Datavyam iti — with the resolve 'this must be given.' Yat danam diyate — that giving is given — anupakarine — to one who cannot reciprocate. Deshe — at the right place. Kale — at the right time. Patre — to a worthy recipient. Tat danam sattvikam smritam — that giving is remembered as sattvika.
Krishna names four conditions for sattvika dana: the inner resolve of duty, the absence of return-expectation, and three contextual fits — place, time, recipient.
Shankara reads sattvika dana as given with the resolve datavyam — it must be given — not to elicit return, but as nishkama-karma purifying the antahkarana. The fit recipient is one versed in the six Vedangas; given at a sacred desha such as Kurukshetra; at an auspicious kala such as a solstice. Such giving prepares the giver for jnana through inner purification. The three contextual fits are not mere ritual decoration; they are what make the dana operationally effective.
Madhusudana emphasizes shastra-chodana — scriptural injunction — as the sole trigger: 'datavyam eva shastra-chodana-vashat' — not emotional impulse or expected return. The gift — citing the tula-purusha rite and similar dana-forms — must reach someone who cannot reciprocate, at a sacred site, at an auspicious moment, and a patra qualified by vidya and tapas to receive a worthy gift. The specifications are Vedic-grounded; the dana operates in the Vedic economy precisely.
Ramanuja reads dana given free of phala-abhisandhi to one who cannot reciprocate, at the right desha, kala, patra, as sattvika because it expresses the soul's inherent mode of kainkarya. The giver recognizes that all wealth is Bhagavan's and that right gifting participates in the divine economy of grace. Such dana purifies and orients the jiva toward continued bhakti-action. The bhakta is the conduit, not the proprietor; the gift flows through him from Bhagavan to the patra.
Madhva reads dana as sattvika when flowing from the recognition that giving is simply what must be done — datavyam iti — not from expectation of return. The paratantra-jiva holds nothing as its own; all wealth belongs to svatantra Hari, and proper distribution is an expression of bhakti as ontological subordination. The three conditions named — desha, kala, patra — are real conditions, real specifications, all under Hari's structural ordering.
Vallabha notes briefly that the verse is subodha-arthah — self-evident — pointing to Krishna's lila-prasada as source and endpoint of all giving. Pushti-marga reading: sattvika dana flows from the recognition that the giver, the gift, the recipient are all Krishna's. Giving without expectation is the natural movement of a soul that has tasted grace and now offers it forward. The bhakta gives because pushti gives through him.
Shridhara gives the most syntactically careful reading: patra — fit recipient — is parsed both as locative — 'in the worthy one' — and as taddhita form meaning 'protector' — the scholar equipped with tapas and shruta who shields the giver from adharma. Giving with the resolve datavyam, at Kurukshetra or sacred crossing, at auspicious kala such as a solar eclipse, to a patra qualified by both vidya and tapas — that giving is sattvika.