The same toward mana and apamana — honor and contempt; the same toward mitra-pakshah and ari-pakshah — the friend's faction and the enemy's. Sarva-arambha-parityagi — having let go of all self-initiated undertakings. Such a one, sah, is called gunatita — gone beyond the gunas.
Krishna seals the portrait. The chapter's whole metaphysical work converges in this everyday-recognizable figure: equal toward praise and contempt, friend and enemy, no longer launching projects from the ahamkara's drive.
Shankara reads the one equal toward mana and apamana as nirvikarah — without inner modification. The apparent distinction between mitra-paksha and ari-paksha belongs only to the projections of others, not to the self of the knower. Sarva-arambha-parityagi means relinquishment of all karma except what is strictly necessary for body-maintenance. The arambha — initiation — has fallen away because the agent who initiates has been recognized as the gunas, not the witness.
Madhusudana carefully distinguishes two senses of mana: bodily deference expressed through physical and mental acts, and mana as mere verbal praise — sharply distinguished from apamana as tirashkara, active contempt. Sarva-arambha-parityagi is glossed in Shankara's line — abandonment of all karma except bodily maintenance — but Madhusudana adds a temporal frame: before the rise of jnana, the bhakta performed all karma as sadhana; after, only what is necessary remains. The portrait names the post-jnana life.
Ramanuja anchors the equality-of-honor in the prior verse's theme: the dhira — skilled in discriminating prakriti from atman — recognizes that praise and blame, and the friend- and enemy-faction built upon them, arise from manushyatva-abhimana — bodily identification — with which the atman has no intrinsic connection, sva-asambandha-bhavat. Sarva-arambha-parityagi designates the bhakta whose action is always already mat-aradhana — service to the Lord — never autonomous self-initiated arambha.
Madhva comments here in extreme brevity: tulyatva-arthah uktah purastat — the meaning of equality has been stated previously, pointing to 14.24. For Madhva's school the substance is clear: the jiva's equanimity toward honor and dishonor, friend and foe, is not a dissolution of the jiva's distinct reality but its correct orientation as a wholly dependent worshipper of Hari. The gunatita is the jiva fully aligned with its paratantra-mode under svatantra Hari.
Vallabha's gloss is deliberately spare: one who relinquishes all undertakings born of embodied existence — dehitva-prayukta-sarva-arambha-parityagi — and who is equal toward honor and dishonor, such a one, he says, is called gunatita by the jnana-margiya path. The qualifier jnana-margiya is Vallabha's own insertion: for pushti-marga the truly liberated soul is not the austere renunciate but the bhakta whose every action is Krishna-pravritta. Both portraits are real; this verse names the jnana-margiya version.
Shridhara reads sarva-arambha-parityagi as relinquishment of all udyama — striving and self-motivated endeavors directed toward both drishta and adrishta fruits — visible and invisible. Equanimity toward honor and dishonor, toward the friend-faction and the enemy-faction, combined with this thoroughgoing non-initiation, defines the achara of the one who transcends the gunas.