How many prominent and most accepted commentaries are there on the Bhagavad-Gita?

Question

How many prominent and most accepted commentaries on the Srimad Bhagavad-Gita are there? Which sects or schools of thought are those? Please mention the Vedantic and non-Vedantic schools of thought as well.

Answer 1

Well, I'm aware of thirty-three commentaries on the Bhagavad-Gita:

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Achintya-Bheda-Abheda Vedanta

• Sarartha Varsini Tika, Vishvanatha Chakrabarti Thakura's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Gita Bhusana, Baladeva Vidyabhusana's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Satyanarayan Das Babaji's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

• Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• B.R. Sridhara Maharaj's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Bhaktivinoda Thakura's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

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Advaita Vedanta

• Adi-Shankaracharya's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Bhavartha Dipika, Dhyaneshwar's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Gutharta Dipika, Madhusudana Saraswati's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

• The Holy Geeta, Swami Chinmayananda's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Geeta Rahashya, Bal Gangadhara Tilak's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Swami Sivananda's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Swami Chidbhavananda's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Discourses on the Gita, Mohandas Gandhi's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Talks on the Bhagavad-Gita, Vinod Bhave's can on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

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Shuddhadvaita Vedanta

• Sridhara Swami's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

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Dvaita Vedanta

• Madhvacharya's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Jayatirtha's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in Sanskrit here.

• Raghavendratirtha's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in Sanskrit here.

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Integral Yoga

• Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

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Kashmiri Shaivism

• Gitartha Sangraha, Acharya Abhinavagupta's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

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Kriya Yoga

• God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad-Gita, Paramahamsa Yogananda's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

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Shivadvaita Vedanta

• Srikantha Sivacharya's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita.

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Svabhavika-Bheda-Abheda Vedanta

• Yadava Prakasha's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita.

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Vishishtadvaita Vedanta

• Swami Ramabhadracharya's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it both in Sanskrit and Hindi in a set of two volumes here and here.

• Ramanujacharya's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

• Muktananda Swami's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita.

• Gopalananda Swami's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can read it in English here.

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Miscellaneous:

• My Gita, Devdutt Pattnaik's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

• Bhagavad-Gita: A Text & Commentary for Students, Jeanne Fowler's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

• Exploring the Bhagavad-Gita: Philosophy, Structure and Meaning, Ithamar Theodore's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

• F. Edgerton's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita. You can buy it in English here.

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Answer 2

Wonder no one included Gita Vahini..

It's good that no one included it and it deserves a separate place.

This is written by Bhagavan Satya Sai Baba, named Gita Vahini, a beautiful explanation of Bhagavad gita which you can relish for free from here.

Answer 3

In addition to Gita Vahini already mentioned by user Prem,

There is one more beautiful explnations verse by verse by Satya Sai Baba.

You can read it from http://bababooks.org/SathyaSaiGita/

Answer 4

Not sure about the "most accepted" part, as there doesn't seem to be a consensus among the scholars. But here is a site that enumerates many available commentaries if not all.

https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/45-commentaries-on-bhagavad-gita-195895

Answer 5

In addition to Surya's very exhaustive answer, I want to added a few:

▪ Commentary by Yogiraj Shyamacharan Lahiri based on the Yoga Philosophy

▪ Commentary by Ballavacharya based on the Suddha-Avaita Marga of the Vedanta Philosophy

▪ Keshava Kashmiri Bhatta's commentary (Gita-Tattva-Prakashika) of the Dvaitaaadvaita Marga of the Vedanta Philosophy

▪ Rajanaka and Ramabhatta's commentary (Sarvato-Bhadra) based on the Shaiva Philosophy

One thing we have to remember: Tika and Bhashya are not the same, even though many of us use 'Commentary' as translations of both. For example,

(a) Sri Adi Sankaracharya wrote bhashya of Gita following the Advaita Philosophy. Sri Ananda Giri and Sri Ramananda wrotes Tikas named 'Vivarana' and 'Vyakhyaa' of that bhashya respectively.

(b) Sri Ramanujachaya wrote bhashya of Gita following the Vishistadvaita philosophy of Vedanta. Sri Venkatanatha or Vedantaacharya wrote the Tika named 'Tatparya-chandrika' of that bhashya.

(c) Sri Yamunacharya, the Guru of Sri Ramanujacharya wrote 'Gitaartha-Sangraha' on which Sri Nigamanta Madesika wrote Gitartha-Sangraha-Rakshana' Tika and Sri Varavara Muni wrote the Gitartha-Sangraha-Dipika' tika.

Note that the bhashyas has been written in sanskrit and explain meaning of each word in sanskrit in detail unlike ISKCON's 'Gita as it is' or Devdutt Pattnaik's 'My Gita' .The last two are originally in English.