Nourish the gods, and let the gods nourish you: no gift stands alone.
It reads like a simple trade, offerings for rain. Its real weight falls on one word, mutually: the giving runs both ways, and your place in that circle is to be a giver, not only one who receives.
Nourish the gods with this sacrifice, and let the gods nourish you in return. Nourishing one another this way, you will reach the highest good.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just said that sacrifice was set down together with all creation, a means by which people might prosper. Now he explains the mechanism itself: how a rite performed here reaches all the way to rain and food and, further still, to the highest good a person can reach.
The teaching
You feed the gods with this sacrifice, and the gods feed you in return: that is the whole shape of the verse. Nourish, foster, sustain, these are the words moving both directions across it. The gods here are read as the shining powers presiding over the forces of nature, Indra chief among them; pleased by what you offer, they answer with rain, and rain becomes food. Your gift rises. Their gift descends. Neither half of that circle is optional. The word that carries the real weight is mutually: the giving runs both ways, and a person's place inside it is to be a giver, not a taker who waits for the current to arrive on its own. What the circle finally delivers is called the highest good, and more than one reading finds a fork built into that phrase. Offered for the sake of reward, the same rite yields something real but lesser: heaven. Offered without that grasping, the identical outward act ripens by slow degrees into knowledge, and through knowledge into release. The destination is read as following the offerer's own aim, not the size or splendor of the offering. For those who see a living Lord behind the deities addressed, the picture deepens further: the gods are not separate powers to be bargained with, but the Lord's own body, with the Lord himself as their inmost self, so that worship offered to any one of them already reaches him, the one who names himself, elsewhere, the enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. Read most inwardly, the very same structure is found even closer to home: gladden what should rightly be gladdened, in its own fitting measure, and be gladdened back, in a mutual fostering that some read as dissolving quickly into the good beyond every division. And where the record itself is thin, as it is for at least one voice on this page, the more faithful path is to say so rather than to dress an invented reading in a master's name.
The doubt that rises
If this is only offerings traded for rain and reward, isn't it simply a transaction dressed in ceremony? And if so, how could a transaction like that ever open onto something as far beyond bargaining as liberation?
Where the paths divide
Read as a fork sorted by the offerer's own aim
The gods are Indra and the other presiding deities, and the nourishing is the literal cycle of sacrifice answered by rain and food. The distinctive move is reading the highest good as forking by aim: pursued for reward, the rite yields heaven; offered without grasping, the same rite ripens by degrees into knowledge and release. The surviving comment closes before elaborating further, so this reading is carried only as far as the record actually goes.
Read as worship reaching the Lord who indwells the deity
The gods have the Lord as their inner self and are his own body; worship offered to them is, at bottom, worship that reaches him, the one who declares himself the enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. The mutual nourishing described here becomes the visible evidence of that indwelling meeting, and the highest good it yields is named without qualification as freedom itself.
Read honestly as a gap in the surviving record
What survives of comment at this verse is a single line noting that the treatment continues from the verse before it, itself only a brief remark. No developed Dvaita reading can honestly be built from that fragment. A plausible extension, that even the gods act only by Hari's sanction, is offered here only as a clearly flagged extrapolation, never as the master's transmitted word.
Read as the senses gladdened, dissolving into Brahman
In the most inward reading on record, the gods addressed here are the workings of the senses, and even one whose whole aim is release is told to serve the objects that gladden them, within fitting measure. Gladdened, the senses gladden the self back with a freedom native to its own nature, and in this ceaseless mutual fostering, sense and self are said to dissolve quickly into the highest good, Brahman, where their very difference melts away.
Read as a symmetry running all the way through
The cycle stays literal, the very portions offered sustaining the gods, who answer with rain and food, but the emphasis widens here: the benefit is not read as flowing only toward the human sacrificer. The gods themselves are said to reach the highest good on their own side, so the mutuality named in the verse holds symmetrically for both parties, not for one alone.
Read as an ecological mechanism, plainly named
Taken close to its plainest sense, the verse names a working exchange: sacrificers feed the gods with their shares, and the gods, satisfied, send back rain and food. On the specific wording this reading preserves, the human party's own highest good is named as heaven, a narrower claim than a liberation-inclusive gloss found elsewhere in the tradition, and it is reported here at that narrower scope rather than smoothed into agreement.
The schools agree on the shape of the circle, offering rising, gift descending, and on the word that holds it together, mutually. They part on what the gods finally are, on how directly the fruit reaches you, and on whether the highest good named here means heaven, release, or both, sorted by your own aim. And at least one voice on this page, Madhva's, is reported honestly as thin rather than filled in, which this reading leaves standing as its own kind of open question: what would his fuller reading have said, had more of it survived?
