---
type: Concept
bundle: dharmic-ethics
bundle_version: "0.5.0"
id: asteya
title: "Asteya — Non-Misappropriation in Every Form"
iast: "asteya"
devanagari: "अस्तेय"
description: "Non-stealing extended to every subtle form of taking what is not freely given: credit, time, attention, ideas. The third yama. Not merely refraining from theft of property, and not a legal standard."
darshana:
  - Yoga Darśana
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
school_scope: "Third yama (YS 2.30, 2.37). A specification of ahiṃsā applied to what belongs to another, material or otherwise."
text_source: "YS 2.37"
tags:
  - asteya
  - yama
  - ethics
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "not stealing (property only)"
    why: "the legal sense covers theft of goods; asteya reaches the subtle thefts that no law names, taking credit, taking another's time and attention, appropriating ideas, even coveting, because the root is the grasping impulse, not only the seized object"
    instead: "Render asteya as non-misappropriation, the refusal to take in any form what is not freely given; not merely as abstaining from theft of property."
  - term: "honesty about money"
    why: "asteya is not a finance virtue; it governs the whole economy of what passes between beings, and its deepest layer is the inner renunciation of the wish to possess what is another's"
  - term: "legal compliance"
    why: "compliance asks whether an act is permitted by law; asteya asks whether anything has been taken that was not given with a free heart, a standard the law cannot reach and does not try to"
related:
  - /concepts/ahimsa.md
  - /concepts/aparigraha.md
  - /concepts/dana.md
  - /concepts/satya.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Asteya — अस्तेय

**Not:** not stealing (property only), honesty about money, legal compliance

Asteya is non-stealing understood at full depth: the refusal to take, in any form, what has not been freely given. As the third yama it governs not only property but credit, time, attention, and ideas, and at its root the very impulse to grasp at what is another's.

## Etymology

From *a-* (not) + *steya* (theft, from √*stā* / *stena*, a thief). "The state of non-theft." As with ahiṃsā, the grammatical form names an absence, but the discipline targets the inner craving whose outward shape is theft.

## What It Actually Means

YS 2.37 states that when asteya is firmly established, all jewels present themselves: the one who has wholly given up taking finds abundance arriving unsought. The fruit reveals the cause, which is the extinction of the grasping reflex, not merely keeping one's hands off others' goods. The tradition reads asteya broadly. To take credit for another's work, to consume someone's time and attention without leave, to use what was lent as if owned, to harbor the wish to possess what belongs to another, all are forms of steya. Asteya is the cleaning of that whole impulse.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Not stealing property" and "honesty about money" both shrink asteya to the material and visible, missing the subtle thefts and the inner covetousness that are its real field. "Legal compliance" sets the bar at what is permitted, but much that is legal still takes what was not freely given. Asteya is measured by the heart's relation to what is another's, not by the statute book.

## Cross-References
- [Ahiṃsā](ahimsa.md) — taking what is another's is a form of harm; asteya specifies ahiṃsā toward property and due
- [Aparigraha](aparigraha.md) — non-stealing restrains taking; non-grasping restrains keeping
- [Dāna](dana.md) — the giver's posture is the inverse of the taker's; dāna and asteya complete each other
- [Satya](satya.md) — claiming another's credit is both theft and untruth

## Audience Metaphor

Think of how easily a meeting is stolen. No one takes an object; someone simply repeats a colleague's idea as their own, and the credit quietly changes hands. No law is broken, no property moves, and yet something real was taken from someone who gave it freely only as a thought aloud. Asteya is the discipline that notices exactly this kind of taking, the kind that leaves the room looking undisturbed, and refuses it.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtra](/references/yoga-sutra.md) 2.30, 2.37 — asteya as the third yama; abundance arrives to the one established in non-stealing
2. [Manusmṛti](/references/manusmriti.md) — theft in its gross and subtle forms among the conduct prohibitions
3. [Mahābhārata](/references/mahabharata.md) — covetousness (lobha) as the root of taking, named across the dharma teachings
