Eat what is left after you have given; take first, and you eat only sin.
Krishna draws a line between two ways of taking food, and behind it, two ways of living. The leftover of sacrifice is not scraps but nectar; to cook only for yourself, before anything is offered or shared, is itself the wrong this verse names.
The good, who eat only what remains after offering and sharing, are freed from all sin. But the selfish, who cook only for their own bellies, eat nothing but sin.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that his entitlement reaches the doing and never the fruit. Now he turns to something more concrete: the food on the plate, the daily round of a household, and what it means to take only after you have given.
The teaching
You live inside a world you did not make. The body that eats, the senses that crave, the food itself, all came to you from a larger order, and before you take anything for yourself, something is owed back. The good, this verse says, eat only what remains once that debt has been paid; the leftover is called nectar, not because it is special food, but because it has already passed through the hands of offering and sharing. Ordinary household life does real harm that no one can fully escape. The pestle and mortar, the grindstone, the hearth, the water-pot, the broom, these five common implements cost small creatures their lives every day, without anyone meaning it. The tradition is candid that these five 'slaughter-places' do not earn a householder heaven. What they say does happen is this: the daily offerings wipe away the residue of that unavoidable harm. Cook only to fill your own belly, without first offering or sharing, and the food itself becomes sin to the one who eats it. This is not a small ritual lapse. Taking for yourself what was meant to be shared is already the wrong, whatever else follows from it.
The doubt that rises
If ordinary living causes harm no one can avoid, cooking, cleaning, simply moving through a house, can an offering really cleanse that, or is this only a comforting story that lets the harm continue unexamined?
Where the paths divide
Read as plain ritual and ethical duty.
Shankara ties the verse tightly to scriptural obligation. The sins removed are concretely the harm of the five household slaughter-places and the further fault of skipping the fixed rites the Veda enjoins. The self-centered cook is doubly at fault, carrying the slaughter-place sin and adding the sin of omission on top of it. The weight falls on duty and purification, not on any particular theology of who receives the offering.
Read as worship of the Person within the gods.
For Ramanuja, all worship of the gods is, in truth, worship of the Supreme Person who dwells within them as their inner self. The one who cooks with that thought and eats only the remnant is freed not merely from household stains but from the beginningless taints that block the direct vision of the self, an obstruction only devotion removes. The selfish eater steals what was meant for the Lord's own worship.
Read honestly as a documented silence.
The record available here states plainly that Madhva offers no comment on this verse. Rather than invent a confident reading in his voice, this page says so directly. What can be offered instead is a clearly labeled extrapolation: on Madhva's general premise that every capacity to act is delegated by Hari's will, one might expect a Dvaita reading to treat the fitness to offer and receive the sacrificial remnant as itself a granted, dependent competence. This is a plausible extension, never a documented reading, and it should be weighed accordingly.
Read as an inward sacrifice of the senses.
Abhinavagupta reads the sacrifice inwardly: the true yajna is the gladdening of the host of gods that are the senses, and its leftover is the bliss of resting in one's own innermost essence. The rightly disposed take sense-enjoyment only as a subordinate, fruitless limb of action and settle into that inner bliss, released from all taints, auspicious and inauspicious alike, together.
Read from a brief, direct surviving comment.
Sridhara's comment on this verse is short but exact: those who sacrifice are the better ones, and eating what is left after the household offerings frees a person from the stain of the five named slaughter-places, which the law-books themselves list. Those who cook only for their own eating are, in his own phrase, ill-doing men who eat sin itself. The source does not elaborate further, and this reading stays within what it actually says.
Read as a binding rule grounded in cited tradition.
Madhusudana grounds the verse in explicit citation: the pestle, grindstone, hearth, water-pot, and broom are named as the five slaughter-places by which the householder does not win heaven, and a further verse states that their sin is wiped away by the five great sacrifices. He treats this as a rule the fit person must follow without fail, tracing its authority back to what he calls the word of Prajapati.
