अध्येष्यते च य इमं धर्म्यं संवादमावयोः।ज्ञानयज्ञेन तेनाहमिष्टः स्यामिति मे मतिः॥
adhyeṣyate ca ya imaṃ dharmyaṃ saṃvādam āvayoḥjñāna-yajñena tenāham iṣṭaḥ syām iti me matiḥ
Word by word
The verse says
And whoever studies this conversation of ours, which is about what is right, will have worshipped me with the offering of knowledge. That is my view.
In plain words
Now even the reader is included, which is a generous move.
Not the teacher, not the devotee. Whoever studies it.
And study is called jñāna-yajña - the offering made of knowledge. The reading itself is counted as the ritual.
Where you've felt this · in study
You sit down with something difficult for an hour and at the end you are not sure you understood much. Nobody saw you do it and you have nothing to show. You also know, without being able to prove it, that the hour was not the same as an hour spent otherwise.
Going deeper
Counting study as an offering puts reading in the same category as the rituals the book opened among, and that is not a small claim.
An offering, in the older sense, required materials, a fire, a correct procedure and often a priest. Calling attention itself the offering removes all four. What is given is the only thing a reader has, which is a stretch of concentration.
That is also the most honest account of what reading something serious costs. The materials are free. The attention is not, and most people have less of it available than money.
And it quietly answers the question of what the point of a book like this is for someone who will not become a monk or a warrior. The study is not preparation for the real thing that happens later. On this account it already counts.