A rite offered for one's own name is a sacrifice in name only, and earns nothing.
Here is a person who does perform sacrifices, who would point to his own religious observance as proof of piety, and yet, in every reading that speaks to this verse, the rite fails to transmit any fruit at all.
Self-honored, unbending, and drunk on the pride of wealth, such people perform sacrifices that are sacrifices in name only, done for show and with no regard for the scriptural rule.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just let us overhear the demonic mind's private daydream of endless gain. Now he turns from that inner monologue to something more public: the same person's religious performance, and shows that it carries the identical hollowness inside a different, more respectable-looking shape.
The teaching
This person honors himself, and the sources are unanimous that no one else actually confirms it. Shankara says plainly that he alone praises himself as having every good quality; the good, the truly virtuous, do not praise him. Ramanuja calls this honoring oneself all by oneself, joined to the conviction of being already full, with nothing left to do and no one left to learn from. That completeness is exactly why he cannot bow. Sridhara reads the stiffness as the direct consequence of a worth conferred by one's own hand rather than by any holy person: brought to honor by yourself, you have no one left above you to acknowledge. Wealth, on Madhusudana's precise reading, manufactures two faults from the same source. Pride is the wealth-born claim to a worthiness of worship one does not actually have. Intoxication is the wealth-born scorn that treats even a genuine teacher as unworthy of respect. The same coin inflates the self and empties everyone else at once. Out of this state such people do perform sacrifices, but the sources hold two readings of 'in name only' together rather than choosing between them. Either the rite is hollow, keeping its outward shape while true content has drained out of it, or it is undertaken expressly so that others will call the performer a sacrificer, the name itself being the whole point. Ramanuja is exact here: they sacrifice while holding 'I am a sacrificer', with rites whose entire aim is that title. Abhinavagupta adds a third and sharper sense: the rite is fruitless because anger has already destroyed the person's capacity to act well, so it fails from within before it is even performed, and he presses further, that hating the worlds is, at root, hating the Lord who dwells in them all. Two final failures close the case for every source that speaks to this verse in depth. The sacrifice is done with hypocrisy, a display rather than a sincere offering, and it is done without following the prescribed rule, ignoring the scriptural injunctions a true rite requires. Sridhara draws this out as an exact mirror: the devotee gives himself, the demon gives a name; the devotee sacrifices in faith, the demon in deceit; the devotee follows the rule, the demon overrides it. And Madhusudana, answering the objection that ritual performers surely cannot fall into hell, replies that hollow rites of this kind never share in the fruit of a true sacrifice at all.
The doubt that rises
I perform real practices, and I would be lying if I said the thought of how I appear to others never crosses my mind. Where does an honest, imperfect devotion end and this verse's hollow rite in disguise begin?
Where the paths divide
Read as a direct answer to the objection that ritual performers should not fall into hell.
Shankara names the inventory plainly: such a person thinks highly of himself, praised by no one truly good, stubborn and unbowing, filled with the pride and drunkenness of wealth, so that his sacrifices become sacrifices in name only, carried out with pretence under a false banner of dharma. Madhusudana sharpens this into direct rebuttal of a real objection: since some such people are seen performing Vedic acts, it seems wrong that they fall, but their rites lack the prescribed parts, are not by rule, and are done with hypocrisy rather than faith, so they share in none of the fruit.
Read through the inner grammar of pretence rather than outward procedure alone.
Ramanuja isolates what the rite is actually for: performed while holding 'I am a sacrificer', with the entire purpose being that very name, undertaken out of pretence so that others will proclaim the performer a sacrificer. The self-sufficiency behind it, the conviction of being already full and needing nothing further, is itself the deeper fault beneath the outward performance.
Read honestly, as a gap in the record rather than a filled-in reading.
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse; no gloss from him survives in the source used here. A clearly labeled extension of his doctrine of total dependence on the Lord would treat a name-seeking, ruleless rite as a category error rather than a lesser sacrifice, since no rite bears fruit except as the Lord ordains, but this must not be mistaken for Madhva's own stated word at 16.17.
Read as fruitlessness reaching into hatred of the Lord who dwells in all.
Abhinavagupta reads 'sacrifices in name' first as meaning fruitlessly, since anger and the rest have already destroyed the person's capacity to act rightly, so the rite fails from within before it is performed. He then presses further than most: hating the worlds, such people hate the Lord alone, since Vasudeva is the dwelling place of all, and this self-directed hatred is itself what casts them into demonic wombs.
Read as the devotee's worship exactly inverted, point for point.
Sridhara names the whole passage as mostly deceit and the sense of 'I', not pure at all, and sets the demon's rite as the structural mirror of the devotee's: the devotee gives himself, the demon gives a name; the devotee sacrifices in faith, the demon in deceit; the devotee follows the rule, the demon overrides it. The rite's purpose becomes spreading one's own name, nothing more.
Read as a technical answer showing outward performance alone guarantees nothing.
