Listen to a man convince himself that he has no equal, and that nothing beyond himself made him so.
The boast sounds like strength: wealth, noble birth, plans to sacrifice and give and rejoice. Underneath it runs a single quiet claim, that all of it is self-made, and that claim is what the schools, where the record speaks, call ignorance.
I am wealthy, and I am well-born; who else is my equal? I will sacrifice, I will give gifts, I will rejoice. So they think, deluded by a mind that cannot tell truth from illusion.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The boaster's inner speech continues. Two verses ago he was only wanting; now he is counting what he already has, wealth and noble birth, and finding no one anywhere to stand beside him. What follows are his plans, and Krishna's own verdict on the whole performance.
The teaching
Listen to the shape of it. I am wealthy, richly furnished with money and everything money buys. I am well-born, from a high and noble family, some readings add seven generations deep in learning. Who else, then, is my equal? Every clause here is aimed at an imagined rival the man has already decided cannot exist; the boast needs a competitor to defeat even where none stands in front of him. Then the plans arrive. I shall sacrifice. I shall give. I shall rejoice. These sound like the language of piety, and elsewhere in this same teaching they are praised without reservation. Here they are not. Sridhara is exact about where each one is aimed: the sacrifice seeks prestige over the very people performing the rite alongside him, the gifts go to those who flatter him, the rejoicing is pleasure taken with dancers and entertainers. Ramanuja finds the deeper claim running underneath all of it, a quiet 'by myself' repeated through the whole speech, as though wealth, birth, sacrifice, gift, and pleasure were each produced by his own power with no need of anything beyond himself. And that, on his reading, is the exact ignorance Krishna names in the closing line: not simply pride, but a false account of where any of it actually came from. Sridhara adds his own name for the resulting state, mithya-abhinivesha, a false grasping that has come to mistake this entire self-monologue for the truth of things. Madhusudana, reading the verse as a constructed reply to an imagined challenger, shows how each clause closes off one more possible rival, by wealth, by birth, by sacrifice, by gift, until no room is left to ask whether any of this was worth wanting in the first place. Not every voice on this page speaks to the verse with equal fullness. Madhva's record is silent here outright, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is aimed at the fall into hell two verses on, not at this boast. Both gaps are named rather than filled.
The doubt that rises
Wealth, noble birth, sacrifice, giving, and rejoicing are not, on their own, condemned anywhere else in this teaching. So what exactly turns them into delusion here, and how would you know, in your own life, when a good act has quietly crossed that same line?
Where the paths divide
Read as one continuous boast scattering into general confusion.
Shankara reads the whole speech, wealth, birth, and Vedic lineage claimed together, as a single act of self-glorification, with the planned sacrifice, gift, and rejoicing carrying that same contest forward into ritual and pleasure. His closing verdict names ignorance as a loss of discrimination severe enough to scatter such a mind into confusion of many different kinds, each fresh boast mistaken for insight.
Read as a theological error about the true source of everything claimed.
Ramanuja isolates the repeated claim of self-sufficiency, 'by myself,' running under wealth, birth, and every planned act alike. The ignorance the verse names is not vague pride but a specific mistake about causation: the belief that none of it depends on the Lord who in truth sustains all of it. To think otherwise, however confident it sounds, is simply not to know how things actually stand.
Read honestly, as a gap in the record rather than a filled-in reading.
Madhva offers no comment on this verse at all. Extended conditionally from his doctrine that every self is paratantra, dependent on Hari even for the capacity to act, this boaster's claim to self-made wealth and unrivaled standing would read as the precise inversion of that dependence. But this is offered here plainly as extrapolation from his wider system, not as anything he is recorded as having written on 16.15 itself.
Read as a thin, forward-leaning fragment rather than a full commentary on this verse.
What survives from Abhinavagupta treats 16.13 through 16.16 as one unit, and his actual words address the fall into hell and the unbroken chain of birth and death named two verses later, not this verse's boast. Extended conditionally, one might read the claim to be unrivaled as consciousness's own fullness contracted into a narrow, comparing self that manufactures superiority because it has forgotten what it already is. That reading goes beyond what the surviving fragment itself says.
Read word by word, exposing exactly where the piety is aimed.
Sridhara glosses each term with unusual precision: the sacrifice for prestige over fellow celebrants, the gifts for those who praise him, the rejoicing for pleasure with performers. He names the outcome mithya-abhinivesha, a false grasping in which the man's own boasting voice has become, to him, indistinguishable from the truth of things.
Read as the psychology of a mind built to eliminate imagined rivals.
