Idam te — this to you. Na atapaskaya — not to one without tapas. Na abhaktaya — not to one without bhakti. Kadachana — ever. Na cha ashushrushave vachyam — not to one not desiring to hear. Na cha mam yah abhyasuyati — nor to one who finds fault with Me.
Krishna names four exclusions for transmission. The teaching is gift; the gift requires the right vessel.
Shankara reads this teaching — spoken for liberation from samsara — as never to be given to one without tapas, for such a person lacks the inner purification that makes the teaching operable. Even one with tapas but without bhakti toward guru and Ishvara, or one who serves but does not hear with shishya-disposition, is unfit. He who envies the Lord — abhyasuyati — must never receive it. Four precise disqualifications; the chapter's pedagogical respect for the teaching's ground is severe.
Madhusudana reads this verse as the shastra-sampradaya-vidhi — formal rule of transmission for all shastra-artha-rahasya. He follows Shankara's structural analysis but emphasizes bhagavad-anurakti — deep affection for Krishna — as the living heart of qualification: shushrusha, guru-bhakti, bhagavad-anurakti form an inseparable triad. The four 'na' particles are deliberate negations marking the absolute limits of transmission.
Ramanuja reads the supreme guhya as not to be spoken to one who has not performed tapas, nor under any circumstance to one who lacks bhakti toward both speaker and Bhagavan. Even a bhakta filled with bhakti is unfit if he lacks shushrusha — the disposition of humble service-hearing. Most emphatically, it must not be given to one who finds fault with Bhagavan — abhyasuyati. The bhakti-frame's transmission-rule is theological: the teaching is bhakti's content, and only the bhakti-disposed can receive it.
Madhva reads idam — this teaching of Bhagavan's absolute svatantra-lordship — as never to be spoken to the atapaska, the one who has not taken up the discipline that purifies for tattva-knowledge; nor to the abhakta, who withholds ontological subordination to Hari; nor to the ashushrushu, who lacks the disposition of the dependent learner; nor to the abhyasuyaka, who envies the Lord's supremacy. Each disqualification is a structural-relational failure that makes the bheda-recognition impossible.
Vallabha is characteristically terse: having taught the gita-jnana — the entire secret of His own svarupa and lila — Bhagavan now regulates its sampradaya-pravartana. The teaching is not for the atapaska. The pushti-marga logic goes further than restraint: the gita-jnana is Krishna's prasada; it flows only where the vessel of tapas, bhakti, shushrusha, anurakti is structurally present. The ineligible would not even receive it; the eligible recognize themselves in the four prerequisites.
Shridhara clarifies each qualification with practical precision: atapaska means deficient in svadharma-anushthana — not merely ascetic austerity but ethical seriousness in one's station. Abhakta means empty of bhakti toward both guru and Ishvara simultaneously. Ashushrushu is one who does not perform paricharya. Abhyasuyaka actively envies the Lord. The chapter's transmission-restriction is operationally precise.