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Chapter 2 · Contents of the Gītā Summarized · 72 verses

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How to study this verse, in six steps

1Remember who is speaking. Kṛṣṇa is speaking. Take the verse as He directs.
2Say the verse and its words. Read the Sanskrit, then each word with its meaning.
3Read the translation as it is. Let the translation say what it says, without adding your own meaning.
4Read the purport. Hear the verse through the disciplic succession.
5Bring your own question. Ask: where does this verse meet my life, my trouble, my doubt?
6Act on it, remembering Kṛṣṇa. Carry one instruction into your work today.

Read the full guide: how to read the Bhagavad-gītā ›

Duty & actionChapter 2 · Contents of the Gītā Summarized

2.46 2.48

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is · Text 2.47

Responsibility without ownership of outcomes

Karma · Action

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥ ४७ ॥

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

mā te saṅgo ’stv akarmaṇi

Translation

You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.

Read Śrīla Prabhupāda's purport on Vedabase.io

Understand it

What this verse is saying, and where it sits in the story.

3 study points

Duty Without Attachment

1
Perform your prescribed duty without claiming its fruits, seeing yourself as the cause of results, or avoiding your duty.
2
Prabhupāda explains that attachment to results causes bondage, while duty done without attachment leads toward liberation.
3
Arjuna’s refusal to fight would also be attachment. His path to salvation was to fight as a matter of duty, without attachment to results.

Key points from the purport

Krishna recommends ‘Niskama-karma-yoga as non-reactive path’ — Prescribed action without attachment does not bear any reaction (2.47)

Perform prescribed duties without attachment to the fruit. Why?

Because attachment to result implies: “you are also the cause”

If you become the cause – you are also entitled to enjoy or suffer the result

Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities

Nor be attached to not doing your duty

3 Kinds of work are defined

Prescribed – Those enjoined in scriptures according to one’s acquired modes

Capricious – Actions without sanction of authorities

Inaction – Not performing one’s prescribed duty

3 Kinds of prescribed duties

Routine –

Action in the mode of goodness –If performed as an obligation to the scriptures without attachment for the results

Inauspicious work – Work with attachment to results becomes the cause of bondage

Emergency

Desired

Conclusion — Only auspicious path is “disinterested/obligatory” duties which leads one to the path of liberation. On the other hand:

Any attachment positive or negative is the cause of bondage

Inaction or capricious work – both are sinful

Connected verses · 1

Texts 2.46 & 2.47

After explaining different levels of action and motivation until Text 2.46. Now Krishna talks about specific level of action for Arjuna in Texts 2.47 – 2.49

How it feels

Release from outcome anxiety