The body's austerity is honor paid, cleanliness kept, conduct held straight, and no creature harmed.
Krishna opens his account of true austerity with its quietest form. Nothing here is dramatic; the discipline lies entirely in how the body is offered, kept, and restrained.
Honoring the gods, the twice-born, one's teachers, and the wise; keeping the body pure, straightforward, restrained in desire, and free of harm to any creature: this is called the austerity of the body.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna what austerity is not, self-display, self-torture, the destruction meant to injure another. Now he turns to what it actually is, and begins with its plainest form: the discipline carried by the body.
The teaching
The list is short and almost entirely without drama. Honor the gods, the twice-born, your teachers, and the wise, and do it through the body itself, through bowing, through service, through simple attention paid. Keep the body pure. Hold your conduct straight, without the crookedness that comes from trying to appear other than you are. Restrain desire, and, on one reading, restrain it earlier than you might expect, at the level of the glance rather than only at the level of the deed. And cause no creature harm. Why call this the body's austerity, when honor, straightness, and restraint plainly involve more than the body alone? The oldest surviving answer is careful on this point: it is bodily because the body leads, not because it acts by itself. The agent and the inner faculties are engaged in it too; the name simply marks which instrument goes first. Honesty asks something more of this page than most verses do. Two of the six voices gathered here have little or nothing to offer on this exact verse. One source states outright that it offers no comment here at all, part of a stretch it passes over before returning two verses later. Another's surviving word is brief, touching one term before its attention visibly moves ahead to the verses on speech and mind still to come. Where the tradition is quiet, the truer teaching is to let that quiet stand, rather than to fill it with invented confidence.
The doubt that rises
If two of the six major voices say little or nothing about this exact verse, what does that silence itself mean, an oversight, a judgment that the verse needs no gloss, or simply where their attention happened to fall?
Where the paths divide
Read as a brief, settled technical entry.
Shankara treats the verse as needing only one clarification: bodily austerity is work the body leads among the joint causes of action, never work the body performs alone. Beyond securing this point, he adds little else, treating the verse as a settled entry in a larger architecture rather than an occasion for extended teaching.
Read with each term sharpened toward its fuller sense.
Ramanuja gives purity, uprightness, and continence more concrete edges: purity as bathing at holy fords, uprightness as the coherence of speech, mind, and body together, and continence as the absence of the very glance that treats another as an object to be enjoyed. The discipline, on his reading, starts earlier than any completed act.
Read as an honest gap rather than a hidden teaching.
Madhva's extant commentary is silent on this verse; it says so directly and resumes only two verses on. What can honestly be offered in his name is a flagged extension of his broader teaching elsewhere, that every capacity to act is delegated and dependent on the Lord's sustaining will, applied here to suggest that honoring and restraint express a dependent being's rightful posture. But this verse's own commentary does not say this, and the page marks the difference plainly.
Read as a thin remnant whose attention has already moved ahead.
What survives of Abhinavagupta's comment barely dwells on this verse's own catalogue, pausing only on uprightness as straightness before defining truth and disposition, terms that belong to the verses on speech and mind that follow. A fuller reading in his voice cannot honestly be built from this fragment; what can be said is only that his evident direction, toward inner intent over outward form, is consistent with emphases seen elsewhere in his work.
Read as a structural marker with one small, real distinction.
Sridhara's brief surviving note marks this verse as opening a three-part sequence, bodily, then verbal, then mental austerity, and adds one distinctive refinement: the wise are truth-knowers, held apart specifically from the guru. Beyond noting the structure and this one distinction, his comment does not expand the list further.
Read as the fullest technical account among the surviving sources.
Madhusudana supplies the richest reading: he names the gods and gurus concretely, keeps bodily straightforwardness distinct from a later, inner purity of disposition so the two terms are not confused, and reads the verse's small word 'and' as quietly folding in non-stealing and non-possession. His closing move anchors the whole passage in the Gita's later teaching that action has five joint causes.
The six voices do not disagree so much as they differ in how much they chose to say. Where they speak, they largely agree on the list and on why it is called bodily. Where two of them are silent or brief, this page does not resolve that silence into a hidden meaning; it leaves the gap exactly where the tradition left it.
