यामिमां पुष्पितां वाचं प्रवदन्त्यविपश्चितः।वेदवादरताः पार्थ नान्यदस्तीति वादिनः॥
yāmimāṃ puṣpitāṃ vācaṃ pravadanty-avipaścitaḥveda-vāda-ratāḥ pārtha nānyad astīti vādinaḥkāmātmānaḥ swarga-parā janma-karma-phala-pradāmkriyā-viśeṣa-bahulāṃ bhogaiśwarya-gatiṃ prati
Word by word
The verse says
There are people who go in for flowery talk and take delight in the letter of the scriptures, Arjuna, saying there is nothing more to it than this.
In plain words
Krishna starts criticising religion - specifically, a way of doing it.
Flowery words. Delight in the text itself. And the giveaway phrase: there is nothing else.
These are not irreligious people. They are the devout, and that is the point.
Where you've felt this · in creative work
Your cousin knows every rule of tabla - every theory, every lineage, every mistake other players make. He has not played for anyone in nine years. The knowledge is real and complete. It stopped being the way in and became the whole thing.
Going deeper
It surprises readers that the Gita, a scripture, contains a sharp critique of scripture-following. It is worth understanding what is being attacked.
Veda-vāda-ratāḥ - delighting in the words of the Veda. The target is a specific religious style: the performance of rituals in order to obtain results, with the text treated as a reliable machine for producing them.
What Krishna objects to is not the Veda. It is the transaction. Do this rite, receive that reward - which makes the whole of religion an extension of wanting things, with better vocabulary.
Na anyad asti - there is nothing else. That is the real charge. Not that they are wrong about the rituals working, but that they think that is all there is.
This matters for reading the rest of the Gita, because the same critique will be turned on almost every path the book describes. Knowledge pursued for status, renunciation pursued for admiration, devotion pursued for benefits. In each case the form is fine and the motive has hollowed it out.