Sanskrit
त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मनः । कामः क्रोधस्तथा लोभस्तस्मादेतत्त्रयं त्यजेत् ॥
trividhaṃ narakasyedaṃ dvāraṃ nāśanam ātmanaḥ kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhas tasmād etat trayaṃ tyajet
Translation
Triple is the gate of this hell, destructive of the self—lust, wrath, and greed; therefore let man renounce these three.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
After roughly fifteen verses of diagnosis, this verse delivers the chapter’s most quotable and actionable line: the triple gate of hell is kāma, krodha, and lobha — desire, anger, and greed — and the prescription is simply to renounce these three. It functions almost like an executive summary, compressing everything said since verse 7 into a three-item list a listener could actually carry away and apply, in sharp contrast to the diffuse, cumulative portrait that came before it. That compression is itself instructive: whatever the psychological complexity of the demonic mind described earlier, the text treats its origin as tractable, reducible to three named drives rather than an irreducible mystery. The chapter’s practical core, and its most quoted verse: kāma, krodha, lobha — desire, anger, greed — “the triple gate of hell.” Everything demonic in verses 7–20 traces to these three, and the whole prescription is tyajet, “let it be given up.” The gate opens inward; so does the exit.
Study deeper
Word by word
- trividhaṃ narakasyedaṃ dvāraṃत्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं
- this threefold gate of hell (trividham + narakasya + idam + dvāram)
- nāśanam ātmanaḥनाशनं आत्मनः
- destroyer of the self (nāśanam + ātmanaḥ)
- kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhasकामः क्रोधस् तथा लोभस्
- desire, anger, and likewise greed (kāmaḥ + krodhaḥ + tathā + lobhaḥ)
- tasmād etat trayaṃ tyajetतस्माद् एतत् त्रयं त्यजेत्
- therefore let one abandon these three (tasmāt + etat + trayam + tyajet)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Chapter 2 traced kāma and krodha as a causal chain — desire produces anger, anger produces delusion, and so on down to ruin. This verse takes that same pair, adds lobha, and flattens the sequence into three independent gates to be renounced together, not traced in order. By this point in the text, the prescription no longer requires understanding the mechanism step by step; it’s enough to refuse entry at any of the three gates, regardless of which one a person happens to be facing first.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Site Commentary — Second Reading
Strip the verse of its battlefield setting and the triad still names something immediately recognizable: compulsive wanting, reactive temper, and a scarcity mindset that hoards past any actual need — the three failure modes that show up in burnout, in workplace politics, in overspending, long before anyone calls them by their Sanskrit names. What the verse gets right, and what most modern self-help repackaging of this same triad misses, is the refusal to treat them as one undifferentiated “stress response” — they’re named as three separate problems because they call for three separate responses.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- You don't need to fully trace how a bad pattern in you started — desire triggering anger triggering worse decisions — before you can act on it. This verse treats desire, anger, and greed as three separate doors you can close individually, wherever you're currently standing.
Professional
- When a team's dysfunction traces back to competitiveness, temper, or resource-hoarding, you don't need to map the full causal chain between them before intervening — treat each as a separate lever, the way this verse treats desire, anger, and greed as three independent gates rather than one sequence to unravel.
Family & Social
- If conflict in a relationship seems to spiral from wanting something, to resentment, to guardedness over resources, you don't have to untangle the whole sequence before acting — address whichever of the three you can see clearly right now. This verse treats them as separate doors, not one chain you must trace end to end.
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