Overhear the mind that never once stops to ask who really gives.
Krishna quotes the demonic monologue almost word for word, gain feeding wish feeding more gain, so its self-enclosed shape becomes visible on its own, and its deepest fault turns out to be less about wealth than about who is silently left out of the reckoning.
Krishna gives us the demonic mind's own inner speech: I have won this today, I will win that wish too, this wealth is already mine, and still more of it will be mine next year.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just set the divine and demonic natures side by side in general terms. Now he stops describing from outside and lets the demonic mind speak in its own words, the first line of a monologue that several sources read as the opening turn of a passage running straight toward ruin.
The teaching
Listen to the reckoning as it actually runs: this I have gained today; this further wish I will also fulfill; this wealth is already mine; and still more of it will be mine in the year to come. Shankara, whose comment here stays close to a plain paraphrase, lets this speech run in its own grammar almost without interruption, adding only that such a person, being rich, expects fame to follow. He does not need to argue against it; hearing it stated plainly is meant to be argument enough. Where the sources go further, they converge on one deeper diagnosis. Ramanuja isolates a phrase easy to read past: this has been won by my own power alone, not by the unseen force and the rest. The unseen force is the hidden moral order of past action, and, standing behind it, the Lord who governs how it ripens. What the monologue denies, on this reading, is not modest but total: any agency above the self at all, repeated clause after clause as though saying it four times could make it true. Sridhara names the architecture of the whole passage before glossing a single word: this is the first of four connected verses in which Krishna shows exactly how such minds reach hell. The daydream, on his reading, is not incidental to what follows; it is the very engine of the coming fall, already turning, running from thought into deed and from deed into ruin. Madhusudana agrees on the direction, adding a precise point: it is not wealth itself but being stirred and kept in constant motion by this structure of wanting that carries a person into the unclean place, and he reads this verse explicitly as the opening clause of a sentence the following verses complete. Not every source has left an equally full word at this line. Madhva's extant work offers no comment on this verse at all, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is a brief structural marker, naming where a larger unit begins and ends, and glossing only two small phrases within it, not a developed reading of the monologue's own inner shape. Stating this plainly is owed to the reader; inventing what these masters would likely have said is not.
The doubt that rises
I also plan for the future and take real satisfaction in what I have earned. Is that the same voice this verse condemns, or is there an honest difference between ordinary care for one's work and this demonic self-talk? And where a source has left little behind, what is actually owed: silence, invention, or something honestly in between?
Where the paths divide
Read as a paraphrase that lets the monologue convict itself.
Shankara's extant comment mostly restates the monologue in its own words, present gain, future wish, present holding, future increase, closing only with the note that such a person, being rich, further expects fame. He offers little extended argument at this line, trusting the self-enclosed shape of the speech to make its own case against itself.
Read as a precise denial that must be named exactly.
Ramanuja fastens on the phrase 'by my own power alone, not by the unseen force and the rest' as the verse's true center: a denial of the hidden moral order of past action, and of the Lord who stands behind it. The monologue's repetition across its four clauses is, for him, the demonic voice doubling down on one false claim of self-sufficient agency, the exact negative of a self that refers its gains back to their true giver.
Read honestly, as a gap in the record rather than a filled-in reading.
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse. A clearly labeled extension of his wider doctrine of paratantra, total dependence on the Lord, would read the monologue's claim of unaided agency as more than pride, as a structural impossibility, since on his account no soul ever acts independently of the Lord's sanction. But that extension must not be mistaken for anything he actually wrote at 16.13.
Read through the little that genuinely survives, the rest offered as extrapolation.
What remains from Abhinavagupta here is a thin structural note: a marker that one continuous unit runs from this verse's 'this today' to 'into the impure' several verses later, with two small phrases glossed, 'of many minds' as holding no firm conviction, 'into the impure' as hell and the unbroken chain of rebirth. A Kashmir Shaiva extension might read 'many minds' as a consciousness fractured away from its own freedom into competing fixations, but this reaches well past what his surviving words themselves say.
Read as architecture: the daydream as the fall's own engine.
Sridhara opens by placing this verse inside a four-verse unit whose whole purpose is to show exactly how such minds reach hell. His sharpest claim is that the monologue is not a stray thought running alongside the coming ruin, but its very engine, already turning, carrying the demonic person from thought into deed and from deed into the fall described in the verses ahead.
Read as a question of agitation, not possession.
Madhusudana treats the monologue as a specimen the Lord holds up for direct inspection, and he is precise about the mechanism: it is being stirred and kept in continuous motion by this structure of wanting, not wealth itself, that carries a person toward the unclean place. He reads this verse explicitly as an opening clause whose grammar is completed only in what follows.
