Arjuna asks where sincere but unschooled faith actually stands.
The previous chapter closed by measuring people who know scripture's rule against those who reject it outright. Here Arjuna names a third, more human case: people who never quite met the rule, yet still worship in real faith, and asks where that leaves them.
Arjuna said: Krishna, what is the standing of those who set aside the rule of scripture and yet worship with faith? Is it sattva, or rajas, or tamas?
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just closed the sixteenth chapter with a hard verdict: whoever casts aside the rule of scripture and acts by his own desire gains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the highest goal. That verdict sorted people cleanly, the divine who follow the rule with faith, the demonic who scorn it. But Arjuna knows this leaves someone out, and he asks about that person now, on behalf of every reader who recognizes themselves in the gap.
The teaching
There are people who worship with real faith, convinced that what they revere is genuinely so. They are not the ones who hate scripture or set it aside out of disbelief; that case was already settled. The faith itself proves it: no one who actually sees a scriptural rule for worship would abandon it out of unbelief and then turn faithfully to that very worship. So the person in view here simply never had access to the rule, or drifted past it through laziness, inherited custom, or the sheer difficulty of mastering scripture, and yet worships sincerely all the same. Such people act without reference to any rule because they follow the conduct of their elders, trustingly, carried by custom rather than a studied injunction. Their authority is the example of the past, not the Veda directly. Arjuna's real question is about their standing, their footing: is this worship of the nature of sattva, clarity and goodness; of rajas, restless passion; or of tamas, darkness and inertia? Because such a person looks like the divine in faith and like the demonic in disregard of the rule, and nothing yet settles which, the doubt is genuine, and it is this single question that the rest of the chapter spends itself answering, sorting faith, and then food, sacrifice, austerity, and giving, each into the three qualities.
The doubt that rises
If your own faith is sincere but was never anchored in a rule you studied, only in what you watched your elders do, does that faith already carry weight, or does its very lack of scriptural grounding leave it, and you, in a kind of limbo the rest of this chapter must resolve?
Where the paths divide
Read as a precise problem of who is, and is not, being asked about.
Shankara reads the verse as fencing off exactly one kind of person: not the one who knows the rule and rejects it out of disbelief, but the one who never met the rule at all and still worships trustingly, carried by inherited example. The qualifier 'endowed with faith' is what does this work, since knowing rejection and genuine faith cannot coexist. Having drawn this line, he holds that the question, asked in wholly general terms, forces Krishna to answer only by dividing the ground three ways, sattva, rajas, tamas, which the chapter then goes on to do.
Read as an honest sorting held inside a larger, already-settled verdict.
Ramanuja takes nishtha, standing, at its plain sense: the ground a person rests in. He answers Arjuna's question honestly, by quality, but he answers it holding in view a conviction he takes as already settled, that faith unsanctioned by scripture bears no final fruit, nor does the sacrifice or anything growing from it. So for him this sorting does not redeem unscriptural worship; it explains its quality while still marking such worship as ultimately fruitless outside the rule.
Read as proof, by the very shape of the question, that only innocent ignorance is meant.
Madhva presses hard on a single point: the person here has merely never learned the rule, not deliberately rejected it. He gives two reasons. If the Veda's outright opponents were meant, the single word 'tamasic' would answer the question and the threefold division would do no work at all. And no one even partly sattvic could be a Veda-opponent, since sattvic conduct is itself rooted entirely in the dharma the Veda establishes. So only the innocently ignorant can be in view here.
A thin source, honored as thin rather than filled in with invented confidence.
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment on this verse is a single bare line, restating rather than glossing the question: those who carry on with faith but without resting on scriptural rule, what course do they take? No Trika vocabulary of recognition or contraction is attached to it in what remains. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might reasonably extend that unscriptural faith could be read as a sign that recognition arises through many gates, sattva, rajas, or tamas naming the degree of contraction still present. But that extension is offered here honestly as inference from his method elsewhere, not as a line he actually wrote on this verse.
