A judgment can sound settled and still be bent; that is the mark of the passion-bound intellect.
This is not a person with no opinion on right and wrong. It is a person whose opinion, however confidently held, has not yet come to rest on the matter as it actually stands.
The judgment that grasps what is right and wrong, and what should and should not be done, only in a bent and unsettled way, Arjuna, is the judgment of passion.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just named the sattvic buddhi, the clear-seeing judgment that knows action and withdrawal, duty and its absence, fear and its absence, bondage and freedom, each as it truly is. Now he turns to the middle grade, the intellect colored by rajas, restlessness, which takes up the very same questions and does not see them clearly.
The teaching
This is a judgment engaged with the world, not a blank one. It has views on what is lawful and unlawful, on what should be done and what should not, and it holds those views with what can feel like complete confidence. The flaw named here is one exact word, ayathavat, not as it truly is. This intellect knows something of right and wrong. It simply does not know them correctly or completely, and so its conclusions stay unsettled underneath their apparent certainty, prone to a residue of doubt even when they sound firm. Because it cannot cleanly separate the two pairs, it mixes them, taking things up without properly sifting what is fitting from what is not, and it lacks the steady determination that would make it a guide worth trusting. The commentators who speak most directly to this verse describe the bend as coming from the person's own likes and dislikes: what favors someone is called right, what costs them something is called wrong, and a duty that plainly binds another person in the same place is quietly read as not their own. It is worth saying plainly that the sources behind several of the six traditional voices drawn on for this page are thin for this particular verse, brief lines rather than developed arguments, and for one voice no comment on this verse survives at all. That gap is left visible here rather than papered over.
The doubt that rises
If this judgment can sound completely settled and still be bent by what a person wants, what would actually distinguish it, from the inside, from the clear-seeing judgment named just before it?
Where the paths divide
Read against the standard of scriptural injunction and prohibition.
For Shankara, right action is what scripture enjoins and wrong action is what it forbids, and the rajasic buddhi cannot rightly hold either this pair or the closely related one, what should be done and what should not. The comment on file here is compact, fixing the term against this standard rather than expanding into a longer psychology of the distortion.
Read as a failure at the level of the concrete, not only the general.
Ramanuja's brief remark insists that correct knowledge of duty is always knowledge of duty here, for this person, in this place, time, and condition. The rajasic buddhi fails exactly at this level, missing the pairs in their particulars even when it might seem to grasp them in the abstract.
Read as a narrow, technical boundary between two grades of intellect.
The one line on file under Madhva's name draws a precise boundary: where no fixed rule guarantees conformity to the truth, the understanding is rajasic, and if it were bound to be true as a rule it could not be distinguished from the lowest grade at all. This is offered here for exactly what it is, a brief defining point rather than a developed argument.
Read honestly as a gap in the surviving source, with any extension clearly flagged.
No independent comment from Abhinavagupta on this verse specifically survives; his remarks treat verses eighteen-thirty through eighteen-thirty-two as a single passage, and the one fragment on file belongs to the verse before this one. What can be offered here is only a clearly labeled extension, not his attested words: on a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might describe the rajasic buddhi as free awareness contracting around like and dislike, forgetting rather than losing its own unclouded nature.
Read from a brief, self-contained remark.
Sridhara's short comment names this judgment as one that knows things ayathavat, not as they are, in a way fit only to leave behind a residue of doubt, and states that the rest of the verse needs no further gloss. The fuller similes sometimes associated with this territory, of milk mixed with water or a blind man unable to tell day from night, belong to a different voice in the wider tradition, not to this particular remark.
Read as a confirming gloss rather than an independent claim.
The surviving line attributed to Madhusudana here stays close to the verse's own wording, affirming that passion-bound judgment misreads both dharma against adharma and duty against its absence, without extending into a separate technical position of its own on this exact verse.
