Chapter 16 · Verse 23·Spoken by Krishna
यः शास्त्रविधिमुत्सृज्य वर्तते कामकारतः।न स सिद्धिमवाप्नोति न सुखं न परां गतिम्
yaḥ śhāstra-vidhim utsṛijya vartate kāma-kārataḥ na sa siddhim avāpnoti na sukhaṁ na parāṁ gatim
Whoever casts aside the rules of scripture and acts on the impulse of desire reaches neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the highest goal.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse names a single decisive fault and traces three losses to it. The fault is casting aside the rule of scripture (shastra-vidhi) and acting instead from kama-karatah, that is, from one's own desire or self-will alone. Shastra here means the Veda and the texts that depend on it; its rule is the body of injunctions and prohibitions, the 'one should do this' and 'one should not do that', which is the means of knowing what ought and ought not to be done. The man described is not merely careless: he throws over this rule and lets desire be his only guide. From this single move follow the three denials the verse states, so the whole point turns on the relation between desire-led action and scriptural authority.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Such a person attains none of three things: siddhi, sukha, and para gati. Siddhi is read as perfection or accomplishment, more precisely the inner readiness that fits a person for the human goal, which several commentators specify as the purity of the inner organ or heart (antahkarana-shuddhi). Sukha is happiness, both ordinary happiness in this world and, as some add, the deeper satisfaction that comes of dispassion and inner calm (upashama). Para gati is the supreme goal or highest course, named as heaven or, more pointedly, liberation (moksha, mukti). The denials run in order from the inner ground of progress, through happiness here, to the highest end hereafter; he loses the means, the present good, and the final good alike.
Braided from 12 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Scripture is presented as the sole reliable means of knowing right from wrong, the one valid criterion (pramana) for the conduct of life. Because what should and should not be done cannot be settled by private judgment, scripture alone marks the line; once it is thrown over, no good action remains possible and the whole project of the spiritual life collapses. This is why the verse functions as the chapter's turning point: the asura already diagnosed is precisely the one who has discarded this criterion in favor of his own desire, and the godly person is precisely the one who keeps faith with it.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva
The verse also corrects a possible misreading: outward renunciation, fine deeds, or austerity are not enough by themselves if scripture is set aside and desire rules within. Several commentators stress that the man in view may be doing acts of the right outward shape, even sacrifice, charity, and self-denial; the verse denies him their fruit precisely because, inwardly, he acts by his own whim while inner desire and anger keep burning. The grammar itself carries this weight: the denial 'he does not attain' presupposes that he was performing the very kind of acts that would otherwise have yielded these results, so the loss is sharp because his outer life looked right while his inner ground was hollow.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read siddhi as fitness for the human goal, specified as purity of the inner organ, and read the supreme goal as heaven or liberation. One adds an important qualification: the word 'rule' is used deliberately to suggest that, beyond injunction and prohibition, there is also a part of scripture that sets forth Brahman; the verse's defense of scripture is therefore not only about ritual command but reaches to the scripture that reveals the highest truth. The man's fall is read as the simple failure to gain any human end at all, since his every engagement is desire-dependent.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Here the rule of scripture is identified with the Lord's own command: the Veda is My command. To set scripture aside is therefore not merely to err but to disobey God directly. The verse fastens scripture as the decisive criterion so firmly that action ignoring it yields no good however well-intentioned; the candidate's own self-judgment is never enough, and the supreme goal is so far beyond such a man that, having lost even this-worldly happiness, the question of his reaching the highest end hardly arises.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators set the verse inside their own theology. One frames the rejected scripture as the teaching that Brahma and the other gods are mere limbs of Purushottama and that worship of any deity has always been spoken by Hari; the asura casts this aside and acts from an unscriptural, independent faith born of desire, losing the otherworldly fruit of true knowledge, worldly happiness, and the supreme course alike. The other draws a quiet distinction proper to the path of grace: the verse does not condemn one who has merely happened to slip from a rule, but one who, through the lingering company of asuras, has dismissed scripture altogether; and the three things refused answer inwardly to the mind, the settled wish of the mind, the rest of the mind, and the supreme going, each being the fruit the chapter's godly discipline would have given.