Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 in English IAST: Karma Saṃnyāsa Yoga

oṃ tatsaditi śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṃ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṃvāde karmasaṃnyāsayogo nāma pañcamo’dhyāyaḥ ||

---

About Karma Sannyasa Yoga

The fourth chapter said that action dissolves away through knowledge, and ended with ‘take to yoga, stand up’. To Arjuna these looked like opposed paths that one person could not follow at the same time. Give up action, or do it? The fifth chapter opens with this question.

Krishna’s answer comes in two steps: both paths lead to the highest good, but the yoga of action is better. The rest of the chapter shows how one can be free within while working without, through images such as the lotus leaf in water, the city of nine gates, and knowledge shining like the sun. Verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight are a prelude to the yoga of meditation in the sixth chapter.

How the chapter moves

• Verses 1 to 6: Arjuna’s question, the answer that both paths share one goal, why the yoga of action is still better, and seeing sankhya and yoga as one.
• Verses 7 to 12: The yogi who knows ‘I do nothing’ even while working, the lotus leaf untouched by water, and the peace of one who has let go of the fruit.
• Verses 13 to 17: The embodied one dwelling at ease in the city of nine gates, the Lord who does not create doership, knowledge covered by ignorance, and understanding that shines like the sun.
• Verses 18 to 23: The wise one who sees all as equal, the limits of pleasures born of contact, and the one who can withstand the force of desire and anger before leaving the body.
• Verses 24 to 29: Inner joy and light, brahma-nirvana, the first outlines of meditation, and the peace that comes from knowing the Lord as the friend of all beings.

Which ‘renunciation’ is meant

When the second verse calls the yoga of action better, the acharyas differ on what it is better than. For Shankara it is better than a mere giving up of action without knowledge; renunciation joined with knowledge has a different place. For Ramanuja the renunciation here is the yoga of knowledge, and even for one qualified for it the yoga of action is easier and better. For Madhva what is being compared is not the formal order of sannyasa but the inner giving up within action.

These pages do not decide between the readings. Wherever the acharyas part, each position is recorded in its own terms.

Equal vision

The eighteenth verse is among the most quoted in the Gita: in a learned and humble brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a shvapaka, the wise see the same. Its weight falls not on the old social ranking but on the equal vision that sees past it. There is a note on the word ‘shvapaka’ on that verse’s page.

Sources: several.

ಪಾಠದಲ್ಲಿ ತಪ್ಪೋ ಬೇರೆ ಪಾಠಾಂತರವೋ ಕಂಡಿತೇ? ನಮಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿ.
Noticed a mistake or a different reading? Tell us.