Three faults, one gate: give them up, and the road to ruin closes.
After the long portrait of what divides the godly from the demonic, Krishna narrows everything to a single command. Not a list to master, but one gate to stop walking through.
There are three gates that open onto ruin and destroy the self: desire, anger, and greed. Give up these three.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just finished a long portrait, chapter's worth of it, tracing the divine nature down through its opposite, the demonic. It would be easy to hear that portrait as a catalogue too large to actually use. Here he stops describing and gives a single instruction instead.
The teaching
Three things are named as the gate of hell: desire, anger, and greed. A gate is not decoration on the outside of a building; it is the way in, the actual passage a person walks through to arrive somewhere. That is the exact force of the word here. These three are not merely unattractive company. They are called the destroyer of the self, and the destroying is specific: entering this gate leaves a person unfit for any human goal at all, unable to gather the effort that would reach anything worth reaching. This is why the chapter, having spent so many verses describing the demonic nature in its many branches, now narrows to just these three. They are read as the root the rest of it grows from. Give up desire, anger, and greed, and the whole tangled portrait loses its ground to stand on. The verse ends the only way it could: therefore, give up these three. Not admire the wisdom of giving them up, not resolve to someday give them up, but give them up, and give them up completely.
The doubt that rises
But desire, anger, and greed do not arrive on command, and no verse, however plain, makes them dissolve simply because it names them. If they run this deep, is give up these three something a person can actually do today, or is it a demand stated in a single line precisely because carrying it out takes a great deal more than one?
Where the paths divide
Read as a graded discrimination, in two stages, with care about what 'destroyed' can mean.
Shankara reads the verse exactly and briefly: this gate makes the self unfit for any human goal, and the instruction is simply to give up desire, anger, and greed, with praise for that letting-go promised in the next verse. Madhusudana adds the working mechanism: the giving-up happens in two steps, first blocking the effect of a fault that has already arisen, and only later reaching the point where it fails to arise at all. He is careful that talk of the self being destroyed can only mean unfitness for one's goal, since the Self itself, on this view, is never actually destructible.
Read through what Ramanuja's own brief comment actually says, without extending beyond it.
Ramanuja's surviving comment here stays close and unadorned. He confirms that this hell takes the shape of the demonic nature already described, names its threefold door as desire, anger, and greed exactly as explained earlier, and glosses door as way or cause, the mechanism by which the hell is reached. He closes on the same bare instruction the verse itself carries: give up these three and keep far from them. Nothing beyond this survives in the material available on this specific verse, and this reading stays with what he actually wrote rather than filling the gap.
An honest gap, named rather than filled with invented confidence.
The record here is plain: Madhva offers no comment on this verse. Rather than construct a Dvaita reading in his voice, this page names the silence directly. If one wanted to extend his broader teaching, that a soul's very capacity to act is dependent on the Lord's sanction, one might tentatively read desire, anger, and greed as a soul's capacity turned toward self-referential craving instead of toward Hari. But that is a flagged extension of his general framework, not his recorded word on 16.21, and the difference matters.
A thin fragment, honestly marked, with a clearly labeled possible extension.
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment on this verse is only a fragment, a gloss on two words, threefold and by these, stating that this triad is the gate of hell and is therefore to be abandoned. Nothing more elaborate survives here. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this toward his fuller teaching elsewhere and see desire, anger, and greed as the mind's own freedom contracting around craved objects, but this is offered only as a labeled possibility, not as his recorded teaching on this specific verse.
Read as the hinge where the long portrait becomes a single act of practice.
Sridhara hangs the whole chapter on this one verse. The twenty-six divine virtues and the demonic portrait's many heads are all gathered, in his reading, into this one tight knot of three root-faults, and from here the chapter turns into a text of practice rather than description. Craving, anger, and greed destroy the self, he says, and carry a person down into low wombs, which is why they must be given up with the whole of oneself, not by half-measures or occasional effort.
Read as a workable method rather than only a verdict.
The most exportable point across the available sources is procedural, drawn from Madhusudana: the giving-up happens in two stages, first interrupting a fault's effect once it has surfaced, and only later reaching the point where it no longer surfaces at all. Read this way, the verse's bare command becomes a method rather than an all-or-nothing demand: begin today by catching the reaction as it rises, and let the deeper change come in its own time.
Every available voice agrees on the diagnosis: desire, anger, and greed are the gate, and giving them up is the instruction. They differ on how much has actually survived to say about the how. Ramanuja and Madhusudana speak, Madhva is silent, and Abhinavagupta leaves only a fragment. This page keeps that unevenness visible rather than smoothing it into six equally full readings; some of what a school 'would say' here is honestly this page's own extension, clearly marked, and not the master's word.
