Chapter 3 · Verse 13·Spoken by Krishna
यज्ञशिष्टाशिनः सन्तो मुच्यन्ते सर्वकिल्बिषैः। भुञ्जते ते त्वघं पापा ये पचन्त्यात्मकारणात्
yajña-śhiṣhṭāśhinaḥ santo muchyante sarva-kilbiṣhaiḥ bhuñjate te tvaghaṁ pāpā ye pachantyātma-kāraṇāt
The good, who eat what is left after the sacrifice, are freed from all sins. But the sinful, who cook only for themselves, feed on sin.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse draws a sharp line between two kinds of eaters. The first are 'yajna-shishta-ashinah,' those who eat only what is left over after a sacrifice (yajna) has been performed. The 'leftover' here is not scraps; the commentators call it nectar (amrita), the food that has first been offered and shared before any is taken for oneself. The classic reference is the householder's daily round of offerings, often listed as the five great sacrifices (pancha-maha-yajna): worship of the gods, of the ancestors, of fellow beings and creatures, of guests, and of the scriptures through study and teaching. Those who eat in this spirit are called 'santah,' the good or righteous, because they take their share only after their debts to the larger order have been discharged.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Ramsukhdas
Such people are 'freed from all sins' (muchyante sarva-kilbishaih). Several commentators specify what these sins are: the unavoidable harm done in ordinary household life. Daily living kills small creatures by accident through five common implements, traditionally named as the pestle and mortar, the grinding-stone, the hearth or fireplace, the water-pot, and the broom. These are called the five 'suna,' the five slaughter-places of the householder. Even injury done unknowingly, through heedlessness like a careless footfall, counts here. A widely quoted tradition says that by these five places the householder does not gain heaven, but that the sin they cause is wiped away by the performance of the five great sacrifices. So living for sacrifice does not merely earn merit; it cleanses the residue of harm that no careful person can entirely avoid.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva
The second kind are the opposite: 'ye pachanti atma-karanat,' those who cook for their own sake alone, taking food only to fill their own belly without first offering or sharing. The verse calls them 'papah,' sinful men, and says they 'eat sin' (bhunjate te tvagham). The commentators read this strictly: the food itself, taken selfishly, becomes sin to them. Some explain that the food is 'sin' because it ripens into sin, or is transformed into a sinful effect; the self-centered eater not only fails to remove the household's accumulated harm but adds the further fault of omitting the rites he was obliged to perform. The point is moral, not merely ritual: appropriating for oneself what was meant to be shared is itself a wrong.
Braided from 17 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Bhāskara · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
The verse is not an isolated rule about food; it is a step in Krishna's larger argument that action must be performed. Having shown the blessing of sacrificial living and the loss of selfish living, the commentators note that Krishna immediately turns to a further reason: action keeps the wheel of the world turning. This sets up the famous sequence that follows, in which beings arise from food, food from rain, rain from sacrifice, and sacrifice from action. So this verse closes one thought, that selfless sharing purifies, and opens the next, that the whole world depends on the cycle of giving.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Bhāskara · Rāmānujācārya · Lokmanya Tilak
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse in its plain ritual and ethical sense and tie it tightly to scriptural duty. The 'sins' removed are concretely the harm of the five household slaughter-places plus the sin of omitting the fixed rites (nitya-karma) the Veda enjoins. They quote the supporting smriti texts naming the five slaughter-places and the rule that the five great sacrifices cancel their sin, and they treat the verse as proof that the qualified person must necessarily perform these obligatory rites. The self-centered cooker is doubly at fault: the slaughter-place sin is already present, and he adds to it by skipping the prescribed offerings. The weight here falls on duty and purification, not on a particular theology of who receives the offering.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
For these commentators the deeper meaning is that all worship of Indra and the other gods is, in truth, worship of the supreme Person (Purusha) who abides within those deities as their inner self. So the right eater is one who gathers and cooks his materials with the settled thought 'this is for the supreme Person's worship,' offers them to him as he truly is, and only then takes the leftover to keep the body going. What such a person is freed from is not the small household stains but the beginningless accumulated taints (kilbisha) that obstruct the direct vision of the self as it really is; these obstructions are removed by devotion (bhakti-yoga). The selfish eater, by contrast, steals for himself what the supreme Person gave for his own worship, turns away from the vision of the self, and is 'cooked only for hell,' suffering the double loss of missing self-realization and being reborn in lower worlds.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhedabheda
This commentator reads the verse briefly and in its straightforward sense: the substance set apart for sacrifice, once the sacrifice is done, is by its very nature meant to be eaten, and those who eat that remnant are freed from all sins, while those who cook only for themselves eat only guilt. He moves quickly to the structural point, that because action is the cause of the world's wheel turning, action must necessarily be performed, and he immediately cites the food-rain-sacrifice-action sequence that follows.