A question to carry
Where in your own day does honor, cleanliness, straightness, restraint, or harmlessness already live quietly in your body, unnoticed as any kind of discipline at all?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Let the body you already carry do this ordinary work: bow where reverence is due, keep clean, stand straight without stiffness, hold restraint before it is ever needed as restraint, and let no creature suffer for your sake.
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 true austerity from its counterfeit, self-display and self-torture, Krishna opens the positive account with the first of three kinds: the austerity carried by the body, with speech and mind to follow.
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.
Honor the gods, the twice-born, your teachers, and the wise, through the body itself: through bowing, service, and attention.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Where the commentary survives at all, it converges on the same plain list: honoring the gods, the twice-born, one's teachers, and the wise; purity; uprightness; continence; and non-injury, all carried out through the body, is what this verse calls the austerity of the body. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhusudana state this list almost without variation.
Keep the body clean, hold your conduct straight and undivided, and let no creature come to harm through you.
Across Bhakti, Advaita, Kashmir ŚaivaŚrīdhara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śrīdhara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
More than one source marks this verse as the opening of a deliberate three-part structure: the austerity of the body here, of speech next, and of mind after that. Sridhara and Madhusudana both note this shape explicitly, and Abhinavagupta's own comment, brief as it is, gestures toward the same sequence by naming the span it covers.
The name 'bodily' marks which instrument leads a joint effort; it does not cut the body off from the agent and the mind acting with it.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
Where the label 'bodily' is explained at all, it is explained the same way: not as the body acting alone, but as the body serving as the chief or leading instrument, with the agent and the other faculties engaged alongside it. Shankara and Madhusudana both anchor this in the Gita's later teaching that every action has five causes.
Where a commentator has little or nothing to say on this exact verse, the honest page says so, rather than inventing a false depth.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
None of what survives treats this austerity as dramatic or painful. The list is entirely of ordinary, sustainable practices, worship, cleanliness, straight conduct, restraint, and harmlessness, with no fasting, no ordeal, and no self-torment named anywhere in it.
This verse opens a sequence; two more verses will name the austerity of speech and of mind in turn.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
A real gap runs through the tradition here. Madhva's commentary is explicitly silent on this verse, and Abhinavagupta's surviving comment barely touches its own subject before moving to the austerities of speech and mind. Any full six-way harmony on this particular verse has to be read alongside that honest silence, not around it.
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 gives the same four terms sharper edges. Purity becomes specifically bathing at holy fords; uprightness becomes the coherence of speech, mind, and body together; and continence is placed at the level of the glance, the absence of looking at another as an object to be enjoyed, before any act is reached. The discipline, on his reading, starts earlier than the deed.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's extant commentary offers no reading of this verse at all; his text is silent here and resumes only two verses later. What can honestly be offered in his name is a labeled extension of his general principle, seen elsewhere in his work, that all capacity to act is a delegated competence sustained by the Lord, which would frame this verse's honoring and restraint as the visible posture of a dependent being, though the verse's own commentary does not say this.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's brief surviving note marks this verse as opening the three-part structure of bodily, verbal, and mental austerity, and adds one distinctive touch: the wise are truth-knowers set apart specifically from the guru, a small sharpening of who belongs among the four honored classes. Beyond marking the structure and this distinction, his comment does not expand further.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana's fuller nomenclature works like a modern gloss avant la lettre: he names the gods and the gurus concretely, distinguishes bodily straightforwardness from a later, separate purity of disposition so the two are not confused, and reads the verse's 'and' as quietly including non-stealing and non-possession, building the most complete technical account among the surviving sources.
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 that nothing on this list asks for anything extraordinary. Honor what deserves honor, keep the body clean, let your bearing be straight rather than stiff or postured, hold your restraint at the level of the glance before it ever becomes a deed, and cause no creature harm. Try one of these today, not as a special effort, but as the ordinary shape your body already knows how to take.
So let the body you already have do this quiet work: bow where reverence is due, stay clean, stand straight without stiffness, hold your restraint at the glance before it becomes a deed, and let no creature suffer for your sake.
