Sanskrit
न हि देहभृता शक्यं त्यक्तुं कर्माण्यशेषतः । यस्तु कर्मफलत्यागी स त्यागीत्यभिधीयते ॥ ११ ॥
na hi dehabhṛtā śakyaṃ tyaktuṃ karmāṇy aśeṣataḥ yas tu karmaphalatyāgī sa tyāgīty abhidhīyate
Translation
Nor indeed can embodied beings completely relinquish action; verily he who relinquisheth the fruit of action, he is said to be a relinquisher.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A pragmatic caveat: no embodied being can literally stop acting altogether, a point already made in chapter 3’s argument against total inaction, so the only coherent form of “relinquisher” is someone who has given up the fruit of action, not action as such. This line effectively redefines tyaga for the rest of the discourse and, by extension, quietly narrows what sannyasa can mean too — total cessation of activity was never really on the table for a living body. Deha-bhṛtā na śakyaṃ tyaktum — “one who has a body cannot give up action entirely” (BG 3.5). So tyāga can only ever mean karma-phala-tyāga, giving up the fruit — never the deed.
Study deeper
Word by word
- na hi dehabhṛtā śakyaṃन हि देहभृता शक्यं
- for an embodied being cannot (na + hi + deha-bhṛtā + śakyam)
- tyaktuṃ karmāṇy aśeṣataḥत्यक्तुं कर्माण्य् अशेषतः
- wholly give up actions (tyaktum + karmāṇi + aśeṣataḥ)
- yas tu karmaphalatyāgīयस् तु कर्मफलत्यागी
- but one who relinquishes the fruit of action (yaḥ + tu + karma-phala-tyāgī)
- sa tyāgīty abhidhīyateस त्यागीत्य् अभिधीयते
- he is called a relinquisher (saḥ + tyāgī + iti + abhidhīyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This verse does something faintly disorienting if you’re reading in sequence: after nine verses using “relinquisher” as though its meaning were already settled, Krishna now specifies what the word can only mean for an embodied being — and asks the reader to silently revise everything read so far under that narrower sense. A term gets stress-tested by its edge case (can anyone renounce action completely?) and comes out redefined, not abandoned.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When a plan or promise you've been using turns out to be impossible in its literal, edge-case form, don't quietly ignore the gap — redefine the term precisely, then go back and reinterpret your earlier commitments under that tighter, more honest meaning.
Professional
- When a policy phrase like 'zero downtime' turns out impossible taken literally, don't let it just erode through use — redefine it precisely, zero unplanned downtime, say, and revisit earlier commitments and documentation so everyone works from the corrected meaning.
Family & Social
- When a family rule like 'no screen time ever' proves unworkable in its strict form, don't let it quietly stop being enforced — redefine it precisely together, and revisit what you'd both agreed to earlier under the new, honest version.
Ask yourself
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