A question to carry
When desire, anger, or the urge to grasp rises in you next, before it fully hardens into a decision, can you notice it as a gate, and simply not walk through it this once?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So take the one root that shows itself under three names, and meet it once, right where it rises. Give up the gate before you, and let go the rest as it falls with it.
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.
The sixteenth chapter has just finished describing both natures in full; here it compresses the entire demonic portrait into one triad and one instruction.
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.
Desire, anger, and greed are called a gate, the actual road to ruin, not just unpleasant company kept along the way.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The verse names desire, anger, and greed as dvaram, a gate: not merely unpleasant traits but the actual passage by which a person arrives at hell. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Sridhara all read the word this exactly, as cause and mechanism, the road itself rather than a colorful label for something distasteful.
To be destroyed by them means made unfit for any worthwhile goal, not that the Self itself is literally ended.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
All the available commentators take nashanam atmanah, destroyer of the self, with real weight: entering this gate makes a person unfit for any human goal, unable to muster the effort that would reach a worthwhile end. Shankara and Madhusudana both add the careful qualifier that this is unfitness, not literal annihilation of an eternal Self.
This triad is the compressed root of the whole demonic portrait; give it up, and the sprawling rest falls with it.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
Madhusudana and Sridhara, in different words, treat this triad as the compressed root of the entire demonic portrait the chapter has just finished painting. Rather than a war against countless branching faults, the seeker is handed one addressable knot: give up these three, and the whole tangled growth falls with them.
The verse closes on a bare command: give up these three. Everything before this line has been leading to this instruction.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The verse closes on a bare imperative, tasmad etat trayam tyajet, therefore one should give up these three, and every available commentator treats this as the operative instruction rather than as decoration. Ramanuja states it almost without elaboration; Shankara and Sridhara both read it as the practical hinge the description has been moving toward.
The giving-up is workable in stages: catch the fault once it rises, and only later does it stop rising at all.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
None of the available voices frame the giving-up as instantaneous or effortless. Madhusudana is explicit that it happens in two stages, catching the fault once risen before it can mature into the fault no longer arising, and this graded, workable shape sits comfortably beside Sridhara's sense of the verse as the start of a practice, not a single heroic renunciation.
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's own comment on this verse is brief: he confirms that this hell takes the form of the demonic nature already described, names its threefold door as desire, anger, and greed exactly as explained earlier in the chapter, and glosses door as way or cause, the mechanism by which the hell is reached. He closes with the same bare instruction the verse itself gives, that one should give up these three and keep far from them, without extending the point into a longer argument in the material that survives on this specific verse.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The published record states plainly that Madhva offers no comment on this verse. Rather than invent a confident Dvaita reading here, this entry names the gap honestly. On a Dvaita reading, one might extend his broader framework and suggest that desire, anger, and greed mark a soul turning its dependent capacity to act away from Hari and toward self-referential craving, but this is a flagged extrapolation from his general system, not his recorded word on 16.21.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara hangs the entire chapter on this verse: the twenty-six divine virtues and the six-headed demonic portrait alike are drawn into this one tight knot of three root-faults, and from here the chapter turns into a text of practice, the plain instruction for one who has heard the long picture and now wants the single point to strike at. He is direct that craving, anger, and greed destroy the self and carry a person down into low wombs, and that the whole of oneself, not a partial effort, must be given to setting them aside.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a contemporary seeker, the most exportable point in the source material is Madhusudana's two-step account of how the giving-up actually works: first interrupting a fault's effect once it has already surfaced, only later reaching the stage where it fails to surface at all. This reframes the verse's bare command as a workable psychological sequence rather than an all-or-nothing demand, matching the intuition that a lasting change in behavior is built in stages, catching a reaction before habit narrows into character.
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
Sometime today, when a flare of wanting, irritation, or the urge to hoard rises in you, do not try to abolish it outright. Simply notice it as it arises, and decline to act on its instruction just this once. That single refusal is the first of Madhusudana's two stages, the smaller and entirely available one: not yet the fault failing to arise, only the fault caught and not obeyed.
So when desire, anger, or grasping rises in you today, meet it once, right there, and decline to walk through that gate.