Read as the chapter's hinge question, framed around fitness for knowledge.
Sridhara reads this verse as deciding something practical: is such a person fit for the self-knowledge already taught earlier in the Gita? He rules out the deliberate transgressor on the same ground as Shankara, since faith cannot coexist with knowing rejection, and then sharpens the real doubt: faith itself is of the clear quality, but slighting scripture out of trouble or laziness belongs to passion and dullness, so whether this seeker's worship finally rests in clarity, and so carries a claim to knowledge, is a real question the rest of the chapter must settle.
Read as naming a genuine, previously undecided third category.
Madhusudana treats the prior chapter's division into gods, who know and follow the rule, and demons, who know and reject it, as leaving a real gap: those who never knew the rule yet still hold faith. Such people look part demon in their disregard and part god in their faith, and nothing settles the matter either way. He reads the question as splitting cleanly on the word 'or': sattvic faith marks them as gods, rajasic-tamasic faith marks them as demons, and it is exactly this division the chapter now works out.
The six readings agree on who is being asked about, the sincere but unschooled worshipper, and they agree the question is genuinely open rather than already answered. They part on what hangs on the answer. For Ramanuja the verdict of fruitlessness for unsanctioned faith is already fixed, and the sorting only explains why. For Sridhara the stakes are fitness for liberating knowledge itself. For Madhva the very shape of the question proves the person is innocent, not hostile. And for the one Kashmir Shaiva voice on file, almost nothing beyond the bare question survives, so this page leaves that gap exactly as it finds it rather than resolving it for you.
A question to carry
Where in your own devotion have you simply trusted what you were shown, rather than studied what was actually asked of you, and what would it take to look honestly at what quality that trust rests in?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So bring your own inherited faith forward without shame and without false certainty. Let this verse's honest doubt be your own: not everything sincere is automatically clear, and not everything unschooled is automatically dark, and the difference is worth finding out.
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 opening verse of Chapter 17, spoken by Arjuna, and it turns the whole chapter's attention from what scripture commands to the quality of the faith and worship that fills scripture's gaps.
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.
This question rises straight out of the last chapter's close, which had sorted people cleanly into those who follow scripture's rule and those who scorn it by desire.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
This verse is Arjuna's question, and it rises directly out of the close of the previous chapter, where Krishna had said that whoever casts aside the rule of scripture and acts by his own desire gains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme goal. That ruling sorted people cleanly into two groups, the divine, who study scripture and act with faith, and the demonic, who disregard it and act by whim. Arjuna now asks about a third kind of person who fits neither group.
The very fact of faith marks this third person off from the hostile transgressor, since faith cannot coexist with a knowing rejection of the rule.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
The people in question are well-meaning, not hostile. They worship endowed with faith, the conviction that what they revere is real, and this very faith is read as ruling out the deliberate transgressor: no one who actually sees a scripture prescribing worship would abandon it out of disbelief and then turn faithfully to that same worship. So the person asked about here simply never met the rule, or drifted past it, and worships sincerely all the same.
These worshippers act on inherited custom, not a studied injunction, following the conduct of elders they have simply watched and trusted.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
These people worship without reference to any scriptural rule because they follow the conduct of their elders. They have watched those before them worship the gods and the like, and they do the same, trustingly, carried by inherited custom rather than a known injunction. Their authority is the example of the past, not the Veda directly.
The doubt is real because the person resembles the divine in faith and the demonic in disregard, and nothing yet decides which quality actually governs them.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
Arjuna's actual question concerns their standing, nishtha, the ground they rest in. Is their worship of the nature of sattva, rajas, or tamas? Because the person described resembles the divine in faith and the demonic in disregard of the rule, and nothing decides between the two, the doubt is genuine, and this single question sets up the whole chapter, which answers by sorting faith, food, sacrifice, austerity, and giving into the three qualities.
Where the record itself is thin, as with the one surviving line from the Kashmir Shaiva side, this page says so honestly rather than inventing a fuller answer.
