Sanskrit
विधिहीनमसृष्टान्नं मन्त्रहीनमदक्षिणम् । श्रद्धाविरहितं यज्ञं तामसं परिचक्षते ॥
vidhihīnam asṛṣṭānnaṃ mantrahīnam adakṣiṇam śraddhāvirahitaṃ yajñaṃ tāmasaṃ paricakṣate
Translation
The sacrifice contrary to the ordinances, without distributing food, devoid of words of power and without gifts, empty of faith, is said to be of darkness.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Tamasic sacrifice is defined by absence on every count — no correct form, no shared food, no mantras, no gifts to the officiants, and finally śraddhā-virahita, empty of faith. That last phrase is doing the real work: it anticipates the chapter’s closing declaration in verse 28 that anything done without faith is void regardless of its other features, making this verse’s tamasic sacrifice essentially a preview of what “Asat” will later name outright. Tāmasic sacrifice fails on every count — no rule, no food, no mantra, no dakṣiṇā (fee to the officiants) — but the phrase that names it is śraddhā-virahita, “devoid of faith.” Without faith the whole apparatus is inert, BG 17.28’s asat.
Study deeper
Word by word
- vidhihīnam asṛṣṭānnaṃविधिहीनं असृष्टान्नं
- without the rule, with no offering of food (vidhi-hīnam + asṛṣṭa-annam)
- mantrahīnam adakṣiṇamमन्त्रहीनं अदक्षिणं
- without mantra, without gift to the priests (mantra-hīnam + adakṣiṇam)
- śraddhāvirahitaṃ yajñaṃश्रद्धाविरहितं यज्ञं
- a sacrifice devoid of faith (śraddhā-virahitam + yajñam)
- tāmasaṃ paricakṣateतामसं परिचक्षते
- they call tāmasic (tāmasam + paricakṣate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The list is ordered, not random: incorrect form, no food shared, no mantras, no gifts — each a technical or social lapse — and only then, last, śraddhā-virahita, empty of faith. Saving the most fundamental failure for the final position is a climactic structure, and it signals which of the four failures actually matters most: you could imagine fixing the first three and still having a void ritual, but not the reverse.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're listing what's wrong with your own effort at something, check whether you've buried the most fundamental issue among smaller technical complaints — fixing the small stuff first can feel like progress while leaving the one thing that actually voids the effort untouched.
Professional
- When compiling what went wrong in a failed project, order it by what would have saved the project if fixed alone, not by chronology — burying the root cause among smaller process complaints lets teams feel productive while the actual failure point goes unaddressed.
Family & Social
- When you're upset about several things in a relationship, notice if you're listing surface complaints while burying the one that actually matters most — naming the foundational issue plainly, even if it feels harder to say, is more useful than several smaller ones stacked around it.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.