Lay the deed in Brahman, release the fruit, and no stain finds anywhere left to land.
It sounds like a phrase for the already-free. Read as it is here, it is aimed at exactly the opposite person: one who still feels every act as 'mine,' and is shown a way to hold the world's work without being held by it.
Whoever lays every action in Brahman and lets go of clinging to it is not stained by wrongdoing, just as a lotus leaf resting on water is never wetted by it.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has been speaking of the disciplined one, seated in the self, senses governed, at peace among all beings. Now he turns to the sharper, more ordinary worry: what about someone who still feels every action as his own? This verse is the answer given to exactly that person.
The teaching
Lay your actions in Brahman. Offer them up, hand them over, rather than holding them as your own private doing. And let go of attachment, the inward reaching for what the action will bring you. It is not the deed that stains; it is the grasping and the sense of ownership folded around the deed. Remove those, and the very same action, done in the very same world, leaves no mark at all. The renunciation asked for here goes further than ordinary reward. Even the wish for liberation as a personal prize is released, so that the one acting works the way a servant works for a master: fully, carefully, and without holding anything back as a private claim. Picture the lotus leaf. It rests on water, stays in constant contact with it, and never gets wet; the water beads and slides off rather than soaking in. So too, the one who acts this way lives fully inside the world's stream of action, touching everything, and absorbs no residue of merit or fault. Contact is not absorption. Nothing here asks you to withdraw from your work. It asks only that you change what you privately hold the work to be. What remains, when sin fails to cling, is not a private gain but a cleared, purified understanding, the very ground on which deeper knowing can stand.
The doubt that rises
If the very same action stains one person and passes cleanly through another, what exactly is the inward shift that makes the difference, and could you actually locate it happening in your own ordinary work, today, rather than only believe in it as an idea?
Where the paths divide
Read from the fragment on record, without extending past it.
The surviving comment here is brief: lay your action in the Lord, acting on the thought 'I do this for His sake,' as a servant acts for a master, and release even the wish for liberation as something to be personally gained. The one fruit left standing is the purification of your own being. The available source does not extend further, into the fuller distinction argued elsewhere between the seeker who still feels himself the doer and the knower already free; this reading stays inside what the fragment itself says.
Read as relocating agency to matter, not to the Lord and not away from the self.
Here Brahman does not name the Lord. It names prakriti, matter, on the strength of Krishna's own later word that his womb is 'the great Brahman.' Your senses and body are transformations of matter, so to lay action in Brahman is to place agency back where it actually sits, and to act on the thought, 'I do nothing at all.' The sin that fails to cling is precisely the error of mistaking matter, the body, for the Self. The lotus leaf pictures exactly this: touching the water of matter's activity without being drawn into that mistaken identification.
A brief, purpose-stating comment rather than an extended argument.
The comment on record here is short: it is the one joined to the yoga of renunciation who stays unstained, and this is said again, in the words 'in Brahman,' so that the instruction is not softened into a mere figure of speech but held as a binding rule. Nothing further specific to this verse extends beyond that stated purpose, and this reading does not manufacture more than the source gives.
An honest gap, with a clearly labeled extension offered alongside it.
No independent comment on this verse survives in Abhinavagupta's own words. His treatment covers verses 5.7 through 5.11 together as one passage, given fully at 5.7. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading consistent with that wider treatment, one might extend the lotus-leaf image to consciousness's own nature, always in contact with action, never absorbing it, because it was never separate from that action to begin with. This is flagged plainly as an extrapolation, not a report of his stated position on 5.10.
Naming the seeker's actual difficulty before answering it.
Sridhara opens with the real trouble: for one who still feels 'I am the doer,' the stain of action is hard to avoid, since without a purified mind the deeper renunciation is not yet within reach either. The remedy given is to offer action to the Supreme Lord and let go of clinging to its fruit; sin, the gravest kind of action, then fails to bind. He is content to let the lotus-leaf image carry the whole teaching on its own: touch is not soaking.
Reading the verse as solving a stated problem, not merely asserting a rule.
Madhusudana frames this as a direct answer to an objection: would the still-ignorant person, carrying the sense that he is the doer, not remain stained, and how would the discipline of knowledge, which begins in renunciation, ever get started at all? His reply relocates the reference point of the act, from self to Lord, servant to master, and names the resulting fruit with precision: not a private reward, but a clear and pure understanding.
Every reading on record agrees that something must be relocated for the same act to stop staining, whether that something is the fruit, the doership, or the very meaning of 'Brahman' itself. They do not agree, and this page does not settle, exactly what is relocated, or whether the felt sense of 'I am the one doing this' can actually dissolve while the doing continues, or only be redirected.
A question to carry
Think of one task you will do today that you already expect to go badly, or well, for you personally. Could you do that same task while handing its outcome elsewhere, and if so, what in you would have to let go first?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So take up your work the way the lotus leaf takes up the water: entirely in contact with it, and entirely unsoaked.
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.
Krishna has been describing the disciplined seer settled in the self; now he answers the sharper question of how one who still feels himself the doer can act in the world without being stained by that very doing.
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.
It is not the deed that stains you, but the grasping and the private claim wrapped around it.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse names two moves that together keep action from staining the actor: lay every action in Brahman, and let go of attachment to its fruit. It is not the deed itself that binds. It is the grasping and the sense of private ownership wrapped around the deed. Remove those, and the same action leaves no mark at all.
The lotus leaf touches the water constantly and is never wetted: presence in the world is not porousness to it.
Across AdvaitaŚaṅkara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana’s words
Several readings sharpen the renunciation further than ordinary fruit-release: the actor gives up attachment even to liberation as a personal prize, working as a servant works for a master, expecting nothing back for himself, holding nothing in reserve as 'mine to gain.'
The renunciation this verse asks for is deeper than ordinary reward; it releases even the wish for liberation as a personal prize.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The lotus leaf carries the entire teaching in one image. It rests on water, stays in constant contact with it, and yet remains dry, the water beading and rolling off rather than soaking in. Presence in the world's stream of action is not the same as porousness to it.
What remains, when sin fails to cling, is not a private gain but a purified, clarified understanding.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
What this way of acting yields is purity, not a private reward. The verse specifies only 'sin' as what fails to cling, and more than one reading takes the remaining fruit to be the clearing of the inner instrument, the purification that readies a person for deeper understanding.
The instruction is aimed precisely at the one who still feels 'I am the doer,' not at someone who has already dissolved that feeling.
Across Bhakti, Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚrīdhara · Madhusūdana · RāmānujaIn Śrīdhara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The instruction answers a real and pressing worry: for one who still feels himself to be the doer, how can action fail to stain him at all? The reply is uniform in shape even where its metaphysics differ: change the inner reference point of the act, from yourself to something greater, and the stain no longer finds anywhere to land.
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's surviving comment turns on identifying Brahman here with prakriti, matter, on the strength of Krishna's later naming of his own womb as 'the great Brahman.' The senses and body are transformations of matter, so to lay action in Brahman is to relocate agency to where it actually sits, and to act with the thought 'I do nothing at all.' The sin that fails to cling is specifically the error of mistaking matter for the Self; the lotus leaf pictures contact with matter's activity without being absorbed into that mistaken identification.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The comment on record from Madhva is brief: it is the one joined to the yoga of renunciation who stays unstained, and Krishna names this again through the words 'in Brahman' so that the rule about the means is not softened into a mere figure of speech but held as a binding instruction. Beyond this restatement of purpose, the extant fragment does not develop further argument specific to this verse.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara names the real difficulty first: for one who still feels 'I am the doer,' the stain of action is hard to avoid, since without a purified mind the deeper renunciation is not yet within reach. The remedy is to offer action to the Supreme Lord and give up clinging to its fruit; sin, the worst kind of action, then fails to bind. He lets the lotus-leaf image carry the teaching on its own: touch is not soaking.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana frames the verse as answering a direct objection: would the still-ignorant person, carrying the conceit of doership, not remain stained, and how would his discipline of knowledge, which begins in renunciation, ever get underway? His answer relocates the reference point of the act from self to Lord, servant to master, and names the one resulting fruit precisely: not a private reward, but a clear and pure understanding.
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
Try the lotus leaf as a working posture today: stay in full contact with whatever the day asks of you, and notice, each time a task ends, whether you are reaching to claim it as your own success or failure. Let that reaching loosen. Contact is not the same as absorption; you can be entirely present to your work without letting its residue cling to you.
So take up your work today the way the leaf takes up the water: fully in contact, and utterly unsoaked.