A question to carry
When you give into the circle before taking your share of it, what comes back to you that you could never have gotten by reaching for it directly?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Before your hand goes out for what you need today, put something of your own into the circle first. What returns to you afterward is not owed; it is simply how the order that feeds you keeps on feeding.
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.
Krishna has just told Arjuna that sacrifice was set down together with creation itself; here he explains what that sacrifice actually does, showing the mutual cycle by which the world that feeds you is itself fed.
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.
By sacrifice you feed the powers that preside over the forces of nature; pleased, they feed you back with rain and the food it brings, and the whole order sustains itself only because the gift moves in both directions.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse answers a practical question left open by the one before it: how does sacrifice actually deliver anything people want? The answer given is a cycle of mutual nourishing. By sacrifice you feed and gratify the gods, the shining powers who preside over the forces of nature; pleased, those same gods nourish you back, chiefly through rain, which becomes food. The human offering rises, the divine gift descends, and the order sustains itself.
The center of the verse is the word mutually: neither side may simply take. You are asked to take your place as one who gives back into the order that sustains you, not one who only draws from it.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The weight of the verse falls on 'mutually.' The giving runs both ways, and neither side is permitted to be left out of it. You strengthen the gods with your share of the offering; they strengthen you in return; the whole arrangement holds together only because each nourishes the other, not because either side simply takes.
The highest good this cycle yields is read as following your own aim: offered for reward, it ripens into heaven, a real but lesser good; offered without that grasping, the same act matures toward knowledge and release.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
'The highest good' is read, across more than one commentator, as a phrase that can name two different destinations depending on the offerer's own aim. Offered in pursuit of reward, the same rite yields a real but lesser good, heaven; offered without that grasping, it ripens by degrees into knowledge and so into liberation. The fruit follows the motive, not the outward form of the act.
For those who see the Lord within, the gods addressed here are His own body, so that worship of a deity already reaches the one who indwells it, and the mutual nourishing becomes the visible sign of that meeting.
Across ViśiṣṭādvaitaRāmānujaIn Rāmānuja’s words
For the theistic reading, the gods addressed here are never independent centers of power. They are the body of the Lord, with the Lord as their inner self, so that worship offered to a deity finally reaches the one who is, by his own declaration, the enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. The mutual nourishing becomes, on this reading, visible evidence of that indwelling meeting.
Where the record itself runs thin, as it does for Madhva at this verse, the more faithful course is to say so plainly rather than to manufacture a fuller reading in a master's name than the sources will bear.
Across DvaitaMadhvaIn Madhva’s words
Where the record is thin, honesty about the gap is itself part of the shared ground: Madhva's transmitted comment at this verse does not extend beyond a note that it continues the treatment of the verse before it, and no commentator on file claims more for him here than that bare cross-reference.
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
The gods have the Lord as their inner self and are His body; worship addressed to them is worship that finally reaches Him, the declared enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. The mutual nourishing described in the verse is, on this reading, the visible sign of the Lord meeting the worshipper through the deity he approaches, and the highest good it yields is named without hedging: freedom itself.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The material on record for Madhva at this verse does not extend past a single line noting that his comment on 3.10 covers this verse too. Rather than invent a developed Dvaita position from that fragment, the honest report is that no confident reading can be attributed to him here; a Dvaita reading would plausibly stress that even the gods act only by Hari's sanction, but that is a flagged extrapolation, not his transmitted word.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
The cycle is kept literal and symmetrical: by the very portions offered you nourish and sustain the gods, and they nourish you back through rain and food. The distinct emphasis here is that the benefit is not read as flowing only one way toward the human sacrificer; the gods themselves are said to reach the highest good on their own side, so the mutuality of the verse holds all the way through, for both parties equally.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read close to its plainest sense, the verse names a working mechanism, not a metaphor: the sacrificers feed the gods with their appointed shares, and the gods, satisfied, feed the sacrificers back by sending rain and bringing forth food. On the specific wording preserved for this verse, the human party's own highest good is named as heaven, a narrower claim than the liberation-inclusive reading found elsewhere in the tradition, and this reading reports that narrower claim rather than smoothing it into agreement with other commentators.
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 take anything today, food, attention, another person's effort, pause and ask what you are putting back into the same current. The verse does not ask you to stop receiving. It asks you to notice that receiving without returning breaks the very cycle that makes receiving possible at all, and to place something of yours back into that cycle before your hand reaches out again.
Before you reach for your share today, set something of your own into the circle first, and trust that the strength for your next act will come back to you in turn.
