Chapter 16 · Verse 15·Spoken by Krishna
आढ्योऽभिजनवानस्मि कोऽन्योऽस्ति सदृशो मया।यक्ष्ये दास्यामि मोदिष्य इत्यज्ञानविमोहिताः
āḍhyo ’bhijanavān asmi ko ’nyo ’sti sadṛiśho mayā yakṣhye dāsyāmi modiṣhya ity ajñāna-vimohitāḥ aneka-chitta-vibhrāntā moha-jāla-samāvṛitāḥ prasaktāḥ kāma-bhogeṣhu patanti narake ’śhuchau
"I am rich and well born. Who is my equal? I will sacrifice, I will give, I will rejoice." So they are deluded by a lack of discernment.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse continues the inner monologue of the asura, the person of demonic temperament, who is boasting about himself. He says: I am wealthy, I am well-born from a noble family, and there is no one in the world who is my equal. The commentators read every clause as a piece of self-glorification. 'Wealthy' (adhya) means richly furnished with money and possessions; 'well-born' (abhijanavan) means born into a good and high lineage; some add the boast of being learned in the Vedas for seven generations. The whole tone is comparison: measuring himself against everyone else and finding no rival.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The boast then turns to plans: 'I shall sacrifice, I shall give, I shall rejoice.' These are the three things the asura intends to do. He will perform sacrifices (yajna), he will give gifts (dana), and he will enjoy himself (moda). Several commentators stress what these acts are aimed at. The sacrifices and gifts are not offered out of devotion but for prestige and fame: he will give to those who praise him, to performers, dancers, and actors who flatter and entertain him, and he will revel in pleasure. So even his apparently religious acts are bent toward the self.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The verse closes with Krishna's own diagnosis: all of this is the speech of those 'deluded by ignorance' (ajnana-vimohitah). The boasting and the plans are not signs of strength but of a deep confusion. The ignorance here is specifically a lack of discrimination: an inability to see things truly. Under its spell the asura is carried into a long succession of errors, a manifold delusion. The commentators present this single phrase as the verdict that exposes the whole monologue: the confidence rests not on truth but on not-knowing.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Krishna also frames the asura's confidence around a false sense of self-sufficiency. The boast 'who is my equal' rests on the assumption that he has won everything by his own power alone. He believes he can sacrifice, give, and enjoy entirely on his own strength, with no need of anything beyond himself. The commentators identify this self-reliance as the very root of the delusion: he forgets any dependence on the Lord, treating his wealth, birth, and works as wholly self-made.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva
Divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators locate the precise content of the ignorance in a denial of the Lord's role. The asura imagines that his wealth and high birth are won 'by his own power' and that he can carry out his sacrifice and giving 'by oneself alone, with no need of the Lord's grace.' The phrase 'deluded by ignorance' is read as fastening exactly this diagnosis: the asura's confidence is grounded in ignorance and not in truth, because in reality nothing he has or does stands apart from the Lord. The error is not merely vanity but a theological mistake about who is the true source of his abundance and his works.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhakti
These commentators draw out how the asura's outwardly pious acts are religion turned toward the self. One notes that sacrifice, giving, and rejoicing form a deliberate triplet undertaken for prestige (pratistha): the same act-shapes that the divine-natured offer for the Lord's pleasure are here entirely redirected to fame and the comfort of one's flatterers, so the asura's worship is not the absence of religion but a religion bent to the ego. Another names the result as mithya-abhinivesa, the false grasping that takes this self-monologue for the truth of things. A third dramatizes the boast at full pitch: the asura claims to outshine even Kubera and Brahma, vows to revive cruel black-magic rites and entertain himself with dancers, and is likened to a madman greedy for sky-flowers that do not exist.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators render the boast into vivid present-day terms to make its psychology felt. One expands the comparison so the asura measures himself against Kubera, Vishnu, and Brahma and finds them all inferior, and lists his sacrifices, charity, and indulgence each capped with 'none is equal to me.' The other voices the asura in the idiom of modern ambition: counting gold, mansions, fields, and influential men in his camp, boasting that money and connections can accomplish anything, planning a sacrifice and gift so large his name will reach the newspapers and be carved in stone on a rest-house so his memory endures. He adds a sharp observation: such people, drunk on ego, mostly only plan; little is actually done, and what is done is done for the sake of name, so the whole engine of the asura's life is one sustained foolishness (mudhata).
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If giving gifts and performing sacrifices are good acts in themselves, why does the Gita condemn this person who plans to do exactly those things?
Because the Gita is not judging the outer act but the motive beneath it. The very same shapes of action, sacrifice, giving, and rejoicing, can run in opposite directions: the divine-natured offer them for the Lord's pleasure, while the asura offers them for prestige, for fame, and for the comfort of those who flatter him. So his worship is not an absence of religion but a religion turned to serve the self.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī
What spoils the act is the self-sufficiency at its root. The asura believes he sacrifices and gives 'by his own strength alone,' with no need of the Lord's grace, and that his wealth and birth are won wholly by his own power. This is precisely the ignorance the verse names: a confidence grounded not in truth but in forgetting the true source of all he has and does.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva
And the giveaway is the comparison itself. The act is framed entirely by 'who is my equal' and capped with the refrain that none can match him, so the gift becomes a way to stand above others and to make his name endure in print and in stone. When an act is performed to be seen and to outshine, it has already been bent toward the ego, even if its outer form looks pious.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice how much of this monologue is plan and how little is deed. The asura, drunk on ego, weaves elaborate schemes: a sacrifice so grand it makes the newspapers, a charity carved in stone so his name endures, an endless reckoning of his wealth and connections. Yet in fact little is actually done, and whatever is done is done for the sake of name. This is the trap to watch for in your own life. When you find yourself rehearsing how impressive an act will look, or measuring yourself against others to confirm there is no one equal to you, the act has already been quietly bent toward the ego. The same gift or worship can serve either God or your reputation; what decides its direction is the motive underneath. The cure is not to stop giving or worshiping, but to drain the boast out of it, so the deed is offered rather than displayed.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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