Bhagavad Gita 2.47
Bhagavad Gita 2.47: you have a right to action alone, never to its fruits, so act without making results your motive or clinging to inaction.
Verses
You have a right to perform your duty, but never to the fruits of your actions. Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.
Worship Guidelines & Chanting Benefits (Phalashruti)
Wednesday (Budhwar), Thursday (Guruwar) & Ekadashi
Early Morning (Brahma Muhurta) or Sandhya (Twilight)
Tulsi leaves, Butter (Makhan), Mishri, Yellow flowers & Chandan
- Awakening of pure divine love (Prema Bhakti), mental joy, and freedom from anxiety
Background
This verse is spoken by Krishna to Arjuna in chapter 2, verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita, a dialogue found in the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata, which tradition ascribes to Vyasa. Arjuna has put down his bow on the field of Kurukshetra, sorrowful and unsure of his duty. In the second chapter, called Sankhya Yoga, Krishna first speaks of the imperishable Self, and from verse 39 he turns to the practice of action done with a steady mind, which is called karma yoga. Verse 47 is the heart of that teaching and is among the most quoted lines of the Gita. It does not tell anyone to stop acting. It asks that action be done fully, with the result left to God.
About this Text
Composed by: Maharishi Vedavyasa · Ancient Vedic Rishi · Traditional antiquity
Traditionally credited as the compiler of the four Vedas and the author of the Mahabharata (within which the Bhagavad Gita appears) and the Puranas — making him one of the most cited authorial figures in the entire Hindu canon, spanning philosophy, epic narrative, and devotional literature.
Did You Know?
Four instructions in one verse
The verse says four things. You have a claim to action alone. Never to its fruits. Do not make the fruit of action your motive. And do not be attached to inaction. Each line closes off one way of going wrong.
Key words
Adhikara is a right or claim, and karma is action. Phala is fruit, or result, and hetu is cause or motive. Sanga is attachment, and akarma is inaction. The verse speaks in the locative, in karmani and phaleshu, which means in the field of action and in the field of fruits.
Not a call to idleness
The last line, ma te sango 'stv akarmani, guards against reading the verse as permission to do nothing. Krishna asks Arjuna to act, and to act as a duty and not for gain.
What comes next
Verse 48 takes the idea further and says to act, established in yoga and having given up attachment, with the same mind in success and failure. It names this evenness of mind as yoga.
An Anushtubh verse
The verse is a shloka in the Anushtubh metre, with four quarters of eight syllables each, which makes thirty-two syllables. This regular metre helps it to be learned by heart, and Gita Jayanti, the festival of the Gita, is a time when verses like it are recited.
Krishna
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