary, figurative mode of expression.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators read the verse as addressing the lower-fit aspirant whose face is turned away from heaven's pleasures. Action-lessness is grounded in two things together: the absence of clinging to doership and the presence of Brahman-being. For such a one, the body, senses, and pranas are without superimposition; it is the superimposition that departs, not the real nature, which still stands within the manifest world. One of these voices gives bodily action a devotional turn: just as the body naturally passes urine and excrement, so the person takes up the names of Bhagavan as purifying acts, doing only what purifies and so incurring no bondage.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Bhakti

These commentators read 'self' as the gross body and give a concrete example of bodily action: even accepting improper or unworthy gifts, an act that would otherwise belong to the topic of forbidden action, leaves no sin on one who is free. Some offer two constructions: doing the mere bodily action with no clinging to doership, or, in the yoga-arudha (ascended) reading, even while doing natural acts like wandering for alms just enough to keep the body alive, one incurs no sin that would otherwise come from omitting the enjoined. The Marathi voice in this group raises the freedom higher still: such a person takes every sight, sound, word, and step as an expression of the inner self, viewing the whole universe as his own spirit, and so lives beyond good and evil even while moving among the gunas.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Modern

These voices diverge among themselves. One reads the verse through pure self-surrender: when the 'self' has completely subsided, only the body works, like the body of a sleeping man, or a prisoner doing assigned tasks; one who has voluntarily become God's prisoner does nothing, his body acts mechanically, and God is the doer. Another explicitly rejects reading 'bodily action' as begging alms for bodily maintenance; he aligns it instead with the later teaching (5.11) that karma-yogins perform all actions merely by their organs of action, the mind staying equable, so that the person incurs neither sin nor merit. A third frames it as the karma-yogi's renunciation: because longing for the world is gone, the body, senses, and mind come under control of themselves, so no useless action arises; he calls this the highest renunciation of all, asked here of the karma-yogi, higher even than what is enjoined later on the meditation-yogi and the knowledge-yogi, such that even his bodily acts leave no trace.

Mahatma Gandhi · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas