Sanskrit
ये शास्त्रविधिमुत्सृज्य यजन्ते श्रद्धयाऽन्विताः । तेषां निष्ठा तु का कृष्ण सत्त्वमाहो रजस्तमः ॥
ye śāstravidhim utsṛjya yajante śraddhayānvitāḥ teṣāṃ niṣṭhā tu kā kṛṣṇa sattvam āho rajas tamaḥ
Translation
Those that sacrifice full of faith, but casting aside the ordinances of the Scriptures, what is verily their condition, O Krishna? Is it one of Purity, Passion, or Darkness?
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Arjuna opens a new chapter with a question Chapter 16 left unaddressed: that chapter sorted people into divine and demoniac natures largely by whether they honour scriptural ordinance, but what about someone who acts with real faith yet ignores the rulebook? He’s asking Krishna to locate sincerity somewhere on the sattva-rajas-tamas axis first named back in Chapter 14, and the question itself quietly concedes that faith and scriptural correctness might be two separate axes rather than one — a premise Krishna will run with for the rest of the chapter.