Madhusudana treats pride and intoxication as two distinct, wealth-manufactured errors, one inflating one's own worth and one deflating everyone else's, and reads the verse as a precise rebuttal: apparent Vedic performance does not by itself guarantee fruit, since hypocrisy and disregard for rule void the rite from within regardless of how correct it looks from outside.
Every source that speaks to this verse in depth agrees the rite is hollow and locates the same two failures, pretence in place of faith, disregard in place of rule. They diverge on how deep the failure runs. For Shankara and Madhusudana the failure is procedural and can, in principle, be named and corrected. For Abhinavagupta it runs deeper still, into a hatred of the Lord who dwells in all things, which no correction of procedure alone could reach. Madhva has left no word here at all, and this page does not invent one on his behalf. What remains open, and is left open here, is exactly where the honest but imperfect practice of an ordinary seeker stands against this portrait, since none of the sources draw that line for you.
A question to carry
When no one is watching and no reputation is at stake, does your own practice still hold, or does something in it quietly need an audience to mean anything at all?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So take up whatever practice is genuinely yours, offer it without needing it seen, and let faith, not display, be the only rule you cannot break.
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 overheard the demonic monologue's daydream of endless gain, Krishna turns from private ambition to public religion, and shows that even this person's worship carries the same hollowness inside a different shape.
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.
He holds himself worthy entirely on his own authority; no truly good or holy person ever grants him that standing.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
All six sources that speak to this verse converge on the opening diagnosis: such a person is self-honored, holding himself worthy and accomplished entirely on his own authority. Ramanuja names it as honoring oneself all by oneself; Shankara and Madhusudana both stress that the good, the genuinely virtuous, never grant this standing. The honor exists only inside the mind that claims it.
Because his honor is self-made, he becomes stiff and unbending, admitting no one above himself to bow to.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Because that honor is self-manufactured, the person becomes stiff, unbending, refusing to bow. Shankara puts it starkly: his self never bows. Ramanuja reads the same stiffness as the conviction that one is already full and has nothing left to learn. Sridhara adds that this rigidity follows necessarily from a worth conferred by one's own hand rather than by any holy person.
Wealth manufactures a double fault in him at once: an inflated claim to his own worth, and a scornful dismissal of others genuinely worthy of respect.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Wealth is read as the fuel of a double fault. Madhusudana is the most exact: pride is the wealth-born claim to a worthiness one does not have, while intoxication is the wealth-born scorn that treats even a genuine teacher as unworthy of respect. The same wealth inflates the self and empties everyone else at once.
He does perform sacrifices, but they are sacrifices in name only, hollow of true content or performed chiefly to win a reputation as a sacrificer.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The rites such people perform are read as sacrifices in name only, and the sources hold two readings together rather than choosing one: the rite is hollow of true content, or it is performed expressly for the sake of a name and a reputation as a sacrificer. Abhinavagupta adds a third and sharper sense, that the rite is fruitless because the anger within the person has already destroyed the capacity for it to bear fruit.
He sacrifices through pretence rather than faith and against the rule rather than by it, which is exactly why the rite bears no fruit despite its outward shape.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Two final failures seal the case for every source with a substantive word here: the rite is done with hypocrisy or pretence rather than faith, and it is done without following the prescribed rule. Sridhara reads this as the exact inversion of true devotion, point for point; where the devotee gives himself in faith and by the rule, this person gives only a name, in deceit, against the rule.
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 inner grammar of the pretence: such a person sacrifices while holding 'I am a sacrificer', with rites whose entire aim is that very name, performed for the sake of pretence so that others will proclaim him one. The self-sufficiency he claims, being already full with nothing left to do, is itself the fault the rite cannot outrun.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse; nothing in the source used here addresses it directly. A clearly labeled extension of his doctrine of total dependence on the Lord would read a rite performed for one's own name, without submission to scriptural rule, as a category error rather than a lesser sacrifice, since no rite bears fruit except as the Lord ordains, but this extension must not be mistaken for Madhva's own stated word on 16.17.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the whole demonic monologue of the previous verses, and this one, as mostly deceit and the sense of 'I', and sets the demon's worship as the structural mirror of the devotee's: the devotee gives himself, the demon gives a name; the devotee sacrifices in faith, the demon in deceit; the devotee follows the rule, the demon overrides it. The rite's whole purpose, on this reading, is to spread one's own name rather than to offer anything at all.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read as a technical answer to a live objection, Madhusudana's gloss treats apparent ritual performance as no guarantee against a bad end: pride and intoxication are named as two distinct, wealth-manufactured errors, one inflating the self's worth and one deflating everyone else's, and a rite built on both, lacking faith and rule alike, simply does not transmit the fruit it appears to promise.
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
Set aside, for a moment, whether you perform any grand rites at all, and ask a smaller question: when you do something that looks like devotion, prayer, service, generosity, whose name is it actually for? Sridhara's mirror is exact enough to use on yourself. The devotee gives himself; the demon gives a name. Faith needs no witness; deceit requires one. See, honestly, which of the two your own quiet practices resemble when no one is counting.
So when you next take up any practice that looks like devotion, ask quietly whose name it is really for, and let faith, not witnesses, be what carries the offering.