Across Kashmir ŚaivaAbhinavaguptaIn Abhinavagupta’s words
Not every source left the same weight of comment here. Where the record is thin, as with the one surviving line from the Kashmir Shaiva commentary, this reading says so plainly rather than filling the gap with invented confidence, and treats any further reading as a clearly labeled extension rather than a master's own word.
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 reads nishtha plainly as the ground a person rests in, and takes the question at face value: does such worship abide in sattva, rajas, or tamas? But he answers already holding a settled conviction in view, that faith scripture has not sanctioned bears no fruit, nor does the sacrifice or anything growing from it. So for him the chapter's sorting does not redeem unscriptural worship; it only sorts it by quality, beginning from the threefold nature of scriptural faith itself.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva insists the 'casting aside' named here is mere ignorance, never a deliberate rejection born of disbelief in scripture's authority. He gives two tight reasons: if outright opponents of the Veda were meant, the single answer 'tamasic' would suffice and the chapter's threefold division would do no work at all, and no one who is even partly sattvic could be a Veda-opponent, since the sattvic by their very nature practice the dharma that has its sole root in the Veda. So the person asked about is only the one who never came to know the rule.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads this verse as the hinge of the whole chapter, framing it in terms of fitness for the self-knowledge already taught. He rules out the deliberate transgressor on the same ground as Shankara, faith cannot coexist with knowing rejection, and then sharpens the question: since faith itself is of the clear quality, but slighting scripture out of trouble or laziness belongs to passion and dullness, the doubt over which quality actually grounds the person's worship is real and unresolved until the chapter answers it.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana reads the verse as naming a genuine third category left over from the prior chapter's clean division into gods and demons, a group that looks part demon in its disregard of the rule and part god in its faith, with nothing settling the matter either way. He notes the address 'Krishna', the one who draws away sin, as significant, and reads the question as dividing cleanly along the word 'or': sattvic faith marks them as gods, rajasic-tamasic faith marks them as demons.
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
Sit for a moment with your own inherited practices, the ones you picked up from family or custom rather than from any rule you studied and chose. Notice, without judgment, which of them you hold with real faith and which you simply repeat. This verse does not ask you to distrust sincere devotion; it asks you to notice honestly what quality it rests in, since the same outward act can rest in clarity, in restlessness, or in inertia, and only honest noticing tells you which.
So hold your own inherited faith honestly today, neither claiming more for it than it has earned nor dismissing it as worthless, and let the question of its quality stay open until it is rightly answered.
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
his verse is Arjuna's question, and it rises directly out of the close of the previous chapter, where Krishna had said that whoever casts aside the rule of scripture and acts by his own desire gains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme goal. That ruling sorted people cleanly into two groups, the divine, who study scripture and act with faith, and the demonic, who disregard it and act by whim. Arjuna now asks about a third kind of person who fits neither group.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The people in question are well-meaning, not hostile. They worship endowed with faith, the conviction that what they revere is real, and this very faith is read as ruling out the deliberate transgressor: no one who actually sees a scripture prescribing worship would abandon it out of disbelief and then turn faithfully to that same worship. So the person asked about here simply never met the rule, or drifted past it, and worships sincerely all the same.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
These people worship without reference to any scriptural rule because they follow the conduct of their elders. They have watched those before them worship the gods and the like, and they do the same, trustingly, carried by inherited custom rather than a known injunction. Their authority is the example of the past, not the Veda directly.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Arjuna's actual question concerns their standing, nishtha, the ground they rest in. Is their worship of the nature of sattva, rajas, or tamas? Because the person described resembles the divine in faith and the demonic in disregard of the rule, and nothing decides between the two, the doubt is genuine, and this single question sets up the whole chapter, which answers by sorting faith, food, sacrifice, austerity, and giving into the three qualities.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Not every source left the same weight of comment here. Where the record is thin, as with the one surviving line from the Kashmir Shaiva commentary, this reading says so plainly rather than filling the gap with invented confidence, and treats any further reading as a clearly labeled extension rather than a master's own word.