Offer the deed, and even a golden chain of good results stops being a chain.
It is tempting to hear this as permission to keep half your grasping, holding on to the fruits you like while releasing only the ones you don't. The verse closes that door: the offering is total, and so is the freedom it yields.
Doing your work this way, as an offering to me, you will be freed from the bonds of action that bear both good and bad fruit. With your mind joined to this yoga of renunciation, and so set free, you will come to me.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just given Arjuna the offering he is to make of every act: whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you give, whatever austerity you perform, do it as an offering to me. This verse states what that offering earns. It is the payoff of the practice just taught, not a new instruction on its own.
The teaching
Do your work this way, made over to the Lord, and you are freed from the bonds of action. Look closely at what those bonds are made of: fruits both good and bad, the pleasant along with the painful. Most people want to keep the pleasant ones and only be rid of the painful. This verse allows no such split. Good fruit binds as surely as bad fruit does, because what actually chains you is the grasping itself, the wanting of a particular result, and pleasant results feed that wanting as effectively as painful ones provoke aversion to it. A golden chain is still a chain. Once an action is genuinely offered, its fruit no longer fastens onto the one who performed it. Nothing changes about the deed itself; what changes is only where its consequence lands. This is why renunciation, named here as sannyasa, does not mean throwing down your work. It means consecrating it, handing it across rather than holding on. The very same handing-over is called yoga, because the act of offering purifies the inner instrument and joins it to what it is offered toward. The freedom that follows arrives in two moments. First, you are freed even now, while the body still lives and the work still continues. Second, when the body finally falls, you come to the Lord. Not every source in this file's commentary has left words reaching this particular verse. Madhva's surviving commentary is silent here; no gloss on 9.28 survives from him, and that silence is reported honestly rather than filled in. Abhinavagupta's extant comment treats this verse together with the one before it, its substance sitting mostly at 9.27, so what can be drawn from him here is thinner than for the other four voices on file.
The doubt that rises
If the outward work stays exactly the same and only your inner claim on its result changes, how can that possibly be enough to free you from consequences built up, on some readings, across countless lifetimes? And when both the deed and its fruit have been handed elsewhere, what is actually left of the one who used to call the outcome 'mine'?
Where the paths divide
Read as the falling away of every adjunct, until identity remains.
For Shankara, the fruits of action are the bondage, and offering them removes it: one is freed while living, and reaches the Lord when the body falls. Madhusudana sharpens the destination further, reading 'coming to the Lord' as the direct realization of identity with Brahman even now, and, once the body's remaining momentum is exhausted, as attaining what he calls bodiless aloneness, being of the nature of pure being with every limiting adjunct removed and no difference left to stand on.
Read as old karma cleared and the Lord reached as a distinct goal.
Ramanuja holds the self as subordinate to and governed by the Lord throughout its action, offering every deed as worship on that footing. What is removed is specifically the earlier, accumulated karma obstructing the path to the Lord; once that obstruction clears, the self attains him directly. Reaching him is real arrival at a distinct goal, not a dissolving into an undifferentiated identity.
Read honestly as an absence, not filled in with invented doctrine.
Madhva's extant commentary leaves no comment on this verse at all. Rather than construct a confident Dvaita reading in his voice, the honest report is the gap itself. Extending his settled principles from elsewhere in the text, one might expect the self's very entitlement to offer action to be read as delegated by the Lord's sanction, and its final reaching of him as eternal, dependent nearness rather than identity, but this remains a labeled extrapolation, not his stated word on 9.28.
Read from a shared comment with 9.27, extended only conditionally.
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment folds this verse together with 9.27, its substance placed there: every action is itself worship offered to the one Lord present in all, made total rather than narrowed the way lesser worship narrows its own fruit, and this totality of offering is itself the yoga of renunciation already set out. Extending that principle to this verse's own promise of release, on a Kashmir Shaiva reading one would expect the bonds to loosen because the contracted sense of a separate doer relaxes back into the one consciousness that was always acting, rather than because any debt is discharged. That extension is offered as a conditional possibility, not as words Abhinavagupta wrote about this verse.
Read as consecration rather than abandonment, exceeding liberation itself.
Sridhara ties the promised release to the verse's own word for good fruit: once offered, a deed's fruit, wanted or unwanted, can no longer fasten onto the one who did it. His signature move is naming renunciation as consecration, the deed handed across rather than dropped, and the mind that has learned this handing-across is itself the yoga that carries the devotee home. Within the wider devotional current his reading sits inside, arriving at the Lord here is described as exceeding ordinary liberation, a nearness fit for direct service, rarer even than release.
Read for the mechanism first, before any further metaphysical claim.
Madhusudana's account offers the most exportable core: worship of the Lord is the offering of all action, and once offered, the connection between the doer and the fruit does not hold; the very act of offering purifies the inner instrument. This procedural claim, that offering severs the fruit-connection and purifies, can be taken up on its own terms before committing to any further claim about what is ultimately attained when 'coming to the Lord' is fully unpacked.
All the readings that reach this verse agree on the practice: offer the deed, and its fruit stops binding you, both the fruit you wanted and the fruit you feared. They part on what 'coming to the Lord' finally names, an identity realized with every adjunct gone, or a distinct Lord reached and drawn near to serve. And this file's own source record stays honestly incomplete: Madhva left no comment here at all, and Abhinavagupta's surviving words belong mostly to the verse just before this one. What a fuller Dvaita or Kashmir Shaiva reading of 9.28 itself would say remains, quite literally, unwritten.
A question to carry
If you handed over both the results you're hoping for and the ones you're dreading, today, in the same motion, what would you actually do differently in the next hour?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So offer the work in front of you now, the whole of it, wanted outcomes and unwanted ones together, and let what comes of it rest exactly where you have placed it.
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 just taught Arjuna to offer every act, gift, and austerity to him; here he states what that offering actually buys, freedom from the whole machinery of consequence, and arrival at himself.
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.
The bondage is not the deed but its fruit fastening onto you, wanted results as much as unwanted ones.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse states the payoff of the offering just taught: do all your work as an offering to the Lord, and you are freed from the bonds of karma, the very bonds that action itself is made of. The fruits at issue are named as both good and bad, the wanted and the unwanted alike, which sharpens the claim. Most people want the pleasant results and only wish to be rid of the painful ones; the verse says both kinds bind. A golden chain is still a chain.
Renunciation here means consecrating the deed, not abandoning it; the work continues, offered rather than owned.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The mechanism is the same across the readings that address it: once an action is genuinely handed over to the Lord, its fruit no longer fastens onto the one who performed it. The connection simply does not hold. The deed still happens; what changes is only where its consequence lands.
The offering purifies as it releases, and this is called yoga because it joins the offering mind to what it is offered toward.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Renunciation, sannyasa, is read as an inward act rather than an outward one. It is not the abandonment of action but its consecration, the giving-over of the deed and its fruit to the Lord. And this same handing-over is called yoga in its own right, because it purifies the inner instrument and joins it to what it is offered toward.
Freedom has two moments: released now, while the body lives, and brought to the Lord when it finally falls.
Across Advaita, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 1 others’ words
The freedom promised has two moments. First, one is freed while still living in the body, the bonds of action no longer taking hold even now. Second, when the body finally falls, one attains the Lord. The verse draws a clean line from the practice of offering, through this present freedom, to that final arrival.
Not every source in this file speaks to this verse directly; Madhva is silent, and Abhinavagupta's comment belongs mostly to the verse before it, and the honest record says so.
Across Dvaita, Kashmir ŚaivaMadhva · AbhinavaguptaIn Madhva and Abhinavagupta’s words
Not every acharya in this file has left a comment reaching this verse directly. Madhva's extant commentary is silent here, and Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 9.27 and 9.28 as one passage, its substance sitting at 9.27 rather than freshly addressing this verse's own promise of freedom and arrival.
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 holds the self as subordinate to and governed by the Lord throughout, with all action offered as worship on that footing. What the offering removes is specifically the earlier karma, the accumulated mass of good and bad fruit obstructing the path, and once that obstruction clears, one attains the Lord himself, reached as a real, distinct goal rather than dissolved into an undifferentiated identity.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva leaves no extant comment on this verse, so no distinctive Dvaita reading of 9.28 itself can be reported from the source. Extending his settled principles elsewhere in the text, one might expect a dependent self whose very entitlement to offer action is delegated by the Lord's sanction, and a reaching of the Lord understood as eternal nearness and service rather than identity, but this is a labeled extrapolation, not his own word.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara ties the fruit-word shubha to a full release: once offered, the fruit cannot fasten onto the doer. His signature move is naming renunciation as consecration rather than abandonment, the deed handed across rather than dropped. Within the wider devotional current his reading sits in, arrival at the Lord is described as exceeding ordinary liberation: a nearness fit for direct service, held to be rarer than release itself.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a contemporary seeker, Madhusudana's technical account is the most exportable: the operative change is a severed connection between doer and fruit, achieved by genuinely offering the deed, and purification of the inner instrument follows from the very act of offering, prior to any further metaphysical claim about what is ultimately attained.