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 six sources that speak to this verse converge on the opening diagnosis: such a person is self-honored, holding himself worthy and accomplished entirely on his own authority. Ramanuja names it as honoring oneself all by oneself; Shankara and Madhusudana both stress that the good, the genuinely virtuous, never grant this standing. The honor exists only inside the mind that claims it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Because that honor is self-manufactured, the person becomes stiff, unbending, refusing to bow. Shankara puts it starkly: his self never bows. Ramanuja reads the same stiffness as the conviction that one is already full and has nothing left to learn. Sridhara adds that this rigidity follows necessarily from a worth conferred by one's own hand rather than by any holy person.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Wealth is read as the fuel of a double fault. Madhusudana is the most exact: pride is the wealth-born claim to a worthiness one does not have, while intoxication is the wealth-born scorn that treats even a genuine teacher as unworthy of respect. The same wealth inflates the self and empties everyone else at once.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The rites such people perform are read as sacrifices in name only, and the sources hold two readings together rather than choosing one: the rite is hollow of true content, or it is performed expressly for the sake of a name and a reputation as a sacrificer. Abhinavagupta adds a third and sharper sense, that the rite is fruitless because the anger within the person has already destroyed the capacity for it to bear fruit.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Two final failures seal the case for every source with a substantive word here: the rite is done with hypocrisy or pretence rather than faith, and it is done without following the prescribed rule. Sridhara reads this as the exact inversion of true devotion, point for point; where the devotee gives himself in faith and by the rule, this person gives only a name, in deceit, against the rule.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse as a compact inventory of self-conceit and hollow rite, letting the demonic character convict itself through a short, unadorned description. Madhusudana sharpens this into an explicit answer to an objection: since some of these very people are seen performing Vedic acts, how can they fall? Because their rites lack the prescribed parts, are not by rule, and are carried out with hypocrisy rather than faith, they share in none of the fruit such rites would otherwise yield.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja isolates the inner grammar of the pretence: such a person sacrifices while holding 'I am a sacrificer', with rites whose entire aim is that very name, performed for the sake of pretence so that others will proclaim him one. The self-sufficiency he claims, being already full with nothing left to do, is itself the fault the rite cannot outrun.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The record shows Madhva offers no comment on this verse; nothing in the source used here addresses it directly. A clearly labeled extension of his doctrine of total dependence on the Lord would read a rite performed for one's own name, without submission to scriptural rule, as a category error rather than a lesser sacrifice, since no rite bears fruit except as the Lord ordains, but this extension must not be mistaken for Madhva's own stated word on 16.17.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta reads 'sacrifices in name' chiefly as fruitlessly, since anger and the rest have already destroyed the person's capacity to act rightly, so the rite fails from the inside before it is even performed. He then presses further than the other sources: hating the worlds, such people hate the Lord alone, since Vasudeva dwells in all of them, and this self-directed hatred is itself the cause of the fall into hell and into demonic wombs.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the whole demonic monologue of the previous verses, and this one, as mostly deceit and the sense of 'I', and sets the demon's worship as the structural mirror of the devotee's: the devotee gives himself, the demon gives a name; the devotee sacrifices in faith, the demon in deceit; the devotee follows the rule, the demon overrides it. The rite's whole purpose, on this reading, is to spread one's own name rather than to offer anything at all.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read as a technical answer to a live objection, Madhusudana's gloss treats apparent ritual performance as no guarantee against a bad end: pride and intoxication are named as two distinct, wealth-manufactured errors, one inflating the self's worth and one deflating everyone else's, and a rite built on both, lacking faith and rule alike, simply does not transmit the fruit it appears to promise.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I do perform real religious practice, but I would be lying if I said reputation never crossed my mind. Does that make my practice as hollow as the one this verse condemns?
The sources locate the fault not in the presence of any thought of others but in the practice's actual center of gravity. Ramanuja's demon sacrifices in order to be called a sacrificer; that is the whole point of the rite, not an incidental afterthought. A practice where reputation is a passing shadow rather than the engine driving the act is not yet the thing this verse names.
Rāmānujācārya
Sridhara's test is concrete and can be applied honestly: does the practice run on faith or on deceit, does it hold to the rule or override it. A person troubled by their own mixed motives is already showing the faith and the willingness to submit to a standard that the demon, by definition, lacks entirely.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Madhusudana's answer to the standing objection applies here too: outward performance, even Vedic performance, does not by itself guarantee the fruit; what fails the rite is the absence of faith and rule together, not the mere presence of an unwanted thought. Noticing the thought and refusing to let it govern the act is not the same as building the act around it.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Contemplation
Set aside, for a moment, whether you perform any grand rites at all, and ask a smaller question: when you do something that looks like devotion, prayer, service, generosity, whose name is it actually for? Sridhara's mirror is exact enough to use on yourself. The devotee gives himself; the demon gives a name. Faith needs no witness; deceit requires one. See, honestly, which of the two your own quiet practices resemble when no one is counting.
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.