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse mainly as a problem of classification and fences off carefully who is meant: not the one who sees the rule and abandons it out of disbelief, but the one who never meets the rule at all and yet worships trustingly on the strength of inherited example. The word 'endowed with faith' does the work of this fencing, since such faith cannot coexist with a knowing rejection of scripture. Having drawn the line this way, Shankara holds that the question, asked in general terms, requires Krishna to answer by dividing the ground three ways.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads nishtha plainly as the ground a person rests in, and takes the question at face value: does such worship abide in sattva, rajas, or tamas? But he answers already holding a settled conviction in view, that faith scripture has not sanctioned bears no fruit, nor does the sacrifice or anything growing from it. So for him the chapter's sorting does not redeem unscriptural worship; it only sorts it by quality, beginning from the threefold nature of scriptural faith itself.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva insists the 'casting aside' named here is mere ignorance, never a deliberate rejection born of disbelief in scripture's authority. He gives two tight reasons: if outright opponents of the Veda were meant, the single answer 'tamasic' would suffice and the chapter's threefold division would do no work at all, and no one who is even partly sattvic could be a Veda-opponent, since the sattvic by their very nature practice the dharma that has its sole root in the Veda. So the person asked about is only the one who never came to know the rule.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment here is a single bare restatement of the question, without elaboration: those who carry on with faith but without resting on scriptural rule, what course do they take? No Trika vocabulary of recognition or contraction is attached to this line in what remains. Any reading past this plain restatement, such as treating unscriptural faith as a sign that recognition can arise through many gates, is offered here only as a clearly labeled extrapolation from his method elsewhere, not his stated word on this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads this verse as the hinge of the whole chapter, framing it in terms of fitness for the self-knowledge already taught. He rules out the deliberate transgressor on the same ground as Shankara, faith cannot coexist with knowing rejection, and then sharpens the question: since faith itself is of the clear quality, but slighting scripture out of trouble or laziness belongs to passion and dullness, the doubt over which quality actually grounds the person's worship is real and unresolved until the chapter answers it.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana reads the verse as naming a genuine third category left over from the prior chapter's clean division into gods and demons, a group that looks part demon in its disregard of the rule and part god in its faith, with nothing settling the matter either way. He notes the address 'Krishna', the one who draws away sin, as significant, and reads the question as dividing cleanly along the word 'or': sattvic faith marks them as gods, rajasic-tamasic faith marks them as demons.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I worship sincerely, with real faith, but I never learned what scripture actually prescribes and mostly follow what I was taught by family and custom. Does my faith count for anything, or am I stranded outside the rule?
The commentators take pains to separate your case from the hostile transgressor's. That person, who sees the rule and rejects it out of disbelief, was already settled as demonic in the prior chapter. You are the third kind: one with no access to the rule, or who has drifted past it, who still worships with real faith, and the very fact of your faith is what marks you off from the hostile.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Your faith is not treated as worthless. It is itself, by nature, of the clear quality. What is left open is only whether the whole of your practice, faith plus the neglect of the rule, rests finally in clarity, or whether it is pulled toward passion and dullness by the very laziness or difficulty that kept you from the rule in the first place.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhvācārya
Some sources hold that unsanctioned faith bears no final fruit on its own; others simply sort it by quality without pronouncing a verdict; and one surviving voice offers only the bare question itself, honestly, without claiming more than it says. So take the real answer as the rest of this chapter gives it, verse by verse, rather than assuming either full credit or full disqualification in advance.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with your own inherited practices, the ones you picked up from family or custom rather than from any rule you studied and chose. Notice, without judgment, which of them you hold with real faith and which you simply repeat. This verse does not ask you to distrust sincere devotion; it asks you to notice honestly what quality it rests in, since the same outward act can rest in clarity, in restlessness, or in inertia, and only honest noticing tells you which.
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.