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 answers a practical question left open by the one before it: how does sacrifice actually deliver anything people want? The answer given is a cycle of mutual nourishing. By sacrifice you feed and gratify the gods, the shining powers who preside over the forces of nature; pleased, those same gods nourish you back, chiefly through rain, which becomes food. The human offering rises, the divine gift descends, and the order sustains itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The weight of the verse falls on 'mutually.' The giving runs both ways, and neither side is permitted to be left out of it. You strengthen the gods with your share of the offering; they strengthen you in return; the whole arrangement holds together only because each nourishes the other, not because either side simply takes.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
'The highest good' is read, across more than one commentator, as a phrase that can name two different destinations depending on the offerer's own aim. Offered in pursuit of reward, the same rite yields a real but lesser good, heaven; offered without that grasping, it ripens by degrees into knowledge and so into liberation. The fruit follows the motive, not the outward form of the act.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
For the theistic reading, the gods addressed here are never independent centers of power. They are the body of the Lord, with the Lord as their inner self, so that worship offered to a deity finally reaches the one who is, by his own declaration, the enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. The mutual nourishing becomes, on this reading, visible evidence of that indwelling meeting.
Rāmānujācārya
Where the record is thin, honesty about the gap is itself part of the shared ground: Madhva's transmitted comment at this verse does not extend beyond a note that it continues the treatment of the verse before it, and no commentator on file claims more for him here than that bare cross-reference.
Madhvācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The gods are taken straightforwardly as Indra and the other presiding deities, and the nourishing as literal sacrifice answered by rain and food. The distinctive move is reading 'the highest good' as forking by the aspirant's own aim: the seeker of enjoyment gains heaven, while the seeker of liberation, through this same selfless offering gradually maturing into knowledge, gains release. The published source for Shankara's comment here is brief and closes mid-thought, so this reading is reported at the depth the record actually supports.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The gods have the Lord as their inner self and are His body; worship addressed to them is worship that finally reaches Him, the declared enjoyer and lord of every sacrifice. The mutual nourishing described in the verse is, on this reading, the visible sign of the Lord meeting the worshipper through the deity he approaches, and the highest good it yields is named without hedging: freedom itself.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The material on record for Madhva at this verse does not extend past a single line noting that his comment on 3.10 covers this verse too. Rather than invent a developed Dvaita position from that fragment, the honest report is that no confident reading can be attributed to him here; a Dvaita reading would plausibly stress that even the gods act only by Hari's sanction, but that is a flagged extrapolation, not his transmitted word.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
In the most inward reading on record, the 'gods' are the workings of the senses, the goddesses of the senses named in the tantric scriptures, and even one whose aim is release should serve the objects that gladden them. Gladdened, the senses in turn gladden the one who enjoys them with a freedom that fits the self's own nature, and in this ceaseless mutual fostering of sense and self, the highest good, Brahman, is reached quickly, its mark being the melting-away of the very difference between them.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
The cycle is kept literal and symmetrical: by the very portions offered you nourish and sustain the gods, and they nourish you back through rain and food. The distinct emphasis here is that the benefit is not read as flowing only one way toward the human sacrificer; the gods themselves are said to reach the highest good on their own side, so the mutuality of the verse holds all the way through, for both parties equally.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read close to its plainest sense, the verse names a working mechanism, not a metaphor: the sacrificers feed the gods with their appointed shares, and the gods, satisfied, feed the sacrificers back by sending rain and bringing forth food. On the specific wording preserved for this verse, the human party's own highest good is named as heaven, a narrower claim than the liberation-inclusive reading found elsewhere in the tradition, and this reading reports that narrower claim rather than smoothing it into agreement with other commentators.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If sacrifice is really just offerings traded for rain and reward, isn't that just a transaction with extra ceremony, and how could a transaction like that ever lead anywhere as high as liberation?
It looks like a transaction only if you take the gods as separate, self-interested parties. On the theistic reading, the deity is the Lord's own body, and worship offered to it reaches Him; what looks like trade is, underneath, an indwelling presence meeting an offering that was always addressed to Him.
Rāmānujācārya
The verse itself does not force a single fruit. The same rite performed for the sake of reward yields heaven, a real but lesser good; performed without that grasping, the identical outward act ripens by degrees into knowledge and so into release. What changes the destination is never the offering's form, only the offerer's own aim.
Śaṅkarācārya
Read most inwardly, the whole exchange is relocated from ritual altar to the senses themselves: gladdening what should be gladdened, in its proper measure, and being gladdened back, is already the same mutual fostering that dissolves, quickly, into the good beyond all division.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Before you take anything today, food, attention, another person's effort, pause and ask what you are putting back into the same current. The verse does not ask you to stop receiving. It asks you to notice that receiving without returning breaks the very cycle that makes receiving possible at all, and to place something of yours back into that cycle before your hand reaches out again.
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.