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 names desire, anger, and greed as dvaram, a gate: not merely unpleasant traits but the actual passage by which a person arrives at hell. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Sridhara all read the word this exactly, as cause and mechanism, the road itself rather than a colorful label for something distasteful.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
All the available commentators take nashanam atmanah, destroyer of the self, with real weight: entering this gate makes a person unfit for any human goal, unable to muster the effort that would reach a worthwhile end. Shankara and Madhusudana both add the careful qualifier that this is unfitness, not literal annihilation of an eternal Self.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Madhusudana and Sridhara, in different words, treat this triad as the compressed root of the entire demonic portrait the chapter has just finished painting. Rather than a war against countless branching faults, the seeker is handed one addressable knot: give up these three, and the whole tangled growth falls with them.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The verse closes on a bare imperative, tasmad etat trayam tyajet, therefore one should give up these three, and every available commentator treats this as the operative instruction rather than as decoration. Ramanuja states it almost without elaboration; Shankara and Sridhara both read it as the practical hinge the description has been moving toward.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
None of the available voices frame the giving-up as instantaneous or effortless. Madhusudana is explicit that it happens in two stages, catching the fault once risen before it can mature into the fault no longer arising, and this graded, workable shape sits comfortably beside Sridhara's sense of the verse as the start of a practice, not a single heroic renunciation.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the destroyer-of-the-self language exactly and briefly: the gate makes the self unfit for any human goal, and the fitting response is simply to give up desire, anger, and greed, closing with a signal that praise of this letting-go follows in the next verse. Madhusudana develops the mechanism further: giving up the trio proceeds in two stages, first blocking the effect of a fault already arisen, then reaching the point where it no longer arises, and he is careful that talk of the self's destruction names only unfitness for the goal, since the Self itself is never, on this school's final view, actually destructible.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's own comment on this verse is brief: he confirms that this hell takes the form of the demonic nature already described, names its threefold door as desire, anger, and greed exactly as explained earlier in the chapter, and glosses door as way or cause, the mechanism by which the hell is reached. He closes with the same bare instruction the verse itself gives, that one should give up these three and keep far from them, without extending the point into a longer argument in the material that survives on this specific verse.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The published record states plainly that Madhva offers no comment on this verse. Rather than invent a confident Dvaita reading here, this entry names the gap honestly. On a Dvaita reading, one might extend his broader framework and suggest that desire, anger, and greed mark a soul turning its dependent capacity to act away from Hari and toward self-referential craving, but this is a flagged extrapolation from his general system, not his recorded word on 16.21.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment is a fragment glossing two words, threefold and by these, and stating only that this triad is the gate of hell and is therefore to be abandoned. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this toward his fuller teaching elsewhere and read desire, anger, and greed as contractions of the self's own freedom, consciousness narrowing around craved objects, but the surviving text itself does not develop this, and it is offered here only as a clearly labeled possible extension, not as his recorded teaching.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara hangs the entire chapter on this verse: the twenty-six divine virtues and the six-headed demonic portrait alike are drawn into this one tight knot of three root-faults, and from here the chapter turns into a text of practice, the plain instruction for one who has heard the long picture and now wants the single point to strike at. He is direct that craving, anger, and greed destroy the self and carry a person down into low wombs, and that the whole of oneself, not a partial effort, must be given to setting them aside.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a contemporary seeker, the most exportable point in the source material is Madhusudana's two-step account of how the giving-up actually works: first interrupting a fault's effect once it has already surfaced, only later reaching the stage where it fails to surface at all. This reframes the verse's bare command as a workable psychological sequence rather than an all-or-nothing demand, matching the intuition that a lasting change in behavior is built in stages, catching a reaction before habit narrows into character.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Desire, anger, and greed feel like they arise from one place in me. If I fight them as three separate battles, am I missing something the verse is actually telling me?
The verse itself names them together as a single threefold gate, not three unrelated doors. Sridhara reads this triad as the compressed root of everything the chapter has described, which suggests they are meant to be seen, and addressed, as one knot rather than three unconnected fights.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Madhusudana's account of the giving-up as a two-stage process, first blocking the effect of a fault once it has risen, only later reaching the point where it no longer rises, works the same whichever face of the triad shows up. You are not learning three separate skills; you are practicing one skill, catching the rising impulse, on whichever of the three happens to appear.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Shankara and Ramanuja both keep the instruction simple and undivided: give up this threefold thing, this trio, together. Neither commentator suggests a separate strategy is needed for each. The unity of the command matches the unity you already sense in where these three seem to come from.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Sometime today, when a flare of wanting, irritation, or the urge to hoard rises in you, do not try to abolish it outright. Simply notice it as it arises, and decline to act on its instruction just this once. That single refusal is the first of Madhusudana's two stages, the smaller and entirely available one: not yet the fault failing to arise, only the fault caught and not obeyed.
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.