What survives across these six voices for this verse is uneven: two comments engage the pairs with some specificity, several are single defining lines, and one tradition's remark on this verse in particular is not preserved at all. This page keeps that unevenness visible rather than smoothing every voice into equal depth, and it leaves open, too, the harder question the verse itself raises: how a person is meant to catch their own judgment bending, from the inside, before the result reveals it.
A question to carry
The next time your sense of right lines up exactly with what you want, will you ask whether you are seeing the matter as it stands, or only as it stands for you?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May your judgment come to rest on the matter as it actually is, not as it happens to suit you, and may you have the patience to notice the difference before it costs someone else the duty that was rightly theirs.
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 named the clear-seeing, sattvic intellect, Krishna turns here to the middle grade, the buddhi that engages the same questions of right and duty and still misjudges them.
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 is the second grade of judgment, the faculty deciding what is lawful and unlawful, what to do and what to leave undone; it is engaged, not asleep.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
The verse names buddhi, the faculty of judgment, the inner power that decides what is right and wrong and what should or should not be done. The rajasic buddhi is not blank or asleep before these questions. It takes them up in earnest and still gets them wrong.
Its flaw is ayathavat, not as it truly is; it knows something of right and wrong, but only partially, and the knowing stays unsettled.
Across Advaita, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · MadhvaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The defect sits in one word, ayathavat, not as it truly is. This intellect knows something of right and wrong; it simply does not know them correctly or completely. Several readers stress that this is exactly what separates it from the lowest grade: a partial, unsettled grasp rather than plain ignorance.
It cannot cleanly separate the two pairs, so it mixes them, and lacks the firm determination a person could actually rely on.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · ŚaṅkaraIn Śrīdhara and Śaṅkara’s words
Because it cannot cleanly separate the two pairs, dharma from adharma, what is to be done from what is not, this judgment mixes them. It lacks the firm, settled determination that would make it a guide a person could actually trust.
The bend is read as coming from a person's own likes and dislikes, so what favors them reads as right and what costs them reads as wrong.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja’s words
The distortion is read as bent by the person's own likes and dislikes rather than as random error. What favors a person is called right; what crosses a preferred outcome is called wrong, so the very duty binding on another in the same place is quietly read as not one's own.
For more than one of the sources behind this page, what survives on this exact verse is brief, and one voice's comment on it is not preserved at all; this page says so plainly rather than filling the gap with invention.
Across Dvaita, Advaita, BhaktiMadhva · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhva, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
For at least two of the sources on file here, the surviving comment is brief to the point of being little more than a restatement or a single defining line, and one acarya's remark on this verse specifically is not preserved at all. The convergence above rests on what is actually attested, not on an assumed uniform depth across all six voices.
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 brief remark grounds the failure in the concrete: correct knowledge of duty is always knowledge of duty in a given place, time, and condition, for the person actually standing in them. The rajasic buddhi fails exactly at this level of particularity, not only at the level of general principle.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva's one surviving line on this verse draws a narrow but sharp boundary: where no fixed rule guarantees conformity to the truth, the understanding is rajasic; if it were bound to be true or bound to be false as a rule, it could not be told apart from the other grades. This is a technical point about what separates the middle grade from the lowest, not a developed argument.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's comment on file is short: this judgment knows things ayathavat, not as they are, in a way fit only to leave behind a residue of doubt, and he states the rest of the verse needs no further gloss. The fuller similes of mixed and blind perception belong to the Jnaneshwari tradition rather than to this particular remark of his.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
The surviving line under Madhusudana's name here stays close to the verse's own wording, affirming the plain sense without extending into a separate technical claim: passion-bound judgment misreads both dharma against adharma and duty against its absence, and the text needs no correction at this point.
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, without judging it, the next moment your sense of right happens to line up with what you want, or your sense of wrong happens to fall on whatever would cost you something. That alignment is not proof you are seeing clearly. Ask the plain question: does this judgment report the matter as it stands, or as it stands for my advantage?
Hold your clearest verdict up to one plain question: does it report the matter as it stands, or only as it stands for your advantage? Ask honestly, and let the answer stand even when it costs you something.
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 buddhi, the faculty of judgment, the inner power that decides what is right and wrong and what should or should not be done. The rajasic buddhi is not blank or asleep before these questions. It takes them up in earnest and still gets them wrong.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The defect sits in one word, ayathavat, not as it truly is. This intellect knows something of right and wrong; it simply does not know them correctly or completely. Several readers stress that this is exactly what separates it from the lowest grade: a partial, unsettled grasp rather than plain ignorance.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Madhvācārya
Because it cannot cleanly separate the two pairs, dharma from adharma, what is to be done from what is not, this judgment mixes them. It lacks the firm, settled determination that would make it a guide a person could actually trust.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śaṅkarācārya
The distortion is read as bent by the person's own likes and dislikes rather than as random error. What favors a person is called right; what crosses a preferred outcome is called wrong, so the very duty binding on another in the same place is quietly read as not one's own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
For at least two of the sources on file here, the surviving comment is brief to the point of being little more than a restatement or a single defining line, and one acarya's remark on this verse specifically is not preserved at all. The convergence above rests on what is actually attested, not on an assumed uniform depth across all six voices.
Madhvācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara ties dharma and adharma to the scriptural standard directly: right action is what scripture enjoins, wrong action is what it forbids, and the rajasic buddhi cannot rightly hold either this pair or the neighboring one, what should be done and what should not. The surviving comment is compact and definitional rather than expansive.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's brief remark grounds the failure in the concrete: correct knowledge of duty is always knowledge of duty in a given place, time, and condition, for the person actually standing in them. The rajasic buddhi fails exactly at this level of particularity, not only at the level of general principle.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva's one surviving line on this verse draws a narrow but sharp boundary: where no fixed rule guarantees conformity to the truth, the understanding is rajasic; if it were bound to be true or bound to be false as a rule, it could not be told apart from the other grades. This is a technical point about what separates the middle grade from the lowest, not a developed argument.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
No independent Abhinavagupta comment on this verse is preserved; his surviving remarks treat 18.30 through 18.32 as one passage, with the only fragment on file belonging to 18.30. Offered strictly as a labeled, conditional extension rather than his attested words: a Kashmir Shaiva reading might describe the rajasic buddhi as free awareness contracting around like and dislike, forgetting its own unclouded nature.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's comment on file is short: this judgment knows things ayathavat, not as they are, in a way fit only to leave behind a residue of doubt, and he states the rest of the verse needs no further gloss. The fuller similes of mixed and blind perception belong to the Jnaneshwari tradition rather than to this particular remark of his.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
The surviving line under Madhusudana's name here stays close to the verse's own wording, affirming the plain sense without extending into a separate technical claim: passion-bound judgment misreads both dharma against adharma and duty against its absence, and the text needs no correction at this point.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If my judgment can feel completely clear and still be quietly bent by what I want, how would I ever catch myself in one of these distorted readings?
The danger named here is confidence, not confusion. This buddhi is not blank before right and wrong; it is articulate, it engages the pairs, and it can sound perfectly settled while still being rajasic. Feeling certain is not the same as being correct.
Śaṅkarācārya
Ramanuja's stress on the concrete gives a workable check: ask not only what is generally right, but what is right here, for you, in this place and time and condition. A judgment that only speaks in generalities is more likely to be the bent kind.
Rāmānujācārya
A further sign, on the reading available here, is the residue of doubt itself. If a conclusion trails a quiet unease, a lingering is this really so, that unsettled aftertaste is itself part of what marks the judgment as not yet clear.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice, without judging it, the next moment your sense of right happens to line up with what you want, or your sense of wrong happens to fall on whatever would cost you something. That alignment is not proof you are seeing clearly. Ask the plain question: does this judgment report the matter as it stands, or as it stands for my advantage?
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.