The four kinds who turn to God, and what sets the knower apart.

Advaita Vedānta

These commentators read the jijñāsu as a seeker of liberation, one with mere verbal or scriptural knowledge of the Self who now seeks its direct realization. The jñānī is the knower of the truth of Viṣṇu or of the Self. One commentator works out the logic of the ordering: because the afflicted and the wealth-seeker can themselves become seekers, and because a seeker may still feel affliction or desire the means of knowledge, the seeker is placed between the two; and the desireless jñānī, ever joined with the direct realization of the Lord's reality, has already crossed māyā with all desire turned back. One adds that the conjunction 'and' is meant to fold in even a desireless loving devotee within the jñānī, and that mere fear or hatred of the Lord, as in Kaṃsa or Śiśupāla, does not make one a devotee, since love for the Lord is absent.

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

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Here the four are graded by the excellence of what each attains, each later kind being higher. The afflicted is one who has lost his standing or lordship and longs to regain it; the wealth-seeker has no lordship and desires it; since both have lordship as their object, these two differ only 'in face' and form essentially one qualification. The seeker of knowledge wishes to attain the own-form of the self as set apart from matter, knowledge being the self's very own-form. The jñānī, however, does not stop short at the bare self apart from matter; knowing the self's single savour to be subordination to the Lord, he longs for the Lord Himself, holding Him to be the supreme thing to be attained. One of these commentators reads bhajante here as the worship that fulfills prapatti, self-surrender, since the door of refuge was opened in the prior verse, and insists the chapter does not exclude the less mature motives from access.

Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika

Bhedabheda

This reading is terse: four kinds of qualified candidates worship the Lord. The distressed is one fallen into calamity; the seeker of knowledge strives to comprehend the Supreme Lord; the wealth-seeker desires possessions; and the knower is specifically one who knows Brahman.

Śrī Bhāskara

Dvaita

This commentator's gloss is occupied with an objection carried over from the prior verses: whether the later verse is disconnected, and whether saying 'Me alone' is thereby made unreal. He resolves that the evildoers fail to take refuge purely from their own fault, through being deluded by false knowledge born of unrighteousness, and not because taking refuge in the Lord is no means of crossing māyā; hence, he stresses, there is a great difference between the two cases. The emphasis falls on the self-caused nature of the non-devotees' failure, setting off by contrast the sukṛtins who do turn to the Lord.

Śrī Jayatīrtha

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators anchor each of the four in a Bhāgavata exemplar and, strikingly, map the four onto the four human aims. The ārta is Gajendra, the elephant seized by the crocodile who, his own resources spent, turned to the Lord and was saved at once; he worships in the form of dharma. The jijñāsu is Uddhava, not in want but in love of knowing the Lord, who asked and received the eleventh book; he worships in the form of kāma, longing to know the Lord's nature as the very form of love. The arthārthī is Dhruva, the child denied a kingdom who set out for the Lord and outgrew the worldly aim on reaching Him; he worships the Lord as the wealth that brings the means of His service. The jñānī is Śuka, who came not for relief or inquiry or any aim but because he had already known the Lord as the very rasa and could not stand apart; he worships in the form of mokṣa. In three the Lord is approached as a means to a further end; in the fourth He is the very end. The puṣṭi-frame welcomes all four, for the door is opened by the entry of sukṛta, yet it sets the jñānī apart, since in him alone the bond is placed on the Lord as Himself.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator calls all four noble, yet draws a metaphysical contrast in terms of difference and non-difference. The lower three, of meaner intelligence, seek the warding-off of distress or wealth and the rest, either from those equal to them in having hands, feet, belly, and body, or from those they hold higher while holding themselves lower; for them even that much difference from the Lord remains, since the difference shines plainly in the very attitude 'this I long for.' The man of knowledge, by contrast, takes hold of the Lord as not different, so that the Lord is simply not different from him; for him the Lord alone is dear and not the fruit. It is for just this reason that his heart is purified by the firm conviction that Vāsudeva alone is all.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Bhakti

These commentators read the four through the lens of devotion's grades. Two of them anchor the four in exemplars: the ārta is Gajendra; the jijñāsu is a seeker of Self-knowledge, like Śaunaka; the arthārthī is one desiring kingdom and worldly enjoyments, like Dhruva; and the jñānī, of purified inner organ, is the renunciant who has known himself as belonging to the Lord, like Śuka. One develops a fuller scheme: in the first three the devotion is mixed with action, in the fourth it is mixed with knowledge; this 'predominant' devotion is distinct from the pure, unmixed devotion taught elsewhere in the chapter, and also from the merely 'subordinate' devotion of the ritualist, knower, and yogi, which is not even called devotion because action or knowledge predominates in it. The fruit of the three desire-laden kinds is the attainment of their respective desires and, because the object worshipped is supremely good, ultimately a liberation into the Lord's realm with no fall; the fruit of the fourth is tranquil love, as in Sanaka and the rest, rising in some by the Lord's special compassion to an eminence of pure love, as in Śuka. One reads the placing of the seeker of knowledge between the afflicted and the wealth-seeker as a sign that these latter two will attain the seeker's state in their next births.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva

Modern

These voices stress the inclusive, practical force of the verse. One gives vivid contemporary instances of affliction (chronic disease, earthquake, volcanic eruption, attack by a robber or a tiger) and names Draupadī and Gajendra for the afflicted, Janaka and Uddhava for the seeker, Sugrīva, Vibhīṣaṇa, Upamanyu, and Dhruva for the wealth-seeker, and Śuka for the knower; he even allows that those who think of the Lord constantly through fear and hatred, like Kaṃsa, Śiśupāla, and Rāvaṇa, are in a sense regarded as devotees, and counsels: be devoted to God whatever your motive, for devotion will purify the motive in due course. Another underlines that the jñānī, though accomplished and with nothing more to gain, still worships, and worships desirelessly. A third reframes sukṛti entirely: the sukṛtins are not doers of ritual desire-prompted merit but those who have joined their relation with God and act for His sake, of two grades, those who offer their ordinary duties to Him and those who do purely God-related acts like chanting His name and hearing His play; by whatever cause an inclination toward God arises, whether past merit, the failure of human help in calamity, betrayal by a trusted person, or holy company and reflection, such a one is a sukṛti, and only such a person truly deserves the name 'human,' for the human body exists for the very purpose of reaching God.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas