Two words for letting go are not one word: renouncing the deed, and releasing its fruit.
It is easy to hear sannyasa and tyaga as different names for the same surrender. Krishna begins, instead, by holding them apart: one drops the rite, the other keeps the rite and drops only what it owes you.
The Blessed Lord said: The wise call it renunciation to give up actions done from desire. The discerning call it relinquishment to give up the fruit of all actions, while still performing them.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
The battlefield dialogue is closing now, and Arjuna has just asked for something he has heard in pieces across seventeen chapters to finally be given in whole: what exactly is sannyasa, and what exactly is tyaga, told apart rather than blurred into one word for letting go. Krishna's answer opens the chapter's last movement.
The teaching
Two words sit close enough in feeling to be mistaken for one. Renunciation, sannyasa, and relinquishment, tyaga, both mean release, and that overlap is precisely why they needed separating. Here is where they come apart. Renunciation is the wise setting down a rite entirely, the kind undertaken because a desire drove it, wanting a son, wanting heaven, wanting something the rite promised. Relinquishment is narrower and, for most lives, more livable: the discerning keep performing the rite, whatever duty actually requires of them, and let go only of their claim on what it yields. One drops the doing. The other keeps the doing and loosens the grip on the result. A fair question follows immediately: some duties are said to carry no stated fruit at all, so what is there to relinquish? The answer offered is that no injunction moves a thoughtful person to act for nothing; some fruit is implied even where none is named, and scripture does in fact speak of it. So relinquishment reaches even the quiet, dutiful, seemingly fruitless work of an ordinary day. And one source goes further still: rites performed this way, with fruit released but the doing continued, purify the heart over time, until the letting go of fruit becomes, of itself, the letting go of the act, the way clouds thin once the rains have finished their work.
The doubt that rises
If both words mean letting go, which one is actually being asked of you, the one who cannot simply walk away from what the day requires? And where the old commentators themselves fall silent on a question, as they do here for at least one voice, what should be said instead of a confident, borrowed answer?
Where the paths divide
Read as a precise, almost technical distinction, confirmed by the Lord's own later words.
Renunciation is the complete abandonment of desire-driven rites. Relinquishment is the release of fruit alone, from rites that continue regardless of desire. Even the duties said to carry no stated fruit are not exempt, since no injunction is given for no purpose at all, and the Lord will later confirm that a threefold fruit comes to everyone except the one who has truly renounced. The two words differ in scope, not in their deeper aim.
Read as two schools reported before Krishna's own usage resolves them.
The verse first lays an existing disagreement open rather than settling it in the same breath: some hold renunciation drops the rite itself, others hold relinquishment only drops the fruit. Watch how Krishna himself goes on to use these words in what follows. He speaks of relinquishment as the operative discipline and treats the two terms' outcomes as equivalent, which shows that what must finally be surrendered is the fruit, not the deed, however the two labels are first introduced.
Read honestly, where the source record itself is silent.
No comment survives from this tradition's founding teacher at this exact verse. Rather than invent a confident reading and present it as his own, the honest path is to say plainly that the material is missing here, and to offer only a clearly marked guess: his broader teaching, that the very capacity to act is granted by the Lord and that the fruit of action is fixed according to each soul's nature, would likely shape how such a distinction is approached, but this is inference about direction, not a report of stated words.
Read as a brief confirmation of terms, honestly left undeveloped here.
What survives at this verse names the desire-driven rites in question and restates plainly that relinquishment releases fruit while the rite continues, then explicitly points past itself to earlier teachers rather than building further. A fuller reading of renunciation as the self's own recognized freedom exists elsewhere in this tradition's thought, but attaching it to this particular verse would be extension, not the commentary actually given here.
Read as the fullest working-out among the voices gathered here.
Renunciation lays down desire-driven rites entirely, together with their fruit. Relinquishment is narrower: give up the fruit alone, from any rite, while the rite continues. But why keep acting once its promised fruit is gone? Because the rites serve something past their stated reward, the longing to know, and this longing purifies the heart. In time, the letting go of fruit becomes, of itself, the letting go of the act, the way clouds thin and vanish once the rains have finished their work.
Read for the structure shared by both terms, past any one school's exclusive claim.
Set two views side by side. On one, renunciation drops desire-driven rites for the sake of knowledge. On the other, relinquishment keeps every rite, desire-driven and daily alike, and severs only the eye on the fruit; the line between a desire-driven rite and a daily one turns out to be nothing but the intention behind it, and that line dissolves once craving for the fruit is gone. Different scope, same underlying operation: sever the fruit as motive, whichever deed happens to be at hand.
The schools that speak here agree the two words are not identical, and they largely agree on the direction of the difference: one term drops the deed, the other only its fruit. What stays open is which discipline you are actually being called to, and whether continued, fruit-released action eventually loosens into its own quiet ending or must be joined, at some point, by an outright renunciation of the deed itself. And honestly: this page cannot tell you what one tradition's own founder thought of this exact verse, because that comment does not survive. That gap is left open rather than papered over.
A question to carry
Today, in the very next task that asks something of you, can you tell the difference between wanting to do it well and wanting it to turn out a particular way, and if you can, which one are you actually willing to release?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Keep the work in front of you. Let go only of what it owes you. And where even the old teachers have nothing left to say, let the silence itself be honestly kept, rather than filled with borrowed certainty.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Arjuna has just asked to know renunciation and relinquishment each in its own true form, not blurred together, and this is Krishna's opening answer, the hinge on which the chapter's final teaching will turn.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Renunciation, sannyasa, is the wise setting down a desire-driven rite entirely, root and fruit together.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
Sannyasa and tyaga sound close enough to blur together, and that blur is exactly why Arjuna asked to have them told apart. Both words carry the sense of letting go, which is why a careless reader could mistake them for two names of one thing. This verse begins the work of separating them, and the separation matters enough that the rest of the chapter depends on it.
Relinquishment, tyaga, is the discerning keeping the rite and releasing only their claim on what it yields.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The cleanest line runs through the commentators who address it directly: sannyasa gives up the desire-driven rite in its very form, while tyaga keeps performing the rite and gives up only its fruit. One term drops the doing; the other keeps the doing and loosens the grip on what it yields.
Even duties said to bear no named fruit are not exempt; a general fruit is implied, and it too is released.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara and Śrīdhara’s words
More than one reading treats the daily and occasional duties as a hard case worth answering honestly: such duties are said to bear no stated fruit, so how can their fruit be given up? The answer offered is that scripture would not enjoin an act for no purpose at all, and it does in fact name a general fruit, so relinquishment applies to that fruit too, not only to the fruit of desire-driven rites.
Continued, purified action is not a lesser path; done long enough without craving, it can loosen into its own quiet ending.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Rāmānuja, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
Several sources agree that tyaga does not ask a person to stop acting. What continues is the deed; what is released is the craving that once reached for its outcome. This distinction is treated as the discipline's whole engineering, not an incidental detail.
Where the sources are silent, as they are here for at least one voice, honesty about the gap outranks a confident, invented answer.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Where the material is thin, this synthesis says so rather than filling the gap with invented doctrine. No Dvaita reading of this exact verse survives in the source record, and the Shaiva source here is a brief confirmation of terms with an explicit deferral to earlier teachers, not a developed reading of its own.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the verse as reporting an existing disagreement between two schools rather than issuing Krishna's own final verdict on the spot. He holds that Krishna's later usage settles the matter: since the Lord goes on to treat tyaga as the operative word and equates the two terms' consequences, the deeper teaching is that what must finally be surrendered is the fruit, not the deed, with sannyasa and tyaga naming one discipline from two angles.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
No commentary from Madhva survives at this exact verse in the source record consulted here. What can honestly be offered is a marked extrapolation: his broader Dvaita commitments, that the capacity to act is delegated by the Lord and that the fruit of action is fixed by the Lord according to each soul's nature, would plausibly shape how he approaches any distinction between renouncing action and releasing its fruit. This is a reasoned guess about direction, not a report of his stated words on 18.2.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara gives the fullest working-out of the distinction among the sources here. Sannyasa is the complete laying down of desire-driven rites together with their fruit; tyaga is the narrower release of fruit alone, from any rite, while the rite itself continues. He goes further than the others in explaining why one still acts after releasing the fruit: the rites serve the deeper longing to know, and as they purify the heart, the letting go of fruit gradually becomes, of itself, the letting go of the act, the way clouds thin once the rains are done.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for its structural clarity rather than any one school's stamp, Madhusudana's two-view exposition offers a way to hold sannyasa and tyaga as differing in scope, one broader and covering the rite itself, one narrower and covering only its fruit, without treating them as fundamentally different disciplines. The operative move in both is the same: sever the eye on the fruit from the deed, whichever deed is at hand.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
You do not need to resolve, today, whether you are called to renounce a rite or merely release its fruit. Take the very next task in front of you and notice, honestly, whether you are doing it because of what it will bring you. If you find that reaching, do not force yourself to stop the task. Simply set the reaching down and continue the work with empty hands. That single motion, done once, is the whole distinction this verse is making, felt rather than merely understood.
Take up the very next task before you, and if you feel the old reach toward its outcome, set the reaching down without setting down the task.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
annyasa and tyaga sound close enough to blur together, and that blur is exactly why Arjuna asked to have them told apart. Both words carry the sense of letting go, which is why a careless reader could mistake them for two names of one thing. This verse begins the work of separating them, and the separation matters enough that the rest of the chapter depends on it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The cleanest line runs through the commentators who address it directly: sannyasa gives up the desire-driven rite in its very form, while tyaga keeps performing the rite and gives up only its fruit. One term drops the doing; the other keeps the doing and loosens the grip on what it yields.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
More than one reading treats the daily and occasional duties as a hard case worth answering honestly: such duties are said to bear no stated fruit, so how can their fruit be given up? The answer offered is that scripture would not enjoin an act for no purpose at all, and it does in fact name a general fruit, so relinquishment applies to that fruit too, not only to the fruit of desire-driven rites.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Several sources agree that tyaga does not ask a person to stop acting. What continues is the deed; what is released is the craving that once reached for its outcome. This distinction is treated as the discipline's whole engineering, not an incidental detail.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where the material is thin, this synthesis says so rather than filling the gap with invented doctrine. No Dvaita reading of this exact verse survives in the source record, and the Shaiva source here is a brief confirmation of terms with an explicit deferral to earlier teachers, not a developed reading of its own.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse as drawing a precise, almost technical line: sannyasa is the complete abandonment of desire-driven rites, while tyaga is the release of fruit alone from rites that continue. He answers the objection that daily duties bear no fruit by noting the Lord elsewhere confirms a threefold fruit for everyone except the renouncer. Madhusudana widens this into two live positions he sets side by side, one where sannyasa drops desire-driven action entirely for the sake of knowledge, another where tyaga is simply the severing of fruit-as-motive from any rite at all, concluding that the two words differ in scope but converge on one underlying discipline.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the verse as reporting an existing disagreement between two schools rather than issuing Krishna's own final verdict on the spot. He holds that Krishna's later usage settles the matter: since the Lord goes on to treat tyaga as the operative word and equates the two terms' consequences, the deeper teaching is that what must finally be surrendered is the fruit, not the deed, with sannyasa and tyaga naming one discipline from two angles.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
No commentary from Madhva survives at this exact verse in the source record consulted here. What can honestly be offered is a marked extrapolation: his broader Dvaita commitments, that the capacity to act is delegated by the Lord and that the fruit of action is fixed by the Lord according to each soul's nature, would plausibly shape how he approaches any distinction between renouncing action and releasing its fruit. This is a reasoned guess about direction, not a report of his stated words on 18.2.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The surviving Abhinavagupta fragment at this verse is brief and largely definitional: he confirms which rites count as desire-driven and restates the plain sense that tyaga releases fruit while the rite continues, then explicitly defers further exposition to earlier commentators rather than developing his own reading. Any fuller Kashmir Shaiva doctrine of renunciation as the self's own freedom belongs to his richer passages elsewhere and would be extrapolation if attached to this verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara gives the fullest working-out of the distinction among the sources here. Sannyasa is the complete laying down of desire-driven rites together with their fruit; tyaga is the narrower release of fruit alone, from any rite, while the rite itself continues. He goes further than the others in explaining why one still acts after releasing the fruit: the rites serve the deeper longing to know, and as they purify the heart, the letting go of fruit gradually becomes, of itself, the letting go of the act, the way clouds thin once the rains are done.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for its structural clarity rather than any one school's stamp, Madhusudana's two-view exposition offers a way to hold sannyasa and tyaga as differing in scope, one broader and covering the rite itself, one narrower and covering only its fruit, without treating them as fundamentally different disciplines. The operative move in both is the same: sever the eye on the fruit from the deed, whichever deed is at hand.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If both words just mean letting go, why does the Gita bother separating them, and how do I know which one is actually being asked of me?
They are not the same operation, even though both involve release. Sannyasa lays down the rite itself, the kind undertaken because you wanted something from it. Tyaga keeps you at the rite and releases only your claim on its result. The overlap in feeling is real; the operations they name are not identical.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Notice that the verse reports two schools before it resolves anything, and that later usage in the chapter treats the release of fruit, tyaga, as the discipline that actually carries the teaching forward. For most people, most of the time, what is being asked is the narrower, harder thing: keep doing the work, and let go only of what it owes you.
Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Where the sources themselves go quiet, as they do here for at least one commentator, the honest answer is to say so rather than manufacture false certainty. You are not required to have every school's verdict in hand before you can begin; you can start today with the fruit alone, and let the larger question of whether the rite itself must eventually fall away answer itself as your practice deepens.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
You do not need to resolve, today, whether you are called to renounce a rite or merely release its fruit. Take the very next task in front of you and notice, honestly, whether you are doing it because of what it will bring you. If you find that reaching, do not force yourself to stop the task. Simply set the reaching down and continue the work with empty hands. That single motion, done once, is the whole distinction this verse is making, felt rather than merely understood.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.