They — te — say — ahuh — the jagat is asatyam — without truth; apratishtham — without foundation; anishvaram — without an Ishvara. Aparaspara-sambhuta — born only of mutual union, man-and-woman; kim anyat — what else? — kama-haitukam — caused by lust alone.
Krishna names the asura's worldview: a four-clause negation. No truth; no order; no Lord; just the lust-driven coupling that produces bodies and bodies produce more bodies. The asura's metaphysics is named in its full reductive form.
Shankara reads the asura as declaring this lokayata — materialist — view. No dharma-adharma ordering exists; no adrishta cause beyond lust; no Ishvara as regulator. The world is just bodies meeting and producing more bodies. The implication: behavior follows belief. With no transcendent order, no virtue is structurally meaningful; the demonic life-architecture is consistent with the demonic metaphysics.
Madhusudana layers a precise epistemological critique. Asatya means the world lacks any pramana of unblemished purport — abadita-tatparya-vishaya. The Vedas and the smritis dependent on them are rejected not because they are unperceived but because their pramanatva — epistemic authority — is refused, a distinction from simple ignorance. Without that pramana, dharma-adharma cannot land. The asura's denial is therefore epistemologically sophisticated, not crude — and that sophistication makes it more dangerous.
Ramanuja reads the verse as the asura explicitly denying three things: that the world is brahma-karya — effect of Brahman — and thus brahma-atmaka — pervaded by Brahman as antaryamin. That it is sustained in Brahman — 'brahmana-antena dhrita hi prithivi.' That it is governed by the Lord of satya-sankalpa. Against the asura claim, Ramanuja cites Gita 10.8: 'aham sarvasya prabhavah' — I am the source of all. The bhakta holds the counter-shruti as the bhakta's own ground.
Madhva is terse and polemical: the asura inverts the Upanishadic truth that Vishnu is satyasya satyam — the truth of truth, Brihadaranyaka 2.1.20. He denies that Hari is the pratishtha and the Ishvara who governs.
Madhva cites the Brihadaranyaka's dve va brahmano rupe (2.3.1) to assert the world has two modes — murta and amurta — both real and grounded in Hari. The asura's denial is metaphysical denial, not mere moral failing.
Vallabha opens by affirming the Bhagavata declaration tvam eka eva asya satah prasutih and the Chandogya sat eva somya idam agra asit — the world is satya because it proceeds from the supreme satya-vastu, Krishna Himself. The asura, calling the world asatya, relies on maya- or ajna-kalpita arguments. But if the world were genuinely unreal, the Vedic sadhanas taught within it would be unreal too, and that conclusion the bhakta cannot accept. The asura's claim self-refutes when measured against the operative Veda.
Shridhara frames the verse as an answer to a question: why do the asuras not follow Vedic dharma-adharma? Because they deny the pramana altogether — 'na asti satyam veda-purana-adi-pramanam yasmin.' They cite the lokayata taunt that the Vedas were composed by knaves and tricksters — 'trayah vedasya kartarah bhanda-dhurta-nishacharah.' Without dharma-adharma as the operative scaffolding, the asura's life-architecture is only kama-driven coupling.