Sanskrit
अधिष्ठानं तथा कर्ता करणं च पृथग्विधम् । विविधाश्च पृथक्चेष्टा दैवं चैवात्र पञ्चमम् ॥ १४ ॥
adhiṣṭhānaṃ tathā kartā karaṇaṃ ca pṛthagvidham vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭā daivaṃ caivātra pañcamam
Translation
The body, the actor, the various organs, the diverse kinds of energies, and the presiding deities also, the fifth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The five factors are listed concretely: the body as seat, the individual as actor, the diverse instruments, the manifold efforts, and the divine order as fifth. This is pure enumeration, but it matters because the ordinary sense of “I did this” collapses one cause, the actor, into the entire causal chain — a conflation verses 16 and 17 will directly correct. (The source page’s printed English caption mislabels this verse’s translation “(15)” instead of “(14)” — a Wikisource transcription slip, not a substantive variant; the Sanskrit numbering and content are unambiguous.) The five: adhiṣṭhāna (the body-base), kartā (the psychological agent), karaṇa (the instruments/senses), ceṣṭā (the many efforts), and daiva (providence, the unaccountable). The “I” that claims sole authorship has overlooked four of the five.
Study deeper
Word by word
- adhiṣṭhānaṃ tathā kartāअधिष्ठानं तथा कर्ता
- the seat [the body], likewise the agent (adhiṣṭhānam + tathā + kartā)
- karaṇaṃ ca pṛthagvidhamकरणं च पृथग्विधं
- and the instrument, of various kinds (karaṇam + ca + pṛthak-vidham)
- vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭāविविधाश् च पृथक्चेष्टा
- and the many separate movements (vividhāḥ + ca + pṛthak-ceṣṭāḥ)
- daivaṃ caivātra pañcamamदैवं चैवात्र पञ्चमं
- and providence (daiva) as the fifth here (daivam + ca + eva + atra + pañcamam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The five causes are listed in order from the most visible to the least — body, then the individual doer, then instruments, then efforts, and only last the divine order governing outcomes, the one factor nobody can actually see acting. Ordering an argument from the concrete toward the invisible is a persuasion technique in its own right: by the time daiva shows up as the fifth cause, four visible causes have already earned the list some credibility to spend on the one that can’t be observed.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're accounting for why something in your life turned out a certain way, list the visible, controllable factors first — your effort, your choices — before naming the invisible one, like luck or timing, last. Ordering it that way keeps you from letting the invisible factor erase credit for what you actually controlled.
Professional
- When you write a root-cause analysis, order the causes from most observable to least — the code defect, then the process gap, then any external factor outside the team's control — so the harder-to-verify explanation earns credibility from the concrete ones you've already established, instead of leading with it.
Family & Social
- When talking with your kid about why an exam or match went a certain way, name the concrete, effort-based factors first before mentioning luck or external circumstances — putting effort first keeps the luck explanation from quietly erasing the credit their own preparation earned.
Ask yourself
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