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
he verse names two moves that together keep action from staining the actor: lay every action in Brahman, and let go of attachment to its fruit. It is not the deed itself that binds. It is the grasping and the sense of private ownership wrapped around the deed. Remove those, and the same action leaves no mark at all.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Several readings sharpen the renunciation further than ordinary fruit-release: the actor gives up attachment even to liberation as a personal prize, working as a servant works for a master, expecting nothing back for himself, holding nothing in reserve as 'mine to gain.'
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The lotus leaf carries the entire teaching in one image. It rests on water, stays in constant contact with it, and yet remains dry, the water beading and rolling off rather than soaking in. Presence in the world's stream of action is not the same as porousness to it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What this way of acting yields is purity, not a private reward. The verse specifies only 'sin' as what fails to cling, and more than one reading takes the remaining fruit to be the clearing of the inner instrument, the purification that readies a person for deeper understanding.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The instruction answers a real and pressing worry: for one who still feels himself to be the doer, how can action fail to stain him at all? The reply is uniform in shape even where its metaphysics differ: change the inner reference point of the act, from yourself to something greater, and the stain no longer finds anywhere to land.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The extant comment is brief, but its shape is clear: Brahman here is the Lord, and laying action in Him means acting on the thought 'I do this for His sake,' as a servant works for a master, releasing even the wish for liberation as a personal prize. The one fruit that remains is the purification of one's own being. The available source does not extend into the fuller contrast, argued elsewhere in this school, between the seeker who still feels himself the doer and the knower already free; this reading is kept to what the fragment itself supports.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja's surviving comment turns on identifying Brahman here with prakriti, matter, on the strength of Krishna's later naming of his own womb as 'the great Brahman.' The senses and body are transformations of matter, so to lay action in Brahman is to relocate agency to where it actually sits, and to act with the thought 'I do nothing at all.' The sin that fails to cling is specifically the error of mistaking matter for the Self; the lotus leaf pictures contact with matter's activity without being absorbed into that mistaken identification.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The comment on record from Madhva is brief: it is the one joined to the yoga of renunciation who stays unstained, and Krishna names this again through the words 'in Brahman' so that the rule about the means is not softened into a mere figure of speech but held as a binding instruction. Beyond this restatement of purpose, the extant fragment does not develop further argument specific to this verse.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
No independent comment on this verse survives in Abhinavagupta's own words; his treatment covers verses 5.7 through 5.11 as one continuous passage under 5.7. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading consistent with that surrounding treatment, one could extend the lotus-leaf image to consciousness's own nature, in constant contact with action yet never absorbing it because it was never truly other than that action. This is offered as a clearly-labeled extrapolation, not as his stated position on 5.10 itself.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara names the real difficulty first: for one who still feels 'I am the doer,' the stain of action is hard to avoid, since without a purified mind the deeper renunciation is not yet within reach. The remedy is to offer action to the Supreme Lord and give up clinging to its fruit; sin, the worst kind of action, then fails to bind. He lets the lotus-leaf image carry the teaching on its own: touch is not soaking.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana frames the verse as answering a direct objection: would the still-ignorant person, carrying the conceit of doership, not remain stained, and how would his discipline of knowledge, which begins in renunciation, ever get underway? His answer relocates the reference point of the act from self to Lord, servant to master, and names the one resulting fruit precisely: not a private reward, but a clear and pure understanding.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
I still feel like the one doing everything. How can laying my actions 'in Brahman' be more than a comforting phrase I repeat while nothing in me actually changes?
The commentators aim this instruction precisely at you: someone who still feels the doership, not someone who has already dissolved it. The phrase is not decoration for an already-free mind; it is the working discipline given to a mind that is not free yet.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
What changes is the reference point carried through the act, from 'I do this for myself' to 'I do this for the Lord, as a servant for a master.' The doing does not stop. What stops is the private claim staked on it, both while acting and after.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Some readings relocate the doership itself rather than merely its motive, placing the actual agency in the senses and body as matter, so the sense of being the actor loosens from a different direction, by noticing what was really acting all along.
Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Try the lotus leaf as a working posture today: stay in full contact with whatever the day asks of you, and notice, each time a task ends, whether you are reaching to claim it as your own success or failure. Let that reaching loosen. Contact is not the same as absorption; you can be entirely present to your work without letting its residue cling to you.
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.