Śrī Bhāskara
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators hold that the fivefold sacrifice has the very form of the Lord, so its remnants carry his grace, and eating them becomes a participation in his being. The deeper sense is that food itself arises, through rain and the rest, for the enjoyment of Bhagavan; therefore to use it for one's own enjoyment is already a form of sin. The true devotee, knowing the purpose for which food comes into being, cooks and offers everything for Bhagavan's sake and eats only what remains after the Lord has tasted it. Such a one is freed from all the sins that obstruct loving service (seva). The self-centered cooker, who is sinful in his very nature, simply eats sin.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator reads the 'sacrifice' inwardly. The true yajna is the gladdening of the host of gods that are the senses, and its 'leftover' is the bliss of resting in one's own innermost essence (the self). The right person eats the enjoyments that come by the glory of the injunction as a mere subordinate, fruitless limb of action, becomes firmly settled in that inner bliss, and desires sense-objects only as a means toward it. Such a one is released from all taints, both the auspicious and the inauspicious alike. The one who, under the sway of ignorance, holds gross sense-enjoyment itself to be the highest and acts thinking 'this is for my own sake' gains only the evil that is made of the auspicious and the inauspicious together.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators keep the householder's daily offerings and the cleansing of the five slaughter-place sins in clear view, naming the five implements from smriti. Some among them deepen this devotionally: the sacrifice is the all-pervading Lord himself, who dwells as the inner core of Indra and the other gods, so eating his remnant carries the body's journey forward and frees the devotee from the impurities, grown great from beginningless time, that block the direct experience of the self. One adds that food should be seen not as an ordinary thing but as the very symbol of the Supreme, since it is the means of the world's subsistence; all one's wealth is meant to be dedicated to the Highest Person through sacrifice, and one should keep only the remainder, contentedly. The selfish eater, mistaking the body for the inmost spirit and blinded by ego, swallows nothing but sin.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators keep the verse practical. One lists the five great sacrifices a householder owes (to the gods, to the seers through study, to the ancestors, to fellow humans through feeding the hungry and guests, and to other creatures) and explains the five slaughter-places as the daily, unavoidable harm of cooking and cleaning, washed away by these offerings. One anchors the teaching in older scripture, citing the Rig-Veda and Manu-smriti that 'he who cooks only for himself eats only sin,' and that the leftover of sacrifice is called nectar. A third gives the verse a karma-yoga reading: the materials of our action come from the world, so action becomes true 'sacrifice' only when we take nothing back for ourselves but turn body, senses, mind, intellect, and wealth back into the world's service. What is then 'left over' is samata, evenness itself, the yoga in which the seeker abides; eating that, he is freed from all sins.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If the world depends on countless small harms in ordinary living, can ritual offering really cleanse them, or is this just a way of feeling absolved while the harm goes on?
The commentators are honest that the harm is real and unavoidable. Cooking, grinding, sweeping, drawing water all kill small creatures, and even a careless footfall does injury; this is the meaning of the five 'slaughter-places' of the householder. The verse does not pretend the harm did not happen.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
What the offering changes is the orientation behind the act. The cleansing comes not from a ritual gesture that licenses business as usual, but from no longer living for yourself: discharging your debts to the gods, ancestors, beings, guests, and learning first, and taking only the remainder. The sin removed is precisely the sin of selfish appropriation, and the freedom is freedom from heedlessness, from omitting what you owe, from treating the shared as your own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Read inwardly and devotionally, the practice goes further than absolution. Several commentators say the offering reorients the whole person: the materials of life arise for the Lord's enjoyment or for the world's service, so to use them selfishly is itself the fault, and to give them first dissolves the deep, long-accumulated obstructions to seeing the self clearly. The point is not to feel forgiven while grasping continues; it is to stop grasping, so that the act of living is itself turned into giving.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīla Baladeva · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Take the verse as a lens on your whole day, not just your meals. The materials of everything you do, your body, your senses, your mind, your skill, your money, came to you from the world; they were never strictly your own. Action becomes a true offering, a yajna, the moment you stop holding any of it back for yourself and turn it back into the world's service. Do your duties without grasping at the reward, and in the proper order, giving first. What remains after that giving is not loss; it is the quiet evenness, the samata, in which you can actually rest. Live this way and the small, unavoidable stains of daily life fall away on their own. Cook only for yourself, grasp only for yourself, and you taste, in the very thing you grabbed, the sin of the grabbing.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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