Whatever you offer, give, or undertake without faith is called asat, and carries nothing here or hereafter.
An oblation poured, a gift given, an austerity held, correctly performed in every outward detail, can still be named not-real. What decides is never the form but whether faith stands inside it.
Whatever oblation is poured, whatever gift is given, whatever austerity is undertaken, or whatever else is done without faith, is called "asat," not-real. It carries no value here, and none after death.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The chapter has just lifted up the sacred formula Om Tat Sat and the threefold sat. In this, its closing verse, you meet the opposite pole: the act that wears the right form but carries no faith inside, before Arjuna's question opens the next chapter.
The teaching
Pour an oblation, give a gift, hold an austerity, perform any prescribed act. If it is done without faith, it is called asat, not-real. These are the very acts the chapter has just praised, but stripped of inner faith they are named not-good, which is the verse's whole point: it is faith, not the outer form, that gives an act its standing. Such an act is barren in both directions. It is of no use hereafter, in the world beyond, and of no use here, in this present life; it raises no unseen merit, so it yields nothing after death, and it earns no good name now, however much labor and cost it took. Part of why it fails here is that the good themselves revile it; their verdict is not incidental to the failure but part of it. And no shortcut rescues it. A sacred formula can mend a lapse in an act that already carries faith, but it cannot manufacture faith where none was ever present, no more than a sprout can be coaxed to grow from bare stone. Take the lesson by its contrast: faith is the one ground every worthy act rests on, so faith alone is to be taken up, and you carry that forward into the next chapter with faith already set as the indispensable ground.
The doubt that rises
If I perform a sacrifice, a gift, or an austerity exactly as scripture prescribes, why should the mere absence of inner faith strip it of all value?
Where the paths divide
Read against the worry that a sacred formula could repair any act at all.
An earlier verse said that uttering Om Tat Sat can mend a deficiency in a faithful person's sacrifice. So you might object: then could a faithless person's act be mended the same way, making faith itself unnecessary? Shankara's answer is no. The faithless act is asat because it lies wholly outside the path that leads to the Lord, so the sacred words have nothing there to repair; the mending reaches only where faith has already laid the ground.
Read with the focus held spare and resting on faith itself.
Ramanuja keeps this narrow and exact: even a scripturally correct oblation, gift, or austerity, done without faith, is asat, useful neither for liberation nor for any worldly fruit, hereafter or here. The prescribed outer form is only the body of the act; faith is what animates it. Without faith the body is dead. With faith it is alive. A dead form, however correctly assembled, has, in the strict sense, no real being at all.
Read with faith taken in an openly theistic key, aim at the Supreme.
Madhva anchors the point in supporting scripture: the gods call 'sat' the action that has the Lord for its aim, brought to bear by the sacred designations spoken near it and by the Lord's own pleasure in it. An act with no such aim, and so no faith, simply has nowhere to draw its fruit from; the fault is structural, not incidental.
Read so that the one missing ingredient is the bond to the Lord, not faith in general.
On this reading, faith as such is not condemned by the verse; what is condemned is faith cut off from relation to the Lord. Even three-guna action performed with ordinary faith stays finally fruitless unless it is aimed at Bhagavan and sealed in the sacred formula; only that aimed, related action becomes truly sat.
Read as the single knot tying off the whole chapter's teaching.
Sridhara reads this closing verse as gathering up everything the chapter has taught, threefold faith, threefold worship, food, sacrifice, austerity, gift, and the compensating triple name, onto one base: where faith itself is absent, none of the rest can hold. The chapter opened on Arjuna's question about those who worship leaving scripture aside; it closes on the inverse axiom, that without faith no well-formed act carries across at all.
Read as a diagnosis of what a sacred formula can and cannot repair.
Madhusudana frames the verse as answering a precise worry: if a lapse in an act already held with some faith can be mended by the sacred formula, could the utterly faithless expect the same rescue? No, because faith is the very cause of the sattvic state the formula presupposes; asking the formula to manufacture faith is, in his own image, like asking a sprout to grow from bare stone.
All six readings agree that faith, not outer form, is what decides an act's standing, and that no formula can substitute for its absence. They part on what exactly faith consists in and on how sharply this verse cuts. Is the faithless act utterly outside the path, as Shankara reads it, or is even a faith-led act insufficient unless it is aimed at the Lord specifically, as the Shuddhadvaita reading presses? Is asat a claim about the act's real being, as Ramanuja frames it, or a narrower claim about praiseworthiness, as the one surviving fragment from Abhinavagupta suggests? The verse does not adjudicate between these, and this page will not either.
