Yat tu — but what — kriyate kama-epsuna karma — action performed by the fruit-desirer. Sa-ahamkarena va punah — or with the pride of being the doer. Bahula-ayasam — with abundant strain. Tat rajasam udahritam — that is declared rajasika.
Krishna names rajasika action with three marks: fruit-desire, doer-pride, abundant strain.
Shankara reads rajasika karma as action by one who desires fruit and acts with sa-ahamkara. He clarifies that ahamkara here is measured against worldly standards, not the absolute jnani-standard. The truly self-knowing has no access to desire-driven doership; even a sattvika agent without self-knowledge is in a relative sense ahamkara-bearing — but the rajasika is ahamkara-marked in the operationally diagnostic sense. The chapter's middle-mode of action is named with worldly precision.
Madhusudana clarifies that puna — again, repeatedly — signals not a one-time act but a recurring pattern: as long as desire persists, the agent returns again and again to kamya-action. He reads va as samuchchaya — conjunction: both desire and the particular ahamkara — sanga-atmaka-garva — pride rooted in attachment — are present together in rajasika karma. The bahula-ayasa follows naturally: where desire and pride drive, exertion swells.
Ramanuja reads action by the phala-prepsu and by one armed with the kartritva-conceit — 'this great work is being done by me alone' — as rajasika. He reads va as cha — and — making both desire and egoistic authorship simultaneous marks. For the Vishishtadvaitin, true kainkarya is the opposite pole: the bhakta acts without ego-claim and without fruit-claim. Rajasika karma is the precise inversion of the bhakta's kainkarya.
Madhva reads on the bheda-frame: rajasika action is named by three marks — kama-epsuna, sa-ahamkara, bahula-ayasa. Ahamkara is not merely psychological fault but ontological error: the paratantra-jiva's false claim of svatantra-authorship. The bheda-frame's diagnostic reaches the structural inversion at its source: the jiva claims what is Hari's, and the result is strain because the claim is metaphysically wrong.
Vallabha identifies rajasika action as having three components: phala-epsuna; kartritva-ahamkara; the assumption 'idam phala-janakam karma iti' — 'this action alone will produce that fruit.' The triple knot — desire, doership-pride, means-end calculation — is what makes bahula-ayasa: abundant strain. Pushti-marga: when prasada-flow has been refused, the bhakta must manufacture his fruit by his own effort, and the effort is what burns him.
Shridhara specifies two distinct sources of ahamkara making action rajasika: phala-praptum-icchan ahamkara — the fruit-desirer's; and a more socially rooted pride — 'mat-samah ko anyah shrotriyah asti iti evam nirudha-ahamkara' — 'who among the learned equals me?' This social-comparison vanity is a distinct and sharper form of egoism than mere desire. Together with bahula-ayasa, they constitute the rajasika action-type completely.