What you have been given was never meant to stop with you.
It is easy to receive the day's ordinary gifts, food, ease, a working body, as though they simply belong to you. The verse calls the alternative by its true name, and asks you to let what you receive keep moving.
Nourished by your sacrifice, the gods will give you the enjoyments you desire. Whoever enjoys their gifts without offering anything back to them is nothing but a thief.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that gods and humans nourish each other through sacrifice, each welfare depending on the other's giving. Now he states what happens when a person breaks that exchange: the gods give freely, and the one who takes without returning anything is called, without softening, a thief.
The teaching
The picture is concrete before it is anything else. Sacrifice feeds and gladdens the gods, and the gods, in turn, give back what a person wants: rain that becomes harvest, offspring, the ordinary bounty that keeps a household running. Every acarya whose comment survives on this verse treats this exchange as real rather than merely symbolic. And every one of them treats withholding from it the same way: as theft, stated plainly, not as some milder failing dressed up in harsher language. Where a mechanism is offered, it is debt. To receive the gods' gift is to have taken on an obligation, and to enjoy it while making no offering back is to leave that debt outstanding. Sridhara keeps this at the most ordinary possible scale: a person who eats the very food the gods provided, without first making the daily offerings due, has committed the theft this verse names, no further philosophy required. Ramanuja raises the stakes by locating the Lord within the gods themselves, so that gifts diverted from further worship are, in a real sense, taken from the Lord's own service. Abhinavagupta turns the whole picture inward, reading the gods as the senses, gladdened by their own proper objects and returning them through memory and meditation; on this reading, starving the senses of what is due them is itself a disguised form of the same theft, though the aim of feeding them is only ever to still their craving, never to indulge it without limit. And on one verse in this chapter, the honest report is simply silence: no comment from Madhva survives, and this page will not invent one in his name.
The doubt that rises
If the gods give freely and without being asked, why does keeping what is given count as theft rather than simply receiving a gift well? And where a source has left no comment at all, what is actually gained by guessing at what it might have said?
Where the paths divide
Read as a plain, literal exchange stated without elaborate argument.
Shankara treats the traffic between sacrifice and the gods' bounty as real rather than figurative, and reserves his force for the bluntness of the charge: someone who takes the gods' enjoyments while feeding only his own body and senses is a thief, full stop. The published fragment for this verse is brief, ending almost as an aside on those who act otherwise, rather than opening into a longer argument.
Read as worship whose fruit is meant to fund further worship.
Ramanuja reads the gods as holding the Lord within them as their own inner self, so that what they return already carries a purpose: supplying the means for further offering. Theft, on his reading, is a precise thing, taking what was set apart for another's use and consuming it as your own, and he presses the charge to its harshest conclusion, that such a person goes to hell rather than merely falling short of the highest human goal.
Read honestly as an absence, with only a flagged, conditional guess offered.
The record here is silence. No comment from Madhva on this verse survives, and no fragment, however brief, exists to draw from. What can be offered only as a clearly labeled extrapolation, not a report of his words, is this: given his wider architecture, where every capacity to act rests on the Lord's sanction, one might expect him to treat the gods here as intermediaries in a chain of dependence, and theft as a refusal to acknowledge that dependence. That is a guess about direction, nothing more, and it is marked as one.
Read inwardly, with the gods recast as the senses themselves.
Abhinavagupta turns the verse toward the practitioner's own inner economy. The gods are the senses, gladdened by offering and, through memory, intention, and meditation, returning the objects the mind attends to. Refusing the senses their due becomes its own disguised theft, an echo of the deluded conduct Krishna names a few verses earlier, though the purpose of serving these enjoyments is narrow and exact: only to still the senses' craving, never to indulge it further.
Read at the scale of an ordinary household and an everyday meal.
Sridhara keeps the verse close to the ground. Sustained by sacrifice, the gods give through rain and its fruits, and the person who eats that food for himself alone, without first making the five daily offerings, is simply a thief. Nothing elaborate underlies the charge; the fault is as concrete as forgetting to offer before you sit down to eat.
Read forward from the source's own image of lending and debt.
Madhusudana's picture of the gods as lenders, extending enjoyments that call for repayment, points toward a wider, modern-facing emphasis: enjoyment is never simply a private windfall, but a loan issued by an order larger than the one who receives it, and the substance of theft is refusing to keep that debt moving, whatever concrete shape the return takes.
The sources agree that withholding is an active wrong, not a passive lapse, but they do not agree on exactly what is wronged: the gods as such, the Lord who indwells them, one's own senses, or a wider cosmic order administering debt. And on this particular verse, one whole voice among the six, Madhva's, has left no trace at all. This page keeps that silence visible rather than resolving it with an invented answer.
A question to carry
What have you already received today that you have not yet offered anywhere in return?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Take what has been given to you, and before the day closes, let some part of it move on from you to somewhere else.
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 told Arjuna that gods and humans nourish each other, Krishna now states the hard edge of that mutual nourishment: take without offering back, and you are a thief.
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.
The exchange is real: sacrifice feeds the gods, and the gods feed you back through rain, harvest, and the ordinary bounty of a life.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
All the acaryas on file read the verse as stating a real exchange, not a metaphor: sacrifice feeds and gladdens the gods, and the gods, in turn, give back the enjoyments a person desires, through rain, harvest, offspring, and the ordinary bounty of a household.
To take that gift and offer nothing back is named without softening: theft, plain and severe.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse's force sits in one sharp word: thief. To take what the gods have given and offer nothing back is not read as mere ingratitude but named, without softening, as theft, the same charge that would apply to taking any other person's property.
Where a mechanism is given, it is debt: what looks like a free gift is a loan, and offering is how the debt is repaid.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
Where the sources give a mechanism for the charge, it is debt: a person is understood to already owe the gods, and the enjoyments received are, in effect, a loan. To take the loan and never make the return offering is to leave that debt unpaid.
Even read inward, as the senses receiving their due, withholding remains its own disguised theft; the aim is only to still craving, not indulge it.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiRāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara’s words
The way to repay is treated as concrete rather than a vague inward gratitude: it is the actual practice of offering, whether named broadly as sacrifice or, in Sridhara's telling, specified as the daily offerings due before a meal is taken for oneself.
Where a source is silent, as Madhva's is here, this page says so plainly rather than inventing a voice for him.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Abhinavagupta, and 1 others’ words
Every reading on file, including the inward one, treats withholding as an active wrong rather than a passive omission: it diverts something that was always meant to keep moving, whether that something is worship, food, or the senses' own proper objects.
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 the gods as holding the Lord within them as their inner self, so that the enjoyments they return are already oriented toward further worship, not toward private consumption. He gives theft a near-legal definition: taking what is set apart for another's use and consuming it as your own, a charge he presses to its severest conclusion, that such a person goes to hell rather than merely falling short of the highest goal.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Here the honest report is silence: the published record states plainly that Madhva offers no comment on this verse, and no fragment survives to draw a reading from. Only as a clearly labeled, conditional extrapolation can one say that his wider system, in which every capacity to act rests on the Lord's sanction, would likely treat the gods as intermediaries in a chain of dependence terminating in the Lord, and theft as a refusal of that dependence. This is a guess about direction, not a report of his words.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara stays close to the household level: sustained by sacrifice, the gods give through rain and its fruits, and the person who eats that food without first making the five daily offerings is simply a thief. His reading needs no elaborate metaphysics; the fault is concrete and everyday, forgetting to offer before you eat.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read forward from Madhusudana's own image of the gods as lenders, a modern-facing gloss stresses the economics underneath the ritual: enjoyment is never a private windfall but a loan extended by a wider order, and the real content of theft is a refusal to keep that debt in circulation, whatever form the specific repayment takes.