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
here the commentary survives at all, it converges on the same plain list: honoring the gods, the twice-born, one's teachers, and the wise; purity; uprightness; continence; and non-injury, all carried out through the body, is what this verse calls the austerity of the body. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhusudana state this list almost without variation.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
More than one source marks this verse as the opening of a deliberate three-part structure: the austerity of the body here, of speech next, and of mind after that. Sridhara and Madhusudana both note this shape explicitly, and Abhinavagupta's own comment, brief as it is, gestures toward the same sequence by naming the span it covers.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Where the label 'bodily' is explained at all, it is explained the same way: not as the body acting alone, but as the body serving as the chief or leading instrument, with the agent and the other faculties engaged alongside it. Shankara and Madhusudana both anchor this in the Gita's later teaching that every action has five causes.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
None of what survives treats this austerity as dramatic or painful. The list is entirely of ordinary, sustainable practices, worship, cleanliness, straight conduct, restraint, and harmlessness, with no fasting, no ordeal, and no self-torment named anywhere in it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A real gap runs through the tradition here. Madhva's commentary is explicitly silent on this verse, and Abhinavagupta's surviving comment barely touches its own subject before moving to the austerities of speech and mind. Any full six-way harmony on this particular verse has to be read alongside that honest silence, not around it.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's concern is narrow and technical: he wants the label 'bodily' correctly understood, as work led by the body among the joint causes of action, and he says little else. He offers no extended reflection on the individual virtues named, treating the verse as a brief, settled entry in a larger architecture rather than as an occasion for its own teaching.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja gives the same four terms sharper edges. Purity becomes specifically bathing at holy fords; uprightness becomes the coherence of speech, mind, and body together; and continence is placed at the level of the glance, the absence of looking at another as an object to be enjoyed, before any act is reached. The discipline, on his reading, starts earlier than the deed.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's extant commentary offers no reading of this verse at all; his text is silent here and resumes only two verses later. What can honestly be offered in his name is a labeled extension of his general principle, seen elsewhere in his work, that all capacity to act is a delegated competence sustained by the Lord, which would frame this verse's honoring and restraint as the visible posture of a dependent being, though the verse's own commentary does not say this.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment barely pauses on this verse's own list, touching only 'uprightness' as straightness before moving ahead to define terms, truth and disposition, that belong to the austerities of speech and mind that follow. What can be drawn from this thin remnant, clearly marked as extension rather than his stated words, is an emphasis that would fall on inner intent over outward form, consistent with where his attention visibly goes.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's brief surviving note marks this verse as opening the three-part structure of bodily, verbal, and mental austerity, and adds one distinctive touch: the wise are truth-knowers set apart specifically from the guru, a small sharpening of who belongs among the four honored classes. Beyond marking the structure and this distinction, his comment does not expand further.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana's fuller nomenclature works like a modern gloss avant la lettre: he names the gods and the gurus concretely, distinguishes bodily straightforwardness from a later, separate purity of disposition so the two are not confused, and reads the verse's 'and' as quietly including non-stealing and non-possession, building the most complete technical account among the surviving sources.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If honoring the gods and keeping the body clean are just outward customs, how can they be called austerity, a discipline, at all?
The oldest reading available guards exactly this worry: it is called the body's austerity not because the body acts alone but because it is the leading instrument, with the agent and the inner faculties acting through it. An outward bow, on this reading, is never merely outward; it is the whole person, doing something, with the body in front.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A second answer sharpens where the real discipline sits. Continence, for instance, is placed not at the level of the act but at the level of the glance and the attitude behind it. Read this way, the list is not a set of gestures to perform but a set of places, in the body and in the eye, where restraint is actually being asked for.
Rāmānujācārya
A third, more limited honesty belongs here too: not every source treats this verse as worth a full unpacking. Where the commentary is silent or brief, as with two of the six voices gathered on this page, the most faithful answer is to say so plainly rather than to manufacture a depth the tradition itself did not choose to supply at this exact verse.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Notice that nothing on this list asks for anything extraordinary. Honor what deserves honor, keep the body clean, let your bearing be straight rather than stiff or postured, hold your restraint at the level of the glance before it ever becomes a deed, and cause no creature harm. Try one of these today, not as a special effort, but as the ordinary shape your body already knows how to take.
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.