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Chapter 17 of 18

श्रद्धात्रयविभागयोग Śraddhātraya Vibhāga Yoga Three Kinds of Faith

Chapter 17: Three Kinds of Faith

28 verses

Faith, offering and austerity each come in three grades, and the grade depends less on the act than on what is wanted from it.

Chapter 16 ended by making the scriptures the measure of what to do. Arjuna immediately asks the question that puts pressure on it: what about people who worship with real faith and set the directions aside?

The answer moves the question a level down. Faith is not something you have or lack — it comes in three grades, like everything in chapter 14, and a person is their faith: as it is, so are they.

What follows is the most specific stretch of the Gita. Food, offering, austerity and giving are each graded three ways, and the grade almost never turns on the content of the act. It turns on what is wanted from it. The chapter puts self-torture and harming others in the same category, notes that food of clarity is rich rather than meagre, and closes by saying that an act performed correctly and without faith is nothing at all.

17.1What about sincere but unscripted?Arjuna speaks1 of 28

ये शास्त्रविधिमुत्सृज्य यजन्ते श्रद्धयाऽन्विताः
तेषां निष्ठा तु का कृष्ण सत्त्वमाहो रजस्तमः

ye śhāstra-vidhim utsṛijya yajante śhraddhayānvitāḥ
teṣhāṁ niṣhṭhā tu kā kṛiṣhṇa sattvam āho rajas tamaḥ

Those who worship with faith but set aside what the scriptures direct — where do they stand, Krishna? In clarity, restlessness or inertia?

Arjuna asks about the sincere person who is doing it wrong.

Chapter 16 ended by making the scriptures the measure. So he asks the obvious next question: what about those who worship with faith but set the directions aside?

It is the sharpest question he asks in the whole book, because it puts sincerity and correctness against each other — and the chapter answers by grading faith itself.

Word by wordarjunaḥ uvācha — Arjun said · ye — who · śhāstra-vidhim — scriptural injunctions · utsṛijya — disregard · yajante — worship · śhraddhayā-anvitāḥ — with faith · teṣhām — their · niṣhṭhā — faith · tu — indeed · kā — what · kṛiṣhṇa — Krishna · sattvam — mode of goodness · āho — or · rajaḥ — mode of passion · tamaḥ — mode of ignorance

Chapter 17 · Three Kinds of Faith · ← → to move, d for depth

All 28 verses

  1. 17.1 ये शास्त्रविधिमुत्सृज्य यजन्ते श्रद्धयाऽन्विताः What about sincere but unscripted?

The Blessed One said

  1. 17.2 त्रिविधा भवति श्रद्धा देहिनां सा स्वभावजा Faith itself comes in three
  2. 17.3 सत्त्वानुरूपा सर्वस्य श्रद्धा भवति भारत As your faith is, so are you
  3. 17.4 यजन्ते सात्त्विका देवान्यक्षरक्षांसि राजसाः Who worships what
  4. 17.5 अशास्त्रविहितं घोरं तप्यन्ते ये तपो जनाः Austerity as self-display
  5. 17.6 कर्षयन्तः शरीरस्थं भूतग्राममचेतसः They torment me, dwelling in them
  6. 17.7 आहारस्त्वपि सर्वस्य त्रिविधो भवति प्रियः Even the food
  7. 17.8 आयुःसत्त्वबलारोग्यसुखप्रीतिविवर्धनाः Food of clarity is not austere
  8. 17.9 कट्वम्ललवणात्युष्णतीक्ष्णरूक्षविदाहिनः Sharp, hot, and paid for later
  9. 17.10 यातयामं गतरसं पूति पर्युषितं च यत् Stale and left over
  10. 17.11 अफलाकाङ्क्षिभिर्यज्ञो विधिदृष्टो य इज्यते An offering wanting nothing
  11. 17.12 अभिसंधाय तु फलं दम्भार्थमपि चैव यत् For the fruit, or for show
  12. 17.13 विधिहीनमसृष्टान्नं मन्त्रहीनमदक्षिणम् Nothing distributed, no words
  13. 17.14 देवद्विजगुरुप्राज्ञपूजनं शौचमार्जवम् Austerity of the body
  14. 17.15 अनुद्वेगकरं वाक्यं सत्यं प्रियहितं च यत् Austerity of speech
  15. 17.16 मनःप्रसादः सौम्यत्वं मौनमात्मविनिग्रहः Austerity of the mind
  16. 17.17 श्रद्धया परया तप्तं तपस्तत्ित्रविधं नरैः The three together, seeking nothing
  17. 17.18 सत्कारमानपूजार्थं तपो दम्भेन चैव यत् Done for the respect it earns
  18. 17.19 मूढग्राहेणात्मनो यत्पीडया क्रियते तपः Self-torture and harming others
  19. 17.20 दातव्यमिति यद्दानं दीयतेऽनुपकारिणे A gift to one who cannot repay
  20. 17.21 यत्तु प्रत्युपकारार्थं फलमुद्दिश्य वा पुनः Given expecting return
  21. 17.22 अदेशकाले यद्दानमपात्रेभ्यश्च दीयते Given with contempt
  22. 17.23 तत्सदिति निर्देशो ब्रह्मणस्त्रिविधः स्मृतः Om, Tat, Sat
  23. 17.24 तस्मादोमित्युदाहृत्य यज्ञदानतपःक्रियाः Beginning with Om
  24. 17.25 तदित्यनभिसन्धाय फलं यज्ञतपःक्रियाः Tat, and wanting no fruit
  25. 17.26 सद्भावे साधुभावे च सदित्येतत्प्रयुज्यते What Sat means
  26. 17.27 यज्ञे तपसि दाने च स्थितिः सदिति चोच्यते Steadiness is also Sat
  27. 17.28 अश्रद्धया हुतं दत्तं तपस्तप्तं कृतं च यत् Without faith, it is nothing