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 what is in front of you right now, whatever food or rest or ease the day has already handed you. Before you spend it only on yourself, ask what return is due, and to whom. The verse does not ask you to refuse the gift. It asks you to let it keep moving.
So take what today has given you, and before it ends only with you, let some part of it move on.
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
ll the acaryas on file read the verse as stating a real exchange, not a metaphor: sacrifice feeds and gladdens the gods, and the gods, in turn, give back the enjoyments a person desires, through rain, harvest, offspring, and the ordinary bounty of a household.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse's force sits in one sharp word: thief. To take what the gods have given and offer nothing back is not read as mere ingratitude but named, without softening, as theft, the same charge that would apply to taking any other person's property.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where the sources give a mechanism for the charge, it is debt: a person is understood to already owe the gods, and the enjoyments received are, in effect, a loan. To take the loan and never make the return offering is to leave that debt unpaid.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The way to repay is treated as concrete rather than a vague inward gratitude: it is the actual practice of offering, whether named broadly as sacrifice or, in Sridhara's telling, specified as the daily offerings due before a meal is taken for oneself.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Every reading on file, including the inward one, treats withholding as an active wrong rather than a passive omission: it diverts something that was always meant to keep moving, whether that something is worship, food, or the senses' own proper objects.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the exchange plainly, as an actual traffic between sacrifice and the gods' bounty, and reserves his force for the bluntness of the charge itself: enjoyment without repayment is theft, stated almost as a fact of moral physics rather than argued at length. The published source for this reading is brief, closing on a short aside about those who act otherwise rather than extending into a longer analysis.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the gods as holding the Lord within them as their inner self, so that the enjoyments they return are already oriented toward further worship, not toward private consumption. He gives theft a near-legal definition: taking what is set apart for another's use and consuming it as your own, a charge he presses to its severest conclusion, that such a person goes to hell rather than merely falling short of the highest goal.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Here the honest report is silence: the published record states plainly that Madhva offers no comment on this verse, and no fragment survives to draw a reading from. Only as a clearly labeled, conditional extrapolation can one say that his wider system, in which every capacity to act rests on the Lord's sanction, would likely treat the gods as intermediaries in a chain of dependence terminating in the Lord, and theft as a refusal of that dependence. This is a guess about direction, not a report of his words.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta turns the gods into the senses themselves, gladdened by offering and returning, through memory and meditation, the objects the mind attends to. Withholding those objects from the senses becomes its own disguised theft, an echo of the deluded conduct named earlier in the chapter, and the aim of serving enjoyment as it arises is narrowly the stilling of craving, never its indulgence.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara stays close to the household level: sustained by sacrifice, the gods give through rain and its fruits, and the person who eats that food without first making the five daily offerings is simply a thief. His reading needs no elaborate metaphysics; the fault is concrete and everyday, forgetting to offer before you eat.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read forward from Madhusudana's own image of the gods as lenders, a modern-facing gloss stresses the economics underneath the ritual: enjoyment is never a private windfall but a loan extended by a wider order, and the real content of theft is a refusal to keep that debt in circulation, whatever form the specific repayment takes.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If the gods give freely, why is keeping what I am given called theft rather than simply enjoying what was offered to me?
Because the sources describe the gift as never having been unconditional in the first place. Ramanuja is explicit that the enjoyments are set apart for a further purpose, the next act of worship, so private consumption of them diverts something already spoken for.
Rāmānujācārya
Madhusudana frames it through debt: what looks like a free gift is, in his image, more like a loan from a lender. Enjoying it while making no offering back is not receiving generosity, it is failing to repay what was extended on the understanding of a return.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Sridhara keeps the answer at ground level: the fault is not metaphysical trickery but a missed practice, eating before offering. Whatever the deeper reading, all the sources on file agree that the gift was never meant to terminate in you alone.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with what is in front of you right now, whatever food or rest or ease the day has already handed you. Before you spend it only on yourself, ask what return is due, and to whom. The verse does not ask you to refuse the gift. It asks you to let it keep moving.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
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