Sanskrit
यज्ञशिष्टाशिनः सन्तो मुच्यन्ते सर्वकिल्बिषैः । भुञ्जते ते त्वघं पापा ये पचन्त्यात्मकारणात् ॥
yajñaśiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarvakilbiṣaiḥ bhuñjate te tv aghaṃ pāpā ye pacanty ātmakāraṇāt
Translation
The righteous, who eat the remains of the sacrifice, are freed from all sins; but the impious, who dress food for their own sakes, they verily eat sin.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The theft charge from verse 12 gets its positive contrast: eating only what remains after offering is what the “righteous” do, and it’s this remainder-eating, not abstinence, that frees from wrongdoing. Cooking purely “for one’s own sake” is the same self-enclosed action verse 9 said binds — the language of eating here is a concrete stand-in for the whole chapter’s abstract claim about attachment. The test is not whether one eats but in what order: offer first, then take the leftover. Applied beyond the kitchen, it is the whole of karma-yoga — act for the offering, receive what follows as remainder.
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Word by word
- yajñaśiṣṭāśinaḥयज्ञशिष्टाशिनः
- those who eat the remnant of sacrifice (yajña-śiṣṭa-aśinaḥ)
- santoसन्तो
- the good
- mucyanteमुच्यन्ते
- are freed
- sarvakilbiṣaiḥसर्वकिल्बिषैः
- from all sins (sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ)
- bhuñjateभुञ्जते
- eat
- te tv aghaṃते त्व् अघं
- but they [eat] sin (te + tu + agham)
- pāpāपापा
- the wicked
- ye pacanty ātmakāraṇātये पचन्त्य् आत्मकारणात्
- who cook for their own sake (ye + pacanti + ātma-kāraṇāt)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The chapter’s abstract claim about attachment gets translated into the most literal possible image: what you put in your mouth. Eating only what remains after offering versus cooking purely for yourself isn’t a separate rule about food — it’s the same non-attachment argument made physical enough that it can’t be dismissed as merely conceptual.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Take whatever abstract principle you're struggling to actually live by and find its most literal, physical version — a habit involving your body, not just your intentions. Abstractions you agree with in theory become real once grounded in something as concrete as what you eat.
Professional
- Take an abstract value your team claims to hold — 'customer-first,' 'quality' — and find its most literal, checkable version: a specific artifact, a specific step in the process. Values stay abstract and unenforced until someone grounds them in something as concrete as a checklist.
Family & Social
- Take a value you want your family to actually live by — generosity, gratitude — and anchor it to a literal, physical habit, not just a conversation about it. A concrete practice makes an abstract value real in a way that talking about it alone never manages.
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