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator stresses that scripture must not be dismissed as the mere word of some person; it is beginningless and is itself the means of valid knowledge. For one who abandons its rule and decides what is to be done and not done by his own wit alone, the result is, on the contrary, a fall into hell. The practical purport is drawn out directly: do not set up the ordering of right and wrong by your own understanding.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators tie the verse back to the giving up of desire taught earlier: such renunciation cannot come about apart from practising one's own duty, and one's own duty cannot be accomplished apart from scripture, so scripture alone is to be relied on. One states plainly that the highest good belongs only to the man of faith. Another renders the verse with vivid expansion: the self-destroyer who pillows his head on lust, anger, and greed and defies the fatherly Vedas, which are kind to all and act as headlights showing what helps and what harms, does not get a single drop from the river of liberation, cannot enjoy even common worldly objects, and like a brahmin who dives after a fish only to drown, is snatched away by death before his desire is met.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These voices press the inner reading hardest. One calls such a man a traitor to the Self who gives free rein to lust, anger, and greed, renounces the authority of the Veda that is like a kind mother and a beacon, and so does not obtain God. The other develops the point at length: people set scripture aside while still doing fine-looking outer acts of sacrifice, charity, and service, taking the outward act as the whole measure and ignoring the kama and krodha within; but the inner state is what is decisive. Where inner faults remain, even great renunciation breeds pride and the man falls, his virtues turning to faults. So the public 'success', wealth, and honor such men gain is not the real siddhi of a purified heart; the sukha is denied because desire and anger keep burning; and the supreme goal is denied because their desire-driven acts cannot earn it. The denial bites only because their outer karma was of the right shape but inwardly hollowed out.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If scripture is the one valid measure of right and wrong, what becomes of the sincere person who acts with good intentions and even does outwardly good deeds, but without that scriptural anchor?
The verse speaks precisely to this case, and its answer is sobering: good intentions and good-looking deeds are not enough by themselves. The man it describes may be performing the very acts that would normally bring perfection, happiness, and the highest goal, sacrifice, charity, even self-denial; the denial of their fruit is sharp exactly because his outer life looked right. What undoes him is that he has made his own desire the measure rather than scripture, so the acts are inwardly hollowed out even while they are outwardly correct.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The reason scripture is held as the criterion is that what should and should not be done cannot be reliably settled by private judgment; one's own self-judgment is not enough, and scripture alone marks the line. This is not arbitrary authority for its own sake: the commentators picture the Veda as a kind mother and a beacon that shows what truly helps and what harms, so keeping faith with it is how a sincere person makes sure their good will actually lands on the good.
Vedānta Deśika · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Ānandagiri
And the loss is mainly inward. The siddhi denied is the purity of the heart that fits a person for the goal; the sukha denied is real inner calm, missing because desire and anger keep burning underneath; the supreme goal is denied because desire-driven action cannot earn it. So the sincere but unanchored person is not being punished for a slip but is simply not reaching what those acts could have yielded, because the inner ground from which good acts must flow has been left to private craving rather than ordered by a measure beyond the self.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama
Contemplation
Watch the place this verse points to, which is not your outward acts but the inner ground from which they come. It is easy to measure yourself by visible good: the service done, the austerity kept, the fine deed admired by others. But the verse warns that the same acts, done from one's own whim while desire, anger, and greed go on burning within, yield nothing real. Most people look only at the outer act, and those who see into the inner feeling are very few, yet it is that inner feeling that decides. So when virtue begins to swell into pride and you find yourself ready to correct and chastise others, take it as a signal that the inner ground has gone wrong, that your very strengths may be turning into faults. The cure is honesty about the kama and krodha you would rather not look at, and a willingness to be measured by something other than your own preference. Like a sick man who knows the wrong food yet reaches for it under craving and grows sicker, we can be good in our own eyes while quietly going downward; the remedy is to keep faith with a measure outside the self and to tend the heart, not just the record of deeds.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.