The bright path of light by which a knower of Brahman departs and does not return.

Advaita Vedānta

This path is not for everyone who knows Brahman. These commentators carefully restrict it to the worshipper of the qualified, conditioned Brahman (saguna Brahman), the one who attains gradual liberation (krama-mukti) by being led stage by stage to the 'effected' or conditioned Brahman, and through that to the supreme. The soul reaches the conditioned Brahman first because, as the maxim holds, only of something effected does 'going to it' make sense. For one who has realized the unqualified, world-free Brahman here and now, who knows 'I am Brahman', there is no path and no journey at all: scripture says 'his breaths do not depart'; the breaths merge in Brahman, and such a one is already Brahman. So this verse describes a route for one class of knower and is explicitly set aside for the immediately liberated.

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

Bhakti

These commentators read the travelers as the worshippers of Bhagavan, the personal Lord, who attain Brahman because they are knowers of Brahman. The 'non-human Person' who leads the soul from the lightning onward is understood as the eternal attendant of the Supreme Lord Hari, and the final destination is the Lord himself; the path is served by an ordered company of divine conductors abiding at the Lord's command. One of these commentators stresses that the worship bears fruit whether or not the funeral rites are performed for the body, since the result rests on the worship itself. Yet this same school keeps open a third case: for one whose lot is immediate liberation, the steadfast in right vision, there is no journey anywhere at all, for 'his breaths do not depart'.

Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar

Dvaita

These commentators are concerned to pin down the exact identity and distinctness of the conducting deities, drawing on a wide range of scriptures, the Naradiya, the Garuda, and the Brahma-vaivarta among them. They insist that the deity presiding over the half-year is genuinely distinct from the deities presiding over the individual months, against any reading that would collapse 'the six months' into mere stretches of time; there is no 'course' apart from the months except as the distinct presiding power. They establish from scripture the proper order of the stages, the flame coming before the day, and explain why the deity, not the bare time, must be meant: 'the day, the bright fortnight' could not otherwise fit, since a fortnight is not something over and above day and night. The soul 'goes standing together with' each deity as it is led to Keshava.

Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha

Bhedabheda

This commentator takes the word 'Brahman' here to mean the principal reality, the Supreme Self, not the created world that some would have the soul attain. He directly rejects the view that those who travel the path of the flame reach only the world of Hiranyagarbha, the lower creator; he calls that false, because this verse speaks of non-return, which is an independent course following upon the attainment of Brahman itself. He supports the restriction with the line 'as far as the world of Brahma the worlds', and notes that the dark path of the fathers, marked by repeated return, is introduced next only incidentally and to show how the ignorant come to defeat.

Śrī Bhāskara

Śuddhādvaita

These commentators draw the Pustimarga line through the standard map. The northern bright path is the route of gradual liberation (krama-mukti) for those who attain the imperishable Brahman (aksara), the desireless keepers of the fire-rite and worshippers of the Lord's greatness, who are led stage by stage from fire through the year and the world of the gods to the aksara-Brahman. But the knowers of the Purushottama truth, those who depart with the bond of love placed rightly, do not need this step-wise course at all; at that very time they go by immediate liberation and are received at once into the lila of the Lord, becoming his living attendants. One of these commentators stresses through the example of Bhishma that the time is only the outward sign; the real qualification is single-pointed remembrance, and only those already fixed upon the Lord turn the time into a doorway.

Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama

Kashmir Shaivism

This commentator reads the verse symbolically and very briefly. The 'northern' course is the upward one, of six months' span, and because it carries the properties of light, it is named figuratively by words like 'fire' and 'burning'; the opposite, downward course is named by the contrary dark terms. His chief point is contrastive: where the bright path leads upward without return, on the opposite path one enters into the enjoyable portion of the moon, and so the return takes place for the sake of that enjoyment.

Ācārya Abhinavagupta

Modern

These commentators keep close to the plain scriptural picture. One identifies the path as the Devayana or northern way of light leading to Brahmaloka and salvation, gives the calendar span of the northern solstice (roughly mid-January to mid-July) as the better period for death, retells the Upanishadic stages, and adds that each step may be read as a plane or state of consciousness, growing in purity and illumination, which is why it is called the path of light; he too notes that for the liberated sage the breaths do not depart at all. Another renders the verse simply as a literal statement that knowers of Brahman who die in these conditions attain Brahman and do not come back. A third dwells on why fire stands first: its light is limited in space and time compared with the day's far-reaching, lasting light, so the stages ascend from lesser to greater illumination, each presiding deva passing the knower of Brahman along the bright path. Several of these voices point to Bhishma, who held his life until the northern solstice and then departed to the Lord's abode.

Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas