Arjuna asks for one settled path: the renunciation of action, or the yoga of action.
Having heard Krishna praise the laying-down of works and also the doing of them, Arjuna no longer knows in which posture to stand. He does not want a balanced both-and reply; he wants the one way that would bring him the highest good.
Arjuna said: Krishna, you praise the renunciation of actions, and you also praise the yoga of action. Tell me for certain which of the two is better.
It follows the close of the fourth chapter, where Krishna spoke both of the one freed by renouncing action through yoga and of cutting doubt with knowledge and rising to act, and to Arjuna these seem to enjoin renunciation and action on the very same person.
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.
You are listening with Arjuna now, as he gathers what he has heard: Krishna praises both the laying-down of works and the doing of them, and asks which to follow.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, Śuddhādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, Bhedābheda, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Rāmānuja · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Jñāneśvar · Sivananda · Tilak · Ramsukhdas · Puruṣottama · Vallabha · Abhinavagupta · BhāskaraIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 15 others’ words
This verse is Arjuna speaking, not Krishna. He has been listening to the previous chapters and now puts a direct question. He says that Krishna praises 'sannyasa' of actions, that is, the renunciation or laying-down of works, and also again praises 'yoga,' here meaning karma-yoga, the actual performance of works. Almost every commentator reads the verse as Arjuna registering what looks to him like two different recommendations and asking which one to follow.
To you, as to Arjuna, the two paths feel opposed and impossible to hold at once, like standing still and walking together, so one of them must be the way meant for you.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, Śuddhādvaita, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Śrīdhara · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Vallabha · SivanandaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 7 others’ words
Arjuna's difficulty is that the two paths seem to him mutually opposed and impossible to do at once. Renunciation withholds the hand from action; karma-yoga sets the hand to work. The commentators repeatedly compare the pair to standing still and walking, and one adds the figure of darkness and light: one person cannot do both in the same moment. Because of this felt opposition, Arjuna concludes that one of the two must be the path actually meant for him, and he wants to know which.
Notice the kind of answer Arjuna wants: not a hint, not a balanced reply, but one settled word, the single path whose practice would carry him to the highest good.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, Śuddhādvaita, and the modern voicesŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati · Śrīdhara · Jñāneśvar · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Vallabha · TilakIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 9 others’ words
Arjuna asks for a single, decisive answer for his own practice. The verse's word 'su-nishchitam' (well-determined, settled beyond doubt) is the heart of the request: he does not want a hint or a balanced both-and reply, he wants the one path that is 'shreyas,' the more beneficial, the one whose practice would bring him the highest good. Several commentators stress that he is not rebelling or complaining; he has listened honestly, has genuinely felt the tension, and now asks for one clear word so he knows in which posture to stand.
His question grows out of what was just said at the chapter's close, where renouncing through yoga and then rising to act seemed laid upon the very same person.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, Dvaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, and the modern voicesNīlakaṇṭha · Viśvanātha · Baladeva · Śrīdhara · Dhanapati · Madhva · Vedānta Deśika · RamsukhdasIn Nīlakaṇṭha, Viśvanātha, and 6 others’ words
The verse functions as a bridge between chapters. Many commentators open Chapter 5 by explaining how Arjuna's question grows out of statements at the close of Chapter 4. They point especially to two verses there: one saying that actions do not bind the one who has renounced action through yoga and whose doubts are cut by knowledge (4.41), and one telling Arjuna to cut his doubt with the sword of knowledge and take refuge in yoga and arise (4.42). To Arjuna these two seem to enjoin renunciation and then action on the very same person, and that apparent inconsistency is what prompts his question.