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
As you take up your work today, hand it over before you begin, not just its outcome but the doing itself, as though placing something valuable in trust with someone more capable of holding it than you are. Notice, across the day, how often your mind still reaches to reclaim ownership of the result, and each time, return the deed to the one you offered it to.
So offer what you do today, the whole of it, wanted outcomes and unwanted ones alike, and let what comes of it rest in the hands you have placed it in.
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 states the payoff of the offering just taught: do all your work as an offering to the Lord, and you are freed from the bonds of karma, the very bonds that action itself is made of. The fruits at issue are named as both good and bad, the wanted and the unwanted alike, which sharpens the claim. Most people want the pleasant results and only wish to be rid of the painful ones; the verse says both kinds bind. A golden chain is still a chain.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The mechanism is the same across the readings that address it: once an action is genuinely handed over to the Lord, its fruit no longer fastens onto the one who performed it. The connection simply does not hold. The deed still happens; what changes is only where its consequence lands.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Renunciation, sannyasa, is read as an inward act rather than an outward one. It is not the abandonment of action but its consecration, the giving-over of the deed and its fruit to the Lord. And this same handing-over is called yoga in its own right, because it purifies the inner instrument and joins it to what it is offered toward.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The freedom promised has two moments. First, one is freed while still living in the body, the bonds of action no longer taking hold even now. Second, when the body finally falls, one attains the Lord. The verse draws a clean line from the practice of offering, through this present freedom, to that final arrival.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Not every acharya in this file has left a comment reaching this verse directly. Madhva's extant commentary is silent here, and Abhinavagupta's surviving comment treats 9.27 and 9.28 as one passage, its substance sitting at 9.27 rather than freshly addressing this verse's own promise of freedom and arrival.
Madhvācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the release simply: the fruits of action are the bonds, and offering removes them, freeing one while living and bringing one to the Lord when the body falls. Madhusudana sharpens the destination: coming to the Lord names the direct realization of identity with Brahman even now, and, once the body's remaining momentum is spent, being attained as what he calls bodiless aloneness, with every adjunct removed and no difference left standing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja holds the self as subordinate to and governed by the Lord throughout, with all action offered as worship on that footing. What the offering removes is specifically the earlier karma, the accumulated mass of good and bad fruit obstructing the path, and once that obstruction clears, one attains the Lord himself, reached as a real, distinct goal rather than dissolved into an undifferentiated identity.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva leaves no extant comment on this verse, so no distinctive Dvaita reading of 9.28 itself can be reported from the source. Extending his settled principles elsewhere in the text, one might expect a dependent self whose very entitlement to offer action is delegated by the Lord's sanction, and a reaching of the Lord understood as eternal nearness and service rather than identity, but this is a labeled extrapolation, not his own word.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's surviving comment folds this verse into 9.27, so its content is that every action is itself worship offered to the one Lord present in all, an offering total in scope where lesser worship narrows its own fruit, this totality itself being the yoga of renunciation already stated. A further reading of this verse's own promise of release, cast in terms of the self recognizing its inherent freedom rather than traveling anywhere, would be a conditional extension on a Kashmir Shaiva basis, not the extant text.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara ties the fruit-word shubha to a full release: once offered, the fruit cannot fasten onto the doer. His signature move is naming renunciation as consecration rather than abandonment, the deed handed across rather than dropped. Within the wider devotional current his reading sits in, arrival at the Lord is described as exceeding ordinary liberation: a nearness fit for direct service, held to be rarer than release itself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a contemporary seeker, Madhusudana's technical account is the most exportable: the operative change is a severed connection between doer and fruit, achieved by genuinely offering the deed, and purification of the inner instrument follows from the very act of offering, prior to any further metaphysical claim about what is ultimately attained.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I just keep doing all my usual work and only change my inner attitude toward the results, how can that possibly free me from consequences built up over lifetimes?
The change is not cosmetic because it acts on the actual point of attachment. The bond was never the activity itself but the fastening of its fruit onto you; once a deed is genuinely offered, that fastening does not occur, wanted results and unwanted ones alike.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
It is also not a thin change of mood but a stated discipline, sannyasa-yoga, offering the deed and releasing the hope of its fruit, and this very offering is said to purify the mind and join it toward the Lord as the verse's closing line describes.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And it differs in where it leads. Fruit-seeking action keeps you inside the ordinary swing of gain and loss; offered action is described as freeing you even while you live, and bringing you, when the body falls, to the Lord himself, however that arrival is finally understood.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
As you take up your work today, hand it over before you begin, not just its outcome but the doing itself, as though placing something valuable in trust with someone more capable of holding it than you are. Notice, across the day, how often your mind still reaches to reclaim ownership of the result, and each time, return the deed to the one you offered it to.
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.