All six readings agree on the two ends: selfish eating is sin, and eating the offered remnant is freedom. They part on what the offering ultimately reaches, a scriptural duty, a Person within the gods, the senses themselves, or a rule cited from tradition. And on one acarya, Madhva, the honest record leaves a real gap rather than a reading; this page keeps that gap visible rather than filling it with an invented voice.
A question to carry
Before your next meal, or your next small act of taking, what would it look like to give something back first, and let only the remainder be yours?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Give before you take. In what remains, find a quiet place to rest.
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 shown the blessing of sacrificial living and the loss of selfish living, this verse closes that thought and opens the next: that the whole world turns on the cycle of giving.
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 good eat only what is left after their debts to the larger order are discharged; that leftover, not the first serving, is what is truly theirs to keep.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse draws one sharp line between two kinds of eaters. The good eat only what is left after a sacrifice has been properly offered and shared; this leftover is not scraps but nectar, food that has already discharged its debt to the larger order before any of it is taken for oneself.
Ordinary living causes small, unavoidable harm through the pestle, the grindstone, the hearth, the water-pot, and the broom; living for sacrifice quietly removes the residue no careful person can escape.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Those who eat this way are freed from all sins, and several sources name what those sins concretely are: the unavoidable harm of ordinary household life, done through five common implements, the pestle and mortar, the grindstone, the hearth, the water-pot, and the broom, traditionally called the householder's five slaughter-places.
The one who cooks only for himself, taking without first giving, feeds on sin itself, for keeping back what was meant to be shared is already the fault.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The householder does not gain heaven by these five slaughter-places alone; what removes their residue of harm is the daily performance of the offerings. Living for sacrifice is therefore not merely meritorious, it is the specific remedy this verse names for a specific, unavoidable fault.
Not every source speaks on this verse; where one is silent, as Madhva is here, the honest report is silence, not an invented voice.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The opposite kind of eater cooks only for his own belly, taking without first offering or sharing, and the verse calls him sinful and says he eats sin itself. The wrong is moral as much as ritual: keeping for oneself what was meant to be shared is itself the fault.
This is not only a rule about food; it is a step toward the larger claim that action itself must be done, for the world is fed by the very cycle of giving that begins here.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · RāmānujaIn Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja’s words
The verse is not an isolated food-rule. It closes the thought that selfless sharing purifies and opens the next one, that action itself is what turns the wheel of the world, setting up the sequence that follows on food, rain, sacrifice, and action.
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 all worship of the gods as, in truth, worship of the Supreme Person dwelling within them as their inner self. What the rightly-offered eater is freed from is not merely household stains but the beginningless taints that obstruct the direct vision of the self, removed by devotion; the selfish eater steals what was meant for the Lord's worship and is turned away from that vision.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The available record states that Madhva offers no comment on this verse; his voice is simply absent here, not thin but silent. What follows is a labeled extrapolation and not his own word: on his general premise that every capacity to act is delegated by Hari's will, one might expect the fitness to offer and receive the remnant to be read as itself dependent rather than self-derived, but this is a plausible extension, not a documented reading.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's surviving comment is brief but direct: those who sacrifice are the better ones, and those who eat only the household remnant are freed from the stain of the five named slaughter-places, which the householder cannot avoid but also cannot be freed from by the killing itself. Those who cook only for their own eating are, in his own short phrase, ill-doing men who eat sin itself; the source does not elaborate further, and this reading does not extend beyond what it states.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana grounds the verse in received tradition and scriptural citation: the pestle, grindstone, hearth, water-pot, and broom are the five slaughter-places by which the householder does not win heaven, and their sin is wiped away by the five great sacrifices. He reads this as binding, holding that the fit person must perform the fixed rites without fail, a rule he traces back to the word of Prajapati himself.
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 your next meal, pause and notice what you are about to take without having first given anything back. You do not need an altar to practice this verse; you need only the habit of offering something, attention, gratitude, a portion set aside, before you take your own share. Let the leftover, not the first serving, be what you claim as yours.
Give first, take only what remains, and let the small unavoidable stains of ordinary living fall away in the giving itself.