Even the name he chooses, Krishna, carries weight: it is fitting on the lips of one who wishes the darkness of his own doubt removed.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita, AdvaitaVedānta Deśika · Madhva · Jayatīrtha · DhanapatiIn Vedānta Deśika, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
Several commentators note that the address 'Krishna' is not a throwaway. Some hear in the name a meaning tied to the moment: it is fitting for one who wishes the darkness of doubt removed, since Krishna is 'the dark one' and the question itself is born of Arjuna's confusion. Others explain the name etymologically as 'the one who draws all the worlds' by his governing. One commentator even reads a gentle note into it, as if Arjuna says: by pulling my mind now toward one path and now toward the other, you bewilder me.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Advaita Vedānta, in their fuller words
These commentators read the two paths as belonging, in the end, to different stages of a single seeker and as not combinable. 'Sannyasa' here means the renunciation of the scripturally enjoined actions, the giving-up of works, while 'karma-yoga' is the very performance of those works. One source frames the deeper logic: the knower, in whom right knowledge has destroyed the false sense of agency, can no longer truly act, since right knowledge and the false notion 'I do' are opposed like light and darkness and cannot coexist; whereas the seeker who is still ignorant must perform works to purify the inner organ and so make knowledge arise. Others add that the two cannot be done together (being opposed) nor merged into a single option (since renunciation works by giving room for inquiry through the absence of distraction, while action works by the unseen door of destroying sin), so they must be taken up in turn: first desireless action offered to the Lord, then, once dispassion is firm, the renunciation of all action for inquiry into the Vedanta. On this reading Arjuna's question, framed as if the two conflict for one person at one time, is well-posed.
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators take the two as the 'discipline of knowledge' (jnana-yoga) and the 'discipline of action' (karma-yoga), both genuinely means to the same goal, the attaining of the self. Crucially, they hold that the question, though Arjuna frames it as if the two were contrary paths of distinct grades, does not require Krishna to posit two opposed disciplines: the same goal is reached by both. The answer to come will say that for a candidate not yet steady, karma-yoga is easier and quicker than bare jnana-yoga, which demands a purified mind from the very start. So the decisive word Arjuna seeks turns on ease and swiftness, not on one path being simply true and the other false. One of these commentators supplies a summary of the chapter's burden: it dwells on the ease of karma-yoga, its quickness, the kinds it admits, and the form of knowledge of Brahman that fulfils it.
Bhedābheda, in their fuller words
This commentator reads the verse plainly through the texts it echoes: by 'all actions in Me' Krishna teaches renunciation, and by 'an offering to Brahman' and 'those who have renounced action through yoga, take your stand in yoga' he teaches the yoga of action. The reply is then stated directly and without hesitation: both renunciation and the yoga of action lead to the highest good, but of the two the yoga of action is superior to the renunciation of action.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators reject the reading that 'sannyasa' means the abandonment of all action. They argue that the karma-yoga taught here is solely the performance of the actions enjoined for one's class and stage of life, done with the renunciation of desire for results and with the intention of offering them to the Lord. Within this single karma-yoga there are two parts: the abandoning of desire and the like (which the word 'sannyasa' denotes) and the performance of action as an offering to the Lord (which the word 'karma-yoga' denotes by transference). Their textual ground is that Krishna himself later defines the renouncer otherwise, at 5.3 ('he is to be known as a perpetual renouncer'), so reading 'sannyasa' as the giving-up of all works would contradict the Lord's own usage. On their reading the real point of Arjuna's question is practical and tied to the war: if renunciation were the higher good, then fighting would somewhat conflict with renunciation, so why is fighting enjoined even while its defect is admitted?
Śuddhādvaita, in their fuller words
These commentators read into the question a reaching toward a third thing beyond the familiar pair. One holds that Sankhya and yoga were already shown to converge on a single aim, with one's own work as the outer face of the path; Arjuna, not having fully grasped this, asks the fitting question, and the chapter will resolve the seeming opposition by showing that karma-yoga done in the Lord's name is the sannyasa that counts, while outward retreat without inward offering is hollow. The question is the devotee-seeker's request that the Lord himself draw the line so the soul knows in which posture to stand when grace descends. The other goes further: the disciple has heard both notes, renunciative and active, and senses that neither, on its own ground, names the highest fruit; what he is reaching toward, though he cannot yet name it, is the relation with Bhagavan that is bhakti, and only the Lord's settled answer, opening at length into the path of his own service, can quiet the doubt.
Kashmir Śaiva, in their fuller words
This commentator states the question in its barest form: is renunciation the chief thing, or again is it yoga? Such is the question of one who is in doubt. No further system is built on the verse here.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
These commentators ground the question firmly in the apparent inconsistency between the close of Chapter 4 and earlier statements. One frames the chapter's whole burden in an opening verse: having dispelled Arjuna's doubt about karma-sannyasa and karma-yoga, Krishna declares the liberation of the sense-subdued sage. Two of them read 'renunciation of action' as the discipline of knowledge, the cessation of the activity of all the senses, set against karma-yoga, the activity of all the senses, and stress that Arjuna's real puzzle is whether the knower (one in whom knowledge has arisen through karma-yoga) should now renounce action or keep practising it. One emphasizes that Arjuna's confusion is honest bewilderment at counsel that first told him to renounce all actions and then in one breath extolled the path of action, and he simply wants a way that is clear, comfortable, and easy to follow.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
These commentators read the verse straightforwardly as Arjuna's confusion between the path of renunciation and the path of continuing to perform action, with 'yoga' explicitly meaning karma-yoga, and Arjuna asking decisively which is more praiseworthy. One adds a psychological observation distinctive to him: Arjuna's underlying reluctance to fight, born of family attachment, colors how he hears Krishna; a hearer tends to read the speaker's words in the light of his own bent of mind, so Arjuna leans toward hearing a recommendation to give up the work of war. One treats the verse mainly as the doorway into the chapter's larger theme, arguing across Chapters 5 and 6 that the Nirvana the Gita points to is not inactive cessation but a peace compatible with works in the world, and that true sannyasa is inward, the renunciation of the desire-will, not the outward abandonment of action.
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
Notice how Arjuna hears Krishna. He had already, out of attachment to his own people, decided he did not want to fight, and so he now reads Krishna's words to fit that wish, leaning toward the path that lets him lay down the hard work in front of him. This is worth watching in yourself. Most often we read the teacher, the scripture, even life, in the light of our own bent of mind, and we mistake our own preference for the higher truth. When two paths both look praiseworthy and one of them happens to be the one we already wanted, that is exactly the moment to be honest and ask, as Arjuna does, for the truth decisively, rather than for the answer that comforts us.
When two paths both look right and one of them is the one you already wanted, that is the moment to ask, as Arjuna does, for the truth told plainly, and not for the answer that comforts you.
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
his verse is Arjuna speaking, not Krishna. He has been listening to the previous chapters and now puts a direct question. He says that Krishna praises 'sannyasa' of actions, that is, the renunciation or laying-down of works, and also again praises 'yoga,' here meaning karma-yoga, the actual performance of works. Almost every commentator reads the verse as Arjuna registering what looks to him like two different recommendations and asking which one to follow.
Braided from 17 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrī Bhāskara
Arjuna's difficulty is that the two paths seem to him mutually opposed and impossible to do at once. Renunciation withholds the hand from action; karma-yoga sets the hand to work. The commentators repeatedly compare the pair to standing still and walking, and one adds the figure of darkness and light: one person cannot do both in the same moment. Because of this felt opposition, Arjuna concludes that one of the two must be the path actually meant for him, and he wants to know which.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Vallabhācārya · Swami Sivananda
Arjuna asks for a single, decisive answer for his own practice. The verse's word 'su-nishchitam' (well-determined, settled beyond doubt) is the heart of the request: he does not want a hint or a balanced both-and reply, he wants the one path that is 'shreyas,' the more beneficial, the one whose practice would bring him the highest good. Several commentators stress that he is not rebelling or complaining; he has listened honestly, has genuinely felt the tension, and now asks for one clear word so he knows in which posture to stand.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Vallabhācārya · Lokmanya Tilak
The verse functions as a bridge between chapters. Many commentators open Chapter 5 by explaining how Arjuna's question grows out of statements at the close of Chapter 4. They point especially to two verses there: one saying that actions do not bind the one who has renounced action through yoga and whose doubts are cut by knowledge (4.41), and one telling Arjuna to cut his doubt with the sword of knowledge and take refuge in yoga and arise (4.42). To Arjuna these two seem to enjoin renunciation and then action on the very same person, and that apparent inconsistency is what prompts his question.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Dhanapati Sūri · Madhvācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several commentators note that the address 'Krishna' is not a throwaway. Some hear in the name a meaning tied to the moment: it is fitting for one who wishes the darkness of doubt removed, since Krishna is 'the dark one' and the question itself is born of Arjuna's confusion. Others explain the name etymologically as 'the one who draws all the worlds' by his governing. One commentator even reads a gentle note into it, as if Arjuna says: by pulling my mind now toward one path and now toward the other, you bewilder me.
Vedānta Deśika · Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Dhanapati Sūri
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the two paths as belonging, in the end, to different stages of a single seeker and as not combinable. 'Sannyasa' here means the renunciation of the scripturally enjoined actions, the giving-up of works, while 'karma-yoga' is the very performance of those works. One source frames the deeper logic: the knower, in whom right knowledge has destroyed the false sense of agency, can no longer truly act, since right knowledge and the false notion 'I do' are opposed like light and darkness and cannot coexist; whereas the seeker who is still ignorant must perform works to purify the inner organ and so make knowledge arise. Others add that the two cannot be done together (being opposed) nor merged into a single option (since renunciation works by giving room for inquiry through the absence of distraction, while action works by the unseen door of destroying sin), so they must be taken up in turn: first desireless action offered to the Lord, then, once dispassion is firm, the renunciation of all action for inquiry into the Vedanta. On this reading Arjuna's question, framed as if the two conflict for one person at one time, is well-posed.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators take the two as the 'discipline of knowledge' (jnana-yoga) and the 'discipline of action' (karma-yoga), both genuinely means to the same goal, the attaining of the self. Crucially, they hold that the question, though Arjuna frames it as if the two were contrary paths of distinct grades, does not require Krishna to posit two opposed disciplines: the same goal is reached by both. The answer to come will say that for a candidate not yet steady, karma-yoga is easier and quicker than bare jnana-yoga, which demands a purified mind from the very start. So the decisive word Arjuna seeks turns on ease and swiftness, not on one path being simply true and the other false. One of these commentators supplies a summary of the chapter's burden: it dwells on the ease of karma-yoga, its quickness, the kinds it admits, and the form of knowledge of Brahman that fulfils it.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhedabheda
This commentator reads the verse plainly through the texts it echoes: by 'all actions in Me' Krishna teaches renunciation, and by 'an offering to Brahman' and 'those who have renounced action through yoga, take your stand in yoga' he teaches the yoga of action. The reply is then stated directly and without hesitation: both renunciation and the yoga of action lead to the highest good, but of the two the yoga of action is superior to the renunciation of action.
Śrī Bhāskara
Dvaita
These commentators reject the reading that 'sannyasa' means the abandonment of all action. They argue that the karma-yoga taught here is solely the performance of the actions enjoined for one's class and stage of life, done with the renunciation of desire for results and with the intention of offering them to the Lord. Within this single karma-yoga there are two parts: the abandoning of desire and the like (which the word 'sannyasa' denotes) and the performance of action as an offering to the Lord (which the word 'karma-yoga' denotes by transference). Their textual ground is that Krishna himself later defines the renouncer otherwise, at 5.3 ('he is to be known as a perpetual renouncer'), so reading 'sannyasa' as the giving-up of all works would contradict the Lord's own usage. On their reading the real point of Arjuna's question is practical and tied to the war: if renunciation were the higher good, then fighting would somewhat conflict with renunciation, so why is fighting enjoined even while its defect is admitted?
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read into the question a reaching toward a third thing beyond the familiar pair. One holds that Sankhya and yoga were already shown to converge on a single aim, with one's own work as the outer face of the path; Arjuna, not having fully grasped this, asks the fitting question, and the chapter will resolve the seeming opposition by showing that karma-yoga done in the Lord's name is the sannyasa that counts, while outward retreat without inward offering is hollow. The question is the devotee-seeker's request that the Lord himself draw the line so the soul knows in which posture to stand when grace descends. The other goes further: the disciple has heard both notes, renunciative and active, and senses that neither, on its own ground, names the highest fruit; what he is reaching toward, though he cannot yet name it, is the relation with Bhagavan that is bhakti, and only the Lord's settled answer, opening at length into the path of his own service, can quiet the doubt.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Kashmir Shaivism
This commentator states the question in its barest form: is renunciation the chief thing, or again is it yoga? Such is the question of one who is in doubt. No further system is built on the verse here.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
These commentators ground the question firmly in the apparent inconsistency between the close of Chapter 4 and earlier statements. One frames the chapter's whole burden in an opening verse: having dispelled Arjuna's doubt about karma-sannyasa and karma-yoga, Krishna declares the liberation of the sense-subdued sage. Two of them read 'renunciation of action' as the discipline of knowledge, the cessation of the activity of all the senses, set against karma-yoga, the activity of all the senses, and stress that Arjuna's real puzzle is whether the knower (one in whom knowledge has arisen through karma-yoga) should now renounce action or keep practising it. One emphasizes that Arjuna's confusion is honest bewilderment at counsel that first told him to renounce all actions and then in one breath extolled the path of action, and he simply wants a way that is clear, comfortable, and easy to follow.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators read the verse straightforwardly as Arjuna's confusion between the path of renunciation and the path of continuing to perform action, with 'yoga' explicitly meaning karma-yoga, and Arjuna asking decisively which is more praiseworthy. One adds a psychological observation distinctive to him: Arjuna's underlying reluctance to fight, born of family attachment, colors how he hears Krishna; a hearer tends to read the speaker's words in the light of his own bent of mind, so Arjuna leans toward hearing a recommendation to give up the work of war. One treats the verse mainly as the doorway into the chapter's larger theme, arguing across Chapters 5 and 6 that the Nirvana the Gita points to is not inactive cessation but a peace compatible with works in the world, and that true sannyasa is inward, the renunciation of the desire-will, not the outward abandonment of action.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Sri Aurobindo · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
Is Krishna teaching two contradictory paths here, renouncing action versus doing it, and do I have to pick one and abandon the other?
The opposition is real in how Arjuna frames it: renunciation withholds the hand and karma-yoga sets it to work, and one person cannot literally do both in the same moment, the way one cannot stand still and walk at once. So Arjuna's request for one decisive path is reasonable, not foolish.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda
But the apparent contradiction softens once you see that the two are not rivals for the same throne. Several commentators hold they belong to different stages of one journey: first do desireless action offered to the Lord to purify the mind, and only when dispassion is firm move to the renunciation that gives room for inquiry. On this reading you are not choosing one path forever; you are being shown the right path for where you stand now.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Ānandagiri
Others go further and say there is really only one path with two faces: the karma-yoga taught here is action done with desire renounced and offered to the Lord, so the renouncing and the doing live inside a single discipline. On this view true sannyasa is inward, the giving-up of the desire-will, not the outward abandonment of work, and action done in the Lord's name is itself the renunciation that counts.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha · Sri Aurobindo · Vallabhācārya
And for the candidate not yet steady, the answer Krishna is about to give does not pit a true path against a false one; it says the same goal is reached by both, and that for someone still finding their feet the active discipline is simply easier and quicker than the bare path of knowledge, which demands a purified mind from the very start. So the choice is less between right and wrong and more about what suits you now.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Bhāskara
Contemplation
Notice how Arjuna hears Krishna. He had already, out of attachment to his own people, decided he did not want to fight, and so he now reads Krishna's words to fit that wish, leaning toward the path that lets him lay down the hard work in front of him. This is worth watching in yourself. Most often we read the teacher, the scripture, even life, in the light of our own bent of mind, and we mistake our own preference for the higher truth. When two paths both look praiseworthy and one of them happens to be the one we already wanted, that is exactly the moment to be honest and ask, as Arjuna does, for the truth decisively, rather than for the answer that comforts us.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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, tap a name in The seating.