A question to carry
The next time you perform a duty, a kindness, or a rite, can you tell whether there is genuine trust and offering inside it, or whether you are only going through the motions for other eyes?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
In drawing near to what matters most, the act is never the main thing; the faith and the inner disposition behind it are. So let the plainest duty in front of you today, however small, be done with real trust, and it will not be wasted, whatever grander rites without it may fail to carry.
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 chapter has just praised the sacred formula Om Tat Sat and the threefold sat; here, in its closing verse, Krishna names the exact opposite, capping the whole teaching before Arjuna opens the next chapter.
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.
An oblation poured, a gift given, an austerity held, any prescribed act done: each is called asat the moment the faith within it is missing, for faith, not outer form, gives an act its standing.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse names the negative pole of the whole chapter. An oblation poured, a gift given, an austerity practiced, or any other prescribed act performed, if done without faith, is called asat. The chapter has just praised the sacred formula Om Tat Sat and the threefold sat; this verse marks its exact opposite, so that the very acts just celebrated are now named not-real the moment the faith inside them is missing.
The faithless act fails both ways at once: it stores up no merit for the world to come, and it earns no good name in the world you stand in now.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Such a faithless act is barren in both directions at once: it is of no use hereafter, after death, and of no use here, in this present life. It produces no unseen merit for the world to come, and it earns no standing in the world you are in now, so however much labor and cost it took, it returns nothing on either side.
There is a further reason it wins no honor here: the good revile a faithless act, and the verdict of the wise is itself part of why it stands as not-commendable.
Across Advaita, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
More than one reading gives a specific reason the act fails here, in this world: it is reviled by the good. The verdict of the wise is not incidental to the act's failure; it is part of what makes the act asat, not-commendable, in the first place.
No sacred formula can manufacture faith where none exists; it can only mend a lapse in an act that already carries faith within it.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
The verse points to its positive lesson by way of contrast: faith, not the outer form, is what gives any act its standing, so faith alone is to be taken up. Read this way, the chapter that opened with Arjuna's question about those who worship leaving scripture aside closes on the inverse axiom, that without faith no well-formed act can carry across.
So the verse turns you by contrast toward what does carry: faith is the indispensable ground of every worthy act, and it alone is to be taken up.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Underneath the different technical explanations lies one shared conviction: the outward shape of the act, oblation or gift or austerity, is never itself the deciding factor. What decides is the inner disposition carried into it, so that an identical outward performance can be either fruitful or entirely wasted depending only on whether faith is present.
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 keeps the reading spare: even a scripturally correct oblation, gift, or austerity done without faith is asat, because it serves neither liberation nor any transmigratory fruit, hereafter or here. The outer form prescribed by scripture is only the body that faith animates; without faith the body is dead, and what is dead has, in the strict sense Ramanuja intends, no real being at all.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva anchors the verse in supporting scripture and reads faith in an explicitly theistic key: an action becomes sat only when it carries the Lord's form and pleases Him, brought about through the sacred designations spoken near it. An act with no aim at the Supreme, and so no faith, has nowhere to receive its fruit from, since nothing brings the Lord to bear upon it.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the verse as the tightest knot tying off the whole chapter: the long teaching of threefold faith, worship, food, sacrifice, austerity, and gift, together with the compensating triple name, rests entirely on this one base, that where faith is absent, none of the rest can hold. He gives the double failure, hereafter and here, a single shared cause rather than two separate explanations.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana frames the verse as answering a precise objection: if those who keep faith by mere family custom can have a ritual lapse mended by the sacred formula, could the utterly faithless expect the same repair? His answer is that the formula cannot make good what was never fit for repair, as unfit as a sprout asked to grow from stone; the operation the verse performs is a diagnosis of what faith alone can secure, not a workaround for its absence.
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
Before you begin whatever oblation, gift, austerity, or ordinary duty is in front of you today, pause for one breath and ask only this: is there trust here, or only performance for other eyes? You do not need a grander rite to make the moment count; the plainest task, held with faith and offered without craving for its reward, already carries what the most elaborate faithless rite cannot.
When you act today, look once at the inside as well as the outside: is there trust here, is there an offering here. The plainest duty done with faith is never wasted.
