This verse defines rajasic dana, the gift born of rajas, the quality of passion, restless energy, and self-interested desire. Krishna names it by its motive, just as he named the rajasic sacrifice and the rajasic austerity by their motive. A gift becomes rajasic the moment it is given with an eye on what the giver will get back. The act of giving may look the same on the outside, but the inner aim has shifted from open-handed offering to calculated exchange.

The first mark of rajasic giving is the hope of a seen return, what the commentators call pratyupakara, a return favor in this very world. The giver thinks, 'this person will help me later, so I give now.' The gift is really an investment. The commentators picture it concretely: giving to a brahmana or a learned man favored by a king or skilled in astrology so that he will be useful in turn, fixing auspicious times for weddings and journeys, or supplying good remedies, or giving to relatives and well-wishers so that they will help in return.

The second mark is the hope of an unseen fruit, phala, in the world to come. Here the giver does not want a worldly favor but a reward beyond death: heaven, svarga, and the like, or the washing away of sins. This is a subtler self-interest, since it can look religious and even careful, observing the right place, time, and worthy recipient. The commentators still call it rajasic, because the giving is bound to phala-kamana, the desire for a fruit; the desire, not the outward correctness, sets the quality of the act.

The third mark is pariklishta, that the gift is given painfully, grudgingly, with the mind in distress. The commentators describe a heart divided against its own act: anxiety while giving, 'how much wealth must I spend,' and regret afterward, 'how was so much spent.' Sridhara and Sridhara-following voices note that this very unease betrays attachment to the gift even as it leaves the hand. Some add that such giving may also be done only under outward pressure, in mere deference to the command of an elder, with no real wish to give.

Krishna closes by declaring such a gift 'rajasam smritam,' remembered or held to be rajasic by tradition. The three marks, return-favor, fruit, and grudging distress, need not all be present at once; any one of them stamps the gift with rajas. What unites them is that the giver remains a calculator, still seeking, still pained, never simply releasing the gift. Purushottama notes that the word 'tu' (but) at the verse's head signals the unfittingness of such giving, setting it in contrast to the pure sattvic gift named just before.