Sanskrit
नादत्ते कस्यचित्पापं न चैव सुकृतं विभुः । अज्ञानेनावृतं ज्ञानं तेन मुह्यन्ति जन्तवः ॥
nādatte kasyacit pāpaṃ na caiva sukṛtaṃ vibhuḥ ajñānenāvṛtaṃ jñānaṃ tena muhyanti jantavaḥ
Translation
The Lord accepteth neither the evil-doing nor yet the well-doing of any. Wisdom is enveloped by unwisdom; therewith mortals are deluded.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Following directly from the previous verse, this closes the loop: the all-pervading Self (vibhu) takes on neither anyone’s evil nor their merit, so the moral residue of action never actually touches it. The delusion of ordinary beings is explained structurally rather than morally — jñāna, innate wisdom, is āvṛta, covered over, the way cloud cover doesn’t destroy sunlight but blocks it from reaching the ground. That covering metaphor is doing real work: it implies the corrective isn’t acquiring something new but removing an obstruction, which is exactly the sun simile the next verse reaches for. The model is subtractive: jñāna is not built but uncovered. This is why the Gita can call knowledge both supremely hard and, in another sense, already present — the same claim as BG 4.38’s “finds it within the Self.””
Study deeper
Word by word
- nādatte kasyacit pāpaṃनादत्ते कस्यचित् पापं
- takes on no one's sin (na + ādatte + kasyacit + pāpam)
- na caiva sukṛtaṃ vibhuḥन चैव सुकृतं विभुः
- nor merit, the all-pervading (na + ca + eva + sukṛtam + vibhuḥ)
- ajñānenāvṛtaṃ jñānaṃअज्ञानेनावृतं ज्ञानं
- knowledge is veiled by ignorance (ajñānena + āvṛtam + jñānam)
- tena muhyanti jantavaḥतेन मुह्यन्ति जन्तवः
- by that, beings are deluded (tena + muhyanti + jantavaḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This verse quietly anticipates an objection it never states outright: if the Self takes on neither anyone’s sin nor their merit, why does guilt or pride feel so real to the people having them? The answer arrives in the same breath — delusion, not a genuine transaction with the Self, explains the felt weight of both. Rather than asserting the metaphysics and leaving the obvious counter-experience unaddressed, the verse quietly accounts for why that counter- experience exists at all.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you feel crushing guilt or inflated pride about something you did, consider that the feeling's intensity may be telling you more about a covered-over confusion than about your actual moral weight — a feeling being real doesn't mean its story about you is accurate.
Professional
- When a team feels intense collective shame or pride after a launch's outcome, separate the feeling's intensity from what it's actually claiming about the team's competence — strong feelings about outcomes often track confusion about causality, not a reliable signal of it.
Family & Social
- If someone close to you is consumed by guilt over something largely outside their control, help them notice that the feeling's force doesn't prove the story it's telling — intensity of feeling and accuracy of the feeling's claim are two different things.
Ask yourself
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