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 the negative pole of the whole chapter. An oblation poured, a gift given, an austerity practiced, or any other prescribed act performed, if done without faith, is called asat. The chapter has just praised the sacred formula Om Tat Sat and the threefold sat; this verse marks its exact opposite, so that the very acts just celebrated are now named not-real the moment the faith inside them is missing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Such a faithless act is barren in both directions at once: it is of no use hereafter, after death, and of no use here, in this present life. It produces no unseen merit for the world to come, and it earns no standing in the world you are in now, so however much labor and cost it took, it returns nothing on either side.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
More than one reading gives a specific reason the act fails here, in this world: it is reviled by the good. The verdict of the wise is not incidental to the act's failure; it is part of what makes the act asat, not-commendable, in the first place.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
The verse points to its positive lesson by way of contrast: faith, not the outer form, is what gives any act its standing, so faith alone is to be taken up. Read this way, the chapter that opened with Arjuna's question about those who worship leaving scripture aside closes on the inverse axiom, that without faith no well-formed act can carry across.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Underneath the different technical explanations lies one shared conviction: the outward shape of the act, oblation or gift or austerity, is never itself the deciding factor. What decides is the inner disposition carried into it, so that an identical outward performance can be either fruitful or entirely wasted depending only on whether faith is present.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse against a specific worry the chapter has just raised: if uttering Om Tat Sat can repair a deficiency in a faithful person's sacrifice, could the same words repair a faithless person's act, making faith itself dispensable? This verse forecloses that. The faithless act is asat because it lies wholly outside the path that leads to the Lord, so no repair reaches it; the sacred formula mends only what faith has already grounded.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja keeps the reading spare: even a scripturally correct oblation, gift, or austerity done without faith is asat, because it serves neither liberation nor any transmigratory fruit, hereafter or here. The outer form prescribed by scripture is only the body that faith animates; without faith the body is dead, and what is dead has, in the strict sense Ramanuja intends, no real being at all.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva anchors the verse in supporting scripture and reads faith in an explicitly theistic key: an action becomes sat only when it carries the Lord's form and pleases Him, brought about through the sacred designations spoken near it. An act with no aim at the Supreme, and so no faith, has nowhere to receive its fruit from, since nothing brings the Lord to bear upon it.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
In the surviving fragment of his commentary, Abhinavagupta names the faithless act tamasic, yielding only the toil of assembling its factors, and glosses asat narrowly as not worthy of praise rather than as a metaphysical non-being. He closes with a summing-up verse observing that the identical outward factors and act nonetheless lead the person of clear knowledge on to release, without elaborating in the extant text exactly how that inner clarity performs the transformation.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the verse as the tightest knot tying off the whole chapter: the long teaching of threefold faith, worship, food, sacrifice, austerity, and gift, together with the compensating triple name, rests entirely on this one base, that where faith is absent, none of the rest can hold. He gives the double failure, hereafter and here, a single shared cause rather than two separate explanations.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana frames the verse as answering a precise objection: if those who keep faith by mere family custom can have a ritual lapse mended by the sacred formula, could the utterly faithless expect the same repair? His answer is that the formula cannot make good what was never fit for repair, as unfit as a sprout asked to grow from stone; the operation the verse performs is a diagnosis of what faith alone can secure, not a workaround for its absence.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I perform a sacrifice, a gift, or an austerity exactly as scripture prescribes, why should the mere absence of inner faith strip it of all value?
Because the form scripture prescribes is only the body of the act, not its life. Faith is what animates that body; without faith the body is dead, and a dead form, however correctly assembled, has no real being of the kind the verse is measuring.
Rāmānujācārya
There is also a concrete double failure to account for: the faithless act raises no unseen merit, so it yields nothing in the world to come, and it wins no honor here, since the good condemn it. Both failures trace back to the same missing ingredient rather than to two separate defects.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
And no external repair is available for it. A sacred formula can mend a lapse in an act that already carries faith; it cannot manufacture faith where none exists, any more than a sprout can be coaxed from bare stone. The remedy was never more ritual precision; it was always the recovery of faith itself.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Before you begin whatever oblation, gift, austerity, or ordinary duty is in front of you today, pause for one breath and ask only this: is there trust here, or only performance for other eyes? You do not need a grander rite to make the moment count; the plainest task, held with faith and offered without craving for its reward, already carries what the most elaborate faithless rite cannot.
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.