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 draws one sharp line between two kinds of eaters. The good eat only what is left after a sacrifice has been properly offered and shared; this leftover is not scraps but nectar, food that has already discharged its debt to the larger order before any of it is taken for oneself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Those who eat this way are freed from all sins, and several sources name what those sins concretely are: the unavoidable harm of ordinary household life, done through five common implements, the pestle and mortar, the grindstone, the hearth, the water-pot, and the broom, traditionally called the householder's five slaughter-places.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The householder does not gain heaven by these five slaughter-places alone; what removes their residue of harm is the daily performance of the offerings. Living for sacrifice is therefore not merely meritorious, it is the specific remedy this verse names for a specific, unavoidable fault.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The opposite kind of eater cooks only for his own belly, taking without first offering or sharing, and the verse calls him sinful and says he eats sin itself. The wrong is moral as much as ritual: keeping for oneself what was meant to be shared is itself the fault.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The verse is not an isolated food-rule. It closes the thought that selfless sharing purifies and opens the next one, that action itself is what turns the wheel of the world, setting up the sequence that follows on food, rain, sacrifice, and action.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse in its plain ritual and ethical sense, tied tightly to scriptural duty. The sins removed are concretely the harm of the five household slaughter-places and the further fault of skipping the fixed rites the Veda enjoins; the self-centered cooker is doubly at fault, carrying the slaughter-place sin and adding the sin of omission. The weight falls on duty and purification, not on a theology of who receives the offering, and the verse stands as proof that the qualified person must perform these obligatory rites.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads all worship of the gods as, in truth, worship of the Supreme Person dwelling within them as their inner self. What the rightly-offered eater is freed from is not merely household stains but the beginningless taints that obstruct the direct vision of the self, removed by devotion; the selfish eater steals what was meant for the Lord's worship and is turned away from that vision.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The available record states that Madhva offers no comment on this verse; his voice is simply absent here, not thin but silent. What follows is a labeled extrapolation and not his own word: on his general premise that every capacity to act is delegated by Hari's will, one might expect the fitness to offer and receive the remnant to be read as itself dependent rather than self-derived, but this is a plausible extension, not a documented reading.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta reads the sacrifice inwardly: the true yajna is the gladdening of the senses, and its leftover is the bliss of resting in one's own innermost essence. The rightly disposed take sense-enjoyment only as a subordinate, fruitless limb of action and become settled in that inner bliss, released from all taints, auspicious and inauspicious alike; the one who takes gross enjoyment as the highest gathers only evil made of both together.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's surviving comment is brief but direct: those who sacrifice are the better ones, and those who eat only the household remnant are freed from the stain of the five named slaughter-places, which the householder cannot avoid but also cannot be freed from by the killing itself. Those who cook only for their own eating are, in his own short phrase, ill-doing men who eat sin itself; the source does not elaborate further, and this reading does not extend beyond what it states.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana grounds the verse in received tradition and scriptural citation: the pestle, grindstone, hearth, water-pot, and broom are the five slaughter-places by which the householder does not win heaven, and their sin is wiped away by the five great sacrifices. He reads this as binding, holding that the fit person must perform the fixed rites without fail, a rule he traces back to the word of Prajapati himself.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Ordinary living causes small harms I cannot avoid, cooking, cleaning, simply moving through the world. Can an offering really cleanse that, or is this just a way to feel absolved while the harm continues?
The sources are honest that the harm is real and unavoidable. Cooking, grinding, sweeping, and drawing water all cost small creatures their lives, and even a careless footfall does injury; the verse does not pretend this harm never happened.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What the offering changes is not the fact of the harm but your relationship to what you take. The cleansing comes from no longer living only for yourself, discharging what is owed before you eat, not from a gesture that licenses business as usual.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Read more inwardly, the practice asks you to stop grasping altogether, not merely to feel forgiven for having grasped. What you offer first and eat last is the sign that giving, not taking, has become the center of how you live.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Contemplation
Before your next meal, pause and notice what you are about to take without having first given anything back. You do not need an altar to practice this verse; you need only the habit of offering something, attention, gratitude, a portion set aside, before you take your own share. Let the leftover, not the first serving, be what you claim as yours.
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.