The sources that speak at length agree that this monologue's deepest fault is the silent denial of anything beyond the self, whether named as the unseen moral order, the Lord's sanction, or simply the coming fall the daydream is already engineering. They do not fully agree on how much weight to put on the words themselves versus the passage's larger architecture, and this page does not resolve that either. It also leaves open, honestly, what the record itself leaves open: where a source like Madhva or Abhinavagupta has said little or nothing at this line, that gap is worth naming plainly rather than quietly filled in.
A question to carry
When you next hear your own mind reckon what you have gained and what you expect to gain, can you catch the moment it silently assumes no one but you had any hand in it at all?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So listen to your own tally once, honestly, not to silence it but to notice, gently, what it forgets to ask, and let that noticing be enough for today.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Having just distinguished the divine and demonic natures in general terms, Krishna now opens a run of verses that lets the demonic mind speak for itself, the first turn of a passage that runs, several sources agree, straight into ruin.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
The verse is Krishna quoting, almost verbatim, the running self-talk of a greedy mind, offered as overheard speech rather than outside description.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
All the sources that comment substantively hear this verse as Krishna quoting, almost verbatim, the running self-talk of a greedy mind: this I have gained today, this wish I will also fulfill, this wealth is already mine, and still more will be mine in the coming year. It is offered as overheard speech, not as Krishna's own description from outside.
The reckoning is a chain that never closes: present gain already feeding a future wish, present holding already feeding a future increase.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
The monologue's shape is a chain that never closes: present gain feeds a future wish, present holding feeds a future increase. Shankara lets the sequence run in the demon's own grammar without much comment; Madhusudana treats the same sequence as a specimen of the very thirst that agitates its speaker toward ruin.
The deeper fault, where the sources speak to it, is the claim of unaided agency, a denial of any unseen order or giver standing behind the gain.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, DvaitaRāmānuja · MadhvaIn Rāmānuja and Madhva’s words
Where the sources go further than paraphrase, they converge on one diagnosis: the deeper fault is the claim of sole, unaided agency. Ramanuja names this precisely as the denial of the unseen moral order and the Lord behind it; a conditional extension of Madhva's system would call the same claim a structural impossibility, since no self acts independently of the Lord's sanction in the first place.
More than one source reads this verse as the deliberate opening turn of a longer passage, an engine already running toward the ruin the verses ahead will describe.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
Sridhara and Madhusudana both read this verse as the deliberate opening move of a longer passage rather than a self-contained thought: Sridhara names it as the first of a four-verse unit that runs into hell, and Madhusudana explicitly links this verse forward to what follows, where the same wanting is shown carrying its speaker the rest of the way down.
Not every source has left an equal word here; where the record is thin, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta, that thinness is stated rather than dressed up as their own developed reading.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Not every acarya on this roster has left an equally full word here. Madhva's extant work offers no comment on this verse at all, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is only a brief structural note marking where the larger unit begins and ends. The honest reading states this plainly rather than filling the gap with invented confidence.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja isolates the phrase 'by my own power alone, not by the unseen force and the rest' as the verse's real content: the denial of adrishta, the hidden moral order of past action, and of the Lord who governs it. He reads the monologue's repeated insistence on self-sufficient agency as the demonic voice doubling down, clause after clause, on one false claim, the exact photographic negative of a self that refers its gains back to the one who truly gives them.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse; nothing in his Gita Tatparya addresses it directly. A clearly labeled extension of his wider doctrine of paratantra would read the monologue's claim of unaided agency as more than pride, as a structural impossibility, since on his system no soul ever acts independently of the Lord's sanction, but this extension must not be mistaken for his own word on 16.13.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads this verse as the opening turn of a four-verse wheel that Krishna is deliberately using to show exactly how such men reach hell. His most distinctive claim is that the inner monologue is not incidental to the ruin that follows it but is the ruin's own engine, already turning, running unchecked from thought into deed and from deed into the fall.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana treats the monologue as a specimen the Lord holds up for inspection, and is precise that it is the state of being stirred and agitated by this particular structure of wanting, not wealth itself, that carries a person into ruin. He explicitly reads this verse as the opening clause of a longer sentence whose grammar completes itself only in the verses that follow.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
For a few breaths, let your own mind run its usual reckoning of gains and plans, and simply listen to its grammar rather than its content: notice how quickly a settled gain turns into a new want, how quickly 'I have' slides into 'I will have more.' You are not asked to silence the tally. Only to hear, once, how it never once stops to ask who is really the giver.