Madhusudana structures the verse as an answer supplied to an imagined objection, each clause closing off one more possible competitor, by wealth, by birth, by sacrifice, by gift. Read for a contemporary seeker, this exposes boasting as a defensive architecture, a mind so organized around winning against imagined others that it never pauses to ask whether the contest itself was worth entering.
The four voices who speak to this verse directly converge on the shape of the error, self-glorification dressed in the language of piety, but they part on exactly what the ignorance most centrally denies: a general failure of discrimination, a specific theological error about the Lord's role, or a false grasping that mistakes the boast for reality. And two voices, Madhva and largely Abhinavagupta, leave this particular verse without a settled word at all. This page reports that unevenness rather than smoothing it away.
A question to carry
When was the last time a generous or impressive act of yours was, even slightly, aimed at being seen rather than simply done, and what would it take to notice that aim while it was still happening?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So when your own mind reaches for a comparison today, and finds itself ahead, let the noticing be enough. Take the good act you were about to display, and offer it instead, quietly, to whatever is larger than your own name.
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.
This is the third verse of the boaster's own monologue, now turning from wanting to having, listing wealth and birth as settled facts before the plans that follow in the next verse carry him further 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.
Every clause of the boast is a comparison, measuring the man against an imagined rival he has already decided cannot exist.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse continues the asura's own inner speech, now turned to boasting. He counts his wealth, his noble birth, and finds no one anywhere his equal. Every clause is a comparison, aimed at an imagined rival he has already decided cannot exist.
The planned sacrifice, gift, and rejoicing are not devotion; they are aimed at prestige, flattery, and pleasure, ritual language wrapped around self-interest.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The boast then turns into three plans: I shall sacrifice, I shall give, I shall rejoice. The commentators who speak to this verse agree these are not devotional acts. The sacrifice aims at prestige over fellow celebrants, the gifts go to flatterers and performers, and the rejoicing is simple pleasure-seeking dressed in religious language.
Ramanuja names the deeper fault precisely: everything is claimed as produced by the man's own power alone, with no room left for the Lord who actually sustains it.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Krishna's own verdict closes the verse: such people are deluded by ignorance. This is read as a technical diagnosis, not a passing insult. It names a mind that cannot discriminate true from false, and that failure, not any single misdeed, is what generates the whole cascade of boasting.
The closing diagnosis, deluded by ignorance, names a mind that has lost the power to discriminate true from false, not a single lapse in one decision.
Across ViśiṣṭādvaitaRāmānujaIn Rāmānuja’s words
Underneath the boasting sits a claim of self-sufficiency: the man believes his wealth, birth, and coming acts are entirely his own doing, needing nothing beyond his own power. Ramanuja names this outright; the other readings imply it wherever the boast measures itself only against other people and never against anything higher.
Where the sources themselves fall silent, as they do for Madhva and largely for Abhinavagupta here, this page says so plainly rather than speaking confidently in their place.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
The record itself is uneven here. Solid, verse-specific readings survive from four of the six voices this page draws on; Madhva offers no comment at all, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is a fragment aimed at the fall into hell two verses later rather than at this verse's own boast. Both gaps are reported honestly rather than filled 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 myself' as the real center of the verse: wealth, birth, and the coming acts are all claimed as self-produced, with no need of the Lord's grace. He reads the closing ignorance as a precise theological error, a false account of causation, since in truth nothing the man has or does stands apart from the Lord who sustains it.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The published record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse at all. On a conditional extension of his doctrine that every self is paratantra, wholly dependent on Hari even for its capacity to act, this boaster's claim of self-made wealth and unrivaled standing would read as the precise inversion of that dependence, a soul mistaking a borrowed competence for an independent one. But this is a labeled extrapolation from his wider system, not anything he is recorded as writing here.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara glosses the verse almost word by word and is unusually exact about where the piety is aimed: the sacrifice seeks prestige over fellow celebrants, the gifts go to praisers, the rejoicing is pleasure with dancers and entertainers. He names the resulting state mithya-abhinivesha, a false grasping that mistakes this entire self-monologue for the truth of things.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the verse as a constructed answer to an imagined objection, closing off every possible rival, by wealth, by birth, by sacrifice, by gift, one clause at a time. Read for a contemporary seeker, this exposes boasting itself as a defensive structure, a mind organized entirely around eliminating imagined competitors, with no room left to ask whether the whole project was worth pursuing.
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
Notice, without judgment, the shape of your own comparisons today. When you measure your wealth, your standing, or even your generosity against someone else's, and feel the small triumph of coming out ahead, that is this verse's monologue running in miniature. You do not need to silence every comparison at once. Simply notice when a good act, a gift, a kindness, a piece of work, is quietly being aimed at being seen rather than at being done, and let the noticing loosen its grip.
