The verse everyone quotes
No line of Sanskrit is quoted more often, or more loosely, than Gītā 2.47. It is printed on office walls, invoked at funerals, and used to excuse both frantic overwork and comfortable resignation. The verse itself is far more precise than any of those uses.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana, mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi
'You have a right to perform your duty, but never to the fruits of action. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.'
Grammar decides the meaning. Adhikāra is not 'permission' but rightful claim — a domain that genuinely belongs to you. Kṛṣṇa hands Arjuna one domain, the act, and withdraws another, the fruit. Then, in the same breath, He closes the escape hatch: mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi — nor let your attachment be to inaction. Detachment from results is not a licence to stop working. Both cravings are named and both are refused.
The full verse study, with the three classical commentaries side by side, lives at [Bhagavad Gītā 2.47](/scriptures/bhagavad-gita/2/47); the whole of chapter 2 can be read at [Sāṅkhya Yoga](/scriptures/bhagavad-gita/2).
Samatva — yoga defined as evenness
The next verse supplies the definition that 2.47 assumes. It is one of the few places in the Gītā where Kṛṣṇa says outright what the word yoga means.
योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय। सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते॥
yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya, siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga ucyate
'Established in yoga, perform action, O Dhanañjaya, abandoning attachment, and remain balanced in success and failure. This equanimity is called yoga.'
Note the sequence. Yoga-sthaḥ comes first, kuru karmāṇi second: one does not act one's way into evenness, one acts from it. And the object of evenness is carefully chosen — not pleasure and pain, but siddhi and asiddhi, success and failure. What is being levelled is the agent's stake in the outcome, not their capacity to feel.
This is why Karma Yoga is a discipline rather than an attitude. Evenness under failure is easy to admire and hard to hold; evenness under success is rarer still, and is the half most readers quietly skip.
Buddhi-yoga — and the pity of the fruit-seeker
Verses 2.49 to 2.51 escalate. Acting for reward is not merely less effective; it is described as a diminished way to be a person.
दूरेण ह्यवरं कर्म बुद्धियोगाद्धनञ्जय। बुद्धौ शरणमन्विच्छ कृपणाः फलहेतवः॥
dūreṇa hy avaraṁ karma buddhi-yogād dhanañjaya, buddhau śaraṇam anviccha kṛpaṇāḥ phala-hetavaḥ
'Action with selfish motive is far inferior to the yoga of wisdom, Dhanañjaya. Seek refuge in wisdom; pitiable are those who act for the sake of results.'
Kṛpaṇa is a strong word — miserly, pinched, to be pitied. The fruit-seeker is not condemned as wicked but described as small: someone who has traded an unbounded field of action for a narrow ledger of returns. The alternative offered is buddhi — discriminating intelligence — as a refuge (śaraṇa), the same word used elsewhere for taking refuge in the Lord.
बुद्धियुक्तो जहातीह उभे सुकृतदुष्कृते। तस्माद्योगाय युज्यस्व योगः कर्मसु कौशलम्॥
buddhi-yukto jahātīha ubhe sukṛta-duṣkṛte, tasmād yogāya yujyasva yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam
'One united with wisdom casts off, even in this life, both good and evil deeds. Therefore strive for yoga; yoga is skill in action.'
Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam — 'yoga is skill in action' — is the most abused half-line in the chapter. Read in place, kauśalam is not professional competence or productivity. The skill in question is the skill of acting in such a way that the act leaves no residue: neither merit to be collected nor demerit to be paid off. That is why the verse begins with casting off both good and evil deeds. Karma Yoga is not a technique for accumulating good karma. It is a technique for not accumulating.
कर्मजं बुद्धियुक्ता हि फलं त्यक्त्वा मनीषिणः। जन्मबन्धविनिर्मुक्ताः पदं गच्छन्त्यनामयम्॥
karma-jaṁ buddhi-yuktā hi phalaṁ tyaktvā manīṣiṇaḥ, janma-bandha-vinirmuktāḥ padaṁ gacchanty anāmayam
'The wise, united with wisdom, renounce the fruit of action; freed from the bondage of birth, they attain the state beyond sorrow.'
With 2.51 the sequence closes and the stakes are named: what is at issue is janma-bandha, the bondage of repeated birth. Action is what binds; unattached action is what does not.
Whose work? Svadharma before detachment
Detachment answers how to act. It does not answer what to do — and the Gītā treats that as the prior question. Sixteen verses earlier, Kṛṣṇa has already settled it for Arjuna on the ground of svadharma, one's own proper duty.
स्वधर्ममपि चावेक्ष्य न विकम्पितुमर्हसि। धर्म्याद्धि युद्धाच्छ्रेयोऽन्यत्क्षत्रियस्य न विद्यते॥
svadharmam api cāvekṣya na vikampitum arhasi, dharmyād dhi yuddhāc chreyo 'nyat kṣatriyasya na vidyate
'Considering your own duty, you should not waver; for a warrior, there is nothing better than a righteous war.'
This ordering matters, because Karma Yoga read without it collapses into indifference — if outcomes do not matter, why choose one action over another? The Gītā's answer is that the choice is not made by calculating outcomes at all. It is made by dharma: by what this person, in this station, at this hour, is actually obliged to do. Detachment then governs the manner of doing it.
For the wider frame of svadharma and the sources it draws on, see [What is Dharma?](/essays/what-is-dharma).
Three schools on the agency that remains
If the fruit is not mine, in what sense is the act mine? The three great Vedānta commentaries on the Gītā answer differently, and the difference is not decorative.
- Śaṅkara (Advaita). Action belongs to the upādhi — the body-mind complex under superimposition. Karma Yoga purifies that complex until it becomes fit for jñāna; the fruit is withdrawn because the Self was never the doer to begin with. Karma Yoga is preparation, and knowledge is the end.
- Rāmānuja (Viśiṣṭādvaita). The self is real, distinct, and genuinely an agent — but an agent dependent on the Lord, who is the inner controller. Renouncing the fruit is therefore an act of offering: the work is done as kaiṅkarya, service, and the fruit is surrendered to the one to whom it always belonged.
- Madhva (Dvaita). The distinction between the jīva and Īśvara is permanent. Action is really the jīva's, but its capacity to act and its results are both under divine sanction; abandoning the fruit is an acknowledgement of that dependence rather than a dissolution of the self.
Śaṅkara's Gītā Bhāṣya, Rāmānuja's Gītā Bhāṣya and Madhva's Gītā Bhāṣya are the primary texts here; the summaries above are editorial. The verse page [Gītā 2.47](/scriptures/bhagavad-gita/2/47) sets the three side by side on this single verse.
What it asks of an ordinary day
Stripped of grandeur, the discipline is unglamorous and testable. Choose the work by obligation rather than by expected return. Do it to the standard the work itself demands, not the standard the reward demands. Notice the moment when anxiety about the outcome starts steering the hands, and put the attention back on the act. Refuse, equally, the drift towards doing nothing, which the verse anticipated.
What the Gītā promises in return is not success. It is anāmayam padam — a state without sickness, without the low fever of wanting. The reward for giving up rewards is that the work stops costing what it used to cost.
Chapter 3, Karma Yoga proper, extends this into the theology of yajña — action as sacrifice, and the cosmos as an economy of offering. That chapter is being prepared for the site and this essay will grow into it.
