Sanskrit
मोघाशा मोघकर्माणो मोघज्ञाना विचेतसः । राक्षसीमासुरीं चैव प्रकृतिं मोहिनीं श्रिताः ॥
moghāśā moghakarmāṇo moghajñānā vicetasaḥ rākṣasīm āsurīṃ caiva prakṛtiṃ mohinīṃ śritāḥ
Translation
Empty of hope, empty of deeds, empty of wisdom, senseless, partaking of the deceitful, brutal and demoniacal nature.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Piles up three “empty” (mogha-) compounds — empty hope, empty deeds, empty wisdom — to describe those who mistake Krishna’s human semblance for the whole truth. The repetition is a rhetorical intensifier that the English translation can only partly preserve; the Sanskrit’s rhythmic hammering of mogha- across three successive words is part of the verse’s argument, not decoration. The three mogha- compounds land the verdict: what such people hope, do, and know all comes to nothing, because they have taken refuge in a māyā-woven, demonic disposition that chapter 16 will describe at length.
Study deeper
Word by word
- moghāśā moghakarmāṇoमोघाशा मोघकर्माणो
- of vain hopes, vain actions (mogha-āśāḥ + mogha-karmāṇaḥ)
- moghajñānā vicetasaḥमोघज्ञाना विचेतसः
- vain knowledge, senseless (mogha-jñānāḥ + vicetasaḥ)
- rākṣasīm āsurīṃ caivaराक्षसीं आसुरीं चैव
- a fiendish and demonic (rākṣasīm + āsurīm + ca + eva)
- prakṛtiṃ mohinīṃ śritāḥप्रकृतिं मोहिनीं श्रिताः
- deluding nature, they cling to (prakṛtim + mohinīm + śritāḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Verse 12 characterizes its subject entirely by absence — three counts of “empty,” no single positive verb. It’s a portrait built from what’s missing, and the effect is that these people barely appear as agents at all in their own description. Three verses later, the mahātmānaḥ get the opposite treatment: a growing list of active verbs, glorifying, striving, prostrating. Failure gets named by what isn’t there; devotion gets named by what is being actively done.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If you're trying to change a bad pattern, notice whether you're only defining it by absence, like not focusing or not following through, without naming any concrete action you're for. A goal built only from negatives rarely becomes a practice; give it verbs, not just empty space.
Professional
- When diagnosing a struggling team, resist a report that only lists what's missing, no ownership, no clarity, no follow-through, and pair every gap with the concrete action that would fill it, or the diagnosis won't convert into a plan.
Family & Social
- If you're naming what's wrong in a relationship, match each complaint about absence with the specific action you actually want instead, since a list of what someone isn't doing rarely tells them what to do differently.
Ask yourself
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