So when you catch your own mind measuring itself against another and finding itself ahead, let that noticing be enough, and turn the good act you were about to display back into one simply offered.
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
he verse continues the asura's own inner speech, now turned to boasting. He counts his wealth, his noble birth, and finds no one anywhere his equal. Every clause is a comparison, aimed at an imagined rival he has already decided cannot exist.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The boast then turns into three plans: I shall sacrifice, I shall give, I shall rejoice. The commentators who speak to this verse agree these are not devotional acts. The sacrifice aims at prestige over fellow celebrants, the gifts go to flatterers and performers, and the rejoicing is simple pleasure-seeking dressed in religious language.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Krishna's own verdict closes the verse: such people are deluded by ignorance. This is read as a technical diagnosis, not a passing insult. It names a mind that cannot discriminate true from false, and that failure, not any single misdeed, is what generates the whole cascade of boasting.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Underneath the boasting sits a claim of self-sufficiency: the man believes his wealth, birth, and coming acts are entirely his own doing, needing nothing beyond his own power. Ramanuja names this outright; the other readings imply it wherever the boast measures itself only against other people and never against anything higher.
Rāmānujācārya
The record itself is uneven here. Solid, verse-specific readings survive from four of the six voices this page draws on; Madhva offers no comment at all, and what survives from Abhinavagupta is a fragment aimed at the fall into hell two verses later rather than at this verse's own boast. Both gaps are reported honestly rather than filled with invented confidence.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse as one continuous boast: wealth, birth, and Vedic lineage all marshaled to prove no rival exists, and the planned sacrifice, gift, and rejoicing simply carrying that same contest forward into ritual and pleasure. The closing diagnosis names ignorance as a scattering into confusion of many kinds, a mind that has lost the power to discriminate and so wanders from one error into the next.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja isolates the phrase 'by myself' as the real center of the verse: wealth, birth, and the coming acts are all claimed as self-produced, with no need of the Lord's grace. He reads the closing ignorance as a precise theological error, a false account of causation, since in truth nothing the man has or does stands apart from the Lord who sustains it.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The published record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse at all. On a conditional extension of his doctrine that every self is paratantra, wholly dependent on Hari even for its capacity to act, this boaster's claim of self-made wealth and unrivaled standing would read as the precise inversion of that dependence, a soul mistaking a borrowed competence for an independent one. But this is a labeled extrapolation from his wider system, not anything he is recorded as writing here.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving note treats 16.13 to 16.16 as one unit, and what remains addresses the fall into hell and unbroken transmigration named two verses later, not this verse's boast directly. Extended conditionally, a Kashmir Shaiva reading would see the claim to be unrivaled as consciousness's own fullness contracted into a narrow, comparing self that manufactures superiority because it has forgotten what it already is. That extension goes beyond what the surviving fragment actually says.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara glosses the verse almost word by word and is unusually exact about where the piety is aimed: the sacrifice seeks prestige over fellow celebrants, the gifts go to praisers, the rejoicing is pleasure with dancers and entertainers. He names the resulting state mithya-abhinivesha, a false grasping that mistakes this entire self-monologue for the truth of things.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the verse as a constructed answer to an imagined objection, closing off every possible rival, by wealth, by birth, by sacrifice, by gift, one clause at a time. Read for a contemporary seeker, this exposes boasting itself as a defensive structure, a mind organized entirely around eliminating imagined competitors, with no room left to ask whether the whole project was worth pursuing.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
This boaster plans to sacrifice, give, and rejoice, all things the Gita elsewhere praises. Why does Krishna condemn him for exactly the acts it recommends everywhere else?
Because the acts themselves are not what is judged, their aim is. Sridhara is exact about where these plans are pointed: the sacrifice seeks prestige over other celebrants, the gifts go to flatterers, the rejoicing is simple pleasure. The same act-shapes that elsewhere serve the Lord are here aimed entirely at the self.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Ramanuja adds that the deeper fault is the claim of self-sufficiency underneath them: the man believes he can sacrifice, give, and rejoice by his own power alone, with no dependence on the Lord. That claim, not the acts, is what the verse calls ignorance.
Rāmānujācārya
Shankara and Madhusudana both read the whole speech as one contest with an imagined rival, so that even generosity becomes a weapon for winning. What spoils the act is the comparison running underneath it, the need for no one to be your equal, not the giving itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Notice, without judgment, the shape of your own comparisons today. When you measure your wealth, your standing, or even your generosity against someone else's, and feel the small triumph of coming out ahead, that is this verse's monologue running in miniature. You do not need to silence every comparison at once. Simply notice when a good act, a gift, a kindness, a piece of work, is quietly being aimed at being seen rather than at being done, and let the noticing loosen its grip.
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.