Where this sits

Chapter 17 against the whole of it: who is speaking, verse by verse, and how much of the book this chapter is.

Who speaks across the whole Gita, with chapter 17 marked. Three Kinds of Faith runs from verse 596 to 623 of 701. Chapter 1: Arjuna's Despair — 47 verses Chapter 2: The Eternal — 72 verses Chapter 3: Action — 43 verses Chapter 4: The Lineage of Knowing — 42 verses Chapter 5: The Unwetted Leaf — 29 verses Chapter 6: The Windless Place — 47 verses Chapter 7: The Thread — 30 verses Chapter 8: The Two Paths — 28 verses Chapter 9: The Simple Offering — 34 verses Chapter 10: The Glories — 42 verses Chapter 11: The Cosmic Form — 55 verses Chapter 12: Devotion — 20 verses Chapter 13: The Field and Its Knower — 35 verses Chapter 14: The Three Strands — 27 verses Chapter 15: The Inverted Tree — 20 verses Chapter 16: Two Natures — 24 verses Chapter 17: Three Kinds of Faith — 28 verses Chapter 18: Release — 78 verses

The argument so far

  1. Chapter 1 Arjuna's nerve fails on the field, and the question that opens the book is not a spiritual one but a practical one he cannot answer.
  2. Chapter 2 The first answer is that Arjuna is not the body he is afraid of losing, and that grief for what cannot die is grief misplaced.
  3. Chapter 3 Withdrawing from action is not available to anyone alive; what is available is acting without gripping the result.
  4. Chapter 4 Action, knowledge and Krishna himself all have a deeper structure than they appear to, and knowing it is what makes action free.
  5. Chapter 5 What has to be renounced is attachment rather than activity — the leaf in water, unwetted.
  6. Chapter 6 The mind is trained the way anything is trained, by returning to the practice on the days it does not work.
  7. Chapter 7 Behind both matter and awareness there is one reality, and everything else is a thread strung on it.
  8. Chapter 8 Everything that appears is temporary; the work of yoga is to train attention toward the one thing that is not.
  9. Chapter 9 The highest knowledge turns out to ask for the simplest thing: what is offered matters less than the attention it is offered with.
  10. Chapter 10 Wherever something is most fully itself, the Divine is most visible in it — a list of glories given because the whole cannot be listed.
  11. Chapter 11 Arjuna asks to see it and cannot bear what he sees, which is the book's reply to anyone who wants the vision rather than the practice.
  12. Chapter 12 Devotion is offered as the reachable path, and the chapter is careful to say that a lesser version of it, honestly done, still counts.
  13. Chapter 13 There is a field and there is what knows the field, and nearly every confusion in the book comes from mistaking one for the other.
  14. Chapter 14 Three strands run through everything — clarity, drive and inertia — and freedom starts with noticing which one is moving you.
  15. Chapter 15 The world is a tree rooted upward, and cutting it is not destruction but recognising what it was growing out of.
  16. Chapter 16 Two dispositions are set against each other, and the chapter is interested in the difference rather than in the judgement.