Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 17, Verse 20
Verse 20
The Yoga of the Three Types of Faith
That gift which is given with the thought "this is to be given," to one who cannot return the favour, at the right place, right time, and to a worthy recipient — that gift is remembered as sattvic.
Context & Meaning
The sattvic gift is characterised by three qualities of circumstance and one of motivation. The circumstance: the right place (deśa — an appropriate context for giving), the right time (kāla — when giving is genuinely helpful), and the right recipient (pātra — literally a worthy vessel, one who can genuinely receive and use the gift). The motivation: dātavyam iti — "this is simply to be given," without any expectation of return (anupakāriṇe — to one who cannot repay). This last quality is the heart of sattvic giving: the gift is not an investment, not a social obligation, not a transaction — it is a pure expression of generosity, modelled on the sun's giving of light, which asks for nothing in return.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainRamanujacharya
VishishtadvaitaAnupakāriṇe — to one who cannot return the favour. This is the Gita's criterion for genuinely selfless giving: the only pure gift is one where return is structurally impossible. When we give to those who can reciprocate, there is always the possibility that our generosity is actually a sophisticated form of exchange. The gift to one who cannot return it — the truly poor, the anonymous stranger, the future generation — is the gift that most clearly expresses love rather than transaction.