Chapter 16 · Verse 13·Spoken by Krishna
इदमद्य मया लब्धमिमं प्राप्स्ये मनोरथम्।इदमस्तीदमपि मे भविष्यति पुनर्धनम्
idam adya mayā labdham imaṁ prāpsye manoratham idam astīdam api me bhaviṣhyati punar dhanam
"I have gained this today. This desire I will fulfill. This wealth is mine now, and more will be mine in time."
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
his verse is Krishna voicing the inner monologue of the demonic-natured (asura) person. The word manoratha means a wish or a daydream, literally a 'chariot of the mind' that carries one off into fantasy. So Krishna is letting us overhear the running self-talk of greed: 'This much I have gained today; this further wish I will fulfil; this much wealth I already have; this much more will be mine next year.' The commentators stress that this is not a stray thought but a structured castle-in-the-air, a continuous interior speech that the verse exposes so we can recognize it.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas
The monologue has a distinctive shape: it sweeps across past, present, and future, all under the banner of 'mine.' 'This has been gained today,' 'this I shall gain,' 'this is already mine,' 'this more will be mine next year.' The commentators describe it as a stream of appropriation that is never satisfied; as one acquisition lands, the mind has already leapt to the next. Several note that the craving feeds on itself: as greed (lobha) grows, the wishes grow with it, so the chain has no natural end point.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar · Dhanapati Sūri
The deeper flaw the verse exposes is not the wealth itself but the claim of sole authorship. The asura attributes every gain to his own effort, cleverness, and craft, and projects future gains the same way. What is screened out of this monologue is any acknowledgment of a giver or of forces beyond the self. This blindness ruins discrimination (the power to tell true from false, real from unreal), because the person never pauses to consider that wealth may leave, that he may die, or that he is not in fact the master of outcomes.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
This verse opens a connected passage (it is the first of several slokas) whose grammar runs into the following verses and ends in ruin. Many commentators read it as the setup for the fall: agitated and bewildered by the thirst for wealth, deluded by ignorance (ajnana), these people fall into hell (naraka). The daydream of endless acquisition is itself the machinery of bondage, leading from the act to the consequence to the fall.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda
Divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This school sharpens the verse into a precise theological error: the asura insists that everything (the field, the son, the wealth) has been gained 'by my own power alone, not by the unseen and the rest.' The phrase 'the unseen' (adrishta) means the hidden moral law of past action and, behind it, the Lord who governs results. So the sin named here is not desire as such but the denial of any agency above the self. One source frames the verse as a diagnostic tool: the seeker should listen to his own inner speech, and if it has exactly this shape of relentless self-crediting appropriation, he should recognize the asura-mark in himself and know which side he is on.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
This school reads the monologue as the speech in which God has been deliberately edited out. The asura says his gain came 'by my own effort, not by chance (yadriccha),' but the real omission is bhagavad-iccha, the will of the Lord. On the devotional view, every gaining is the Lord's giving, every keeping is his keeping, and every loss is his loss; the asura's monologue is precisely the speech in which none of this is ever said. The commentator also notes a telling blind spot in the daydream: the asura assumes 'this wealth is mine and will stay by my wish,' and never asks 'will it go?'
Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
This school dramatizes the monologue as escalating self-glorification that spills into outright predation. In one vivid expansion, the demoniac gloats, 'Today I have got in my hand the riches belonging to many others; is this not glory for me?', and the more he glories, the further his mind wanders, until he resolves to seize whatever movable and immovable wealth remains in the world and to let no one within his sight escape his clutches. The inner daydream is read as the very stuff of bondage: this today I have obtained, this wish I shall reach, running unchecked from the thought into the act and from the act into the fall.
Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
This stream brings the verse fully into contemporary life and supplies a crucial distinction. One source itemizes the modern daydream with striking specificity: so much will come from trade, from a son's marriage, from evading tax, from rent, from interest; so many shops, mills, and factories opened, so many cows and so much land; and when attention turns to the body, which medicines and luxuries and clothes will make life agreeable, all while forgetting that old age is coming and that at death none of it goes along. The key clarification is that the dharmic seeker who runs a business also has currents of mind about earnings and reserves; the difference lies in the aim (uddeshya). If the aim is God-realization, he is not absorbed in those currents; if the aim is mere hoarding and enjoyment, he is wholly absorbed, so the same outer thought carries a wholly different inner weight. The other source in this stream emphasizes the consequence: pride of wealth swells the head, destroys discrimination, and entangles such people in the meshes of Maya, so they chase happiness and never find it.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
A Seeker Asks
If I work hard, take pride in what I earn, and plan for next year, am I the asura this verse describes, or is there a clean line between healthy ambition and demonic greed?
The line does not run through your activity; it runs through your aim. The commentators are explicit that even a dharmic person engaged in trade has currents of mind about how much has come in and how much remains. What makes those same thoughts demonic is the underlying purpose: if the aim is acquisition and enjoyment for their own sake, the person is wholly absorbed and swallowed; if the aim is God-realization, the identical thoughts pass through without owning him. The same outer thought carries a wholly different inner weight depending on the aim.
Swami Ramsukhdas
There is a second diagnostic in the verse itself: listen to the shape of your inner speech. The danger sign is the claim of sole authorship, 'this is mine, gained by my own power alone, and more will be mine by my power,' with every trace of a giver or of forces beyond the self edited out. If your self-talk silently credits everything to your own effort and never lets in the thought that wealth may leave or that you may die, that is the asura-mark to recognize in yourself.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama
Notice too what the daydream conveniently forgets, because that forgetting is what wrecks discrimination. The monologue assumes the wealth will stay by one's own wish and never asks whether it might go; it does not consider that old age is approaching and that at the moment of death none of it goes along, but passes to another. Healthy planning that keeps these facts in view stays grounded; the demonic version is precisely the one that screens them out.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
Contemplation
Here is a test you can run on your own mind without changing a single thing in your outer life. The verse is not condemning trade, planning, or even tracking how much has come in and how much remains. The dharmic seeker who runs a business has these same currents of thought. What sets him apart is his aim. His underlying purpose is God-realization, so the thoughts about money pass through him without absorbing him; the asura-natured person, whose purpose is hoarding and enjoyment, is swallowed whole by the very same thoughts. So the practice is to watch the aim, not the activity. Notice the daydream when it runs while you walk, work, or eat. Notice that it forgets old age is coming and that at the moment of death none of this property goes with you; it passes to another. Let that remembrance quietly reset the aim beneath the work. The same outer thought, anchored to a different inner purpose, carries a wholly different weight.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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