So listen once, honestly, to your own tally of gains and plans, not to silence it, only to notice where it quietly forgets to ask who is really the giver.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
ll the sources that comment substantively hear this verse as Krishna quoting, almost verbatim, the running self-talk of a greedy mind: this I have gained today, this wish I will also fulfill, this wealth is already mine, and still more will be mine in the coming year. It is offered as overheard speech, not as Krishna's own description from outside.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The monologue's shape is a chain that never closes: present gain feeds a future wish, present holding feeds a future increase. Shankara lets the sequence run in the demon's own grammar without much comment; Madhusudana treats the same sequence as a specimen of the very thirst that agitates its speaker toward ruin.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where the sources go further than paraphrase, they converge on one diagnosis: the deeper fault is the claim of sole, unaided agency. Ramanuja names this precisely as the denial of the unseen moral order and the Lord behind it; a conditional extension of Madhva's system would call the same claim a structural impossibility, since no self acts independently of the Lord's sanction in the first place.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya
Sridhara and Madhusudana both read this verse as the deliberate opening move of a longer passage rather than a self-contained thought: Sridhara names it as the first of a four-verse unit that runs into hell, and Madhusudana explicitly links this verse forward to what follows, where the same wanting is shown carrying its speaker the rest of the way down.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Not every acarya on this roster has left an equally full word here. Madhva's extant work offers no comment on this verse at all, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is only a brief structural note marking where the larger unit begins and ends. The honest reading states this plainly rather than filling the gap with invented confidence.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's extant comment stays close to paraphrase: he lets the demonic voice speak in its own words, present gain and future wish, present holding and future increase, adding only that such a person, being rich, further expects to be famous. The reading offers little extended doctrine here, letting the monologue's self-enclosed structure convict itself without much added commentary.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja isolates the phrase 'by my own power alone, not by the unseen force and the rest' as the verse's real content: the denial of adrishta, the hidden moral order of past action, and of the Lord who governs it. He reads the monologue's repeated insistence on self-sufficient agency as the demonic voice doubling down, clause after clause, on one false claim, the exact photographic negative of a self that refers its gains back to the one who truly gives them.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse; nothing in his Gita Tatparya addresses it directly. A clearly labeled extension of his wider doctrine of paratantra would read the monologue's claim of unaided agency as more than pride, as a structural impossibility, since on his system no soul ever acts independently of the Lord's sanction, but this extension must not be mistaken for his own word on 16.13.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives from Abhinavagupta here is a thin structural fragment: he marks that a single unit runs from this verse's 'this today' down to 'into the impure' several verses later, and glosses only 'of many minds' as holding no firm conviction and 'into the impure' as hell and the unbroken chain of rebirth. A Kashmir Shaiva extension of this fragment might read 'many minds' as consciousness fractured away from its own unified freedom into competing, grasping fixations, but this goes beyond what his surviving comment itself says.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads this verse as the opening turn of a four-verse wheel that Krishna is deliberately using to show exactly how such men reach hell. His most distinctive claim is that the inner monologue is not incidental to the ruin that follows it but is the ruin's own engine, already turning, running unchecked from thought into deed and from deed into the fall.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana treats the monologue as a specimen the Lord holds up for inspection, and is precise that it is the state of being stirred and agitated by this particular structure of wanting, not wealth itself, that carries a person into ruin. He explicitly reads this verse as the opening clause of a longer sentence whose grammar completes itself only in the verses that follow.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I plan for the future and take satisfaction in what I have earned. Is that the same self-talk this verse condemns, or is there a real difference between healthy planning and this demonic monologue?
Ramanuja's reading points to the actual dividing line: the fault is not planning or satisfaction as such, but the insistence that every gain comes by my own power alone, with no unseen order and no Lord behind it acknowledged at all. The content of the plan matters less than what it silently denies.
Rāmānujācārya
Sridhara and Madhusudana both stress that this monologue is diagnosed by where it leads, not merely by what it contains: it is named as the opening turn of a passage that runs into agitation, bewilderment, and fall. Planning that stays capable of pausing, of being surprised, of loosening its grip, is not yet caught in that same wheel.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where a source, like Madhva here, has left no direct word, the honest answer borrows nothing invented; what can fairly be said, on a labeled extension of his wider teaching, is that any claim of fully independent agency, however mild it sounds, misdescribes what any self actually is.
Madhvācārya
Contemplation
For a few breaths, let your own mind run its usual reckoning of gains and plans, and simply listen to its grammar rather than its content: notice how quickly a settled gain turns into a new want, how quickly 'I have' slides into 'I will have more.' You are not asked to silence the tally. Only to hear, once, how it never once stops to ask who is really the giver.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
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, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.