Sanskrit
कामैस्तैस्तैर्हृतज्ञानाः प्रपद्यन्तेऽन्यदेवताः । तं तं नियममास्थाय प्रकृत्या नियताः स्वया ॥ २० ॥
kāmais taistair hṛtajñānāḥ prapadyante'nyadevatāḥ taṃ taṃ niyamam āsthāya prakṛtyā niyatāḥ svayā
Translation
They whose wisdom hath been rent away by desires go forth to other Shining Ones, resorting to various external observances, according to their own natures.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A structural pivot: having spent verses 1-19 establishing what full knowledge of Krishna looks like, the chapter now turns to its opposite — worship diverted toward lesser gods by desire. This directly violates verse 11’s earlier qualifier, desire “not contrary to dharma”; here desire has taken over entirely, and what follows through verse 23 is not condemnation but an oddly generous account of how that diverted worship still functions.