Sanskrit
कृषिगौरक्ष्यवाणिज्यं वैश्यकर्म स्वभावजम् । परिचर्यात्मकं कर्म शूद्रस्यापि स्वभावजम् ॥ ४४ ॥
kṛṣi-gaurakṣya-vāṇijyaṃ vaiśya-karma svabhāvajam paricaryātmakaṃ karma śūdrasyāpi svabhāvajam
Translation
Ploughing, protection of kine, and trade are the Vaishya duty, born of his own nature. Action of the nature of service is the Shûdra duty, born of his own nature.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Vaishya duty — farming, cattle-keeping, trade — and Shudra duty — service — are dispatched together in a single verse, half a line each, a real asymmetry of attention next to the fuller Brahmana and Kshatriya treatments in 42-43. The text offers no explanation or apology for that imbalance; the effect is a hierarchy expressed in the space given to each varna as much as in the content assigned to it. The vaiśya and śūdra svadharmas: production (farming, herding, trade) and service. BG 18.45–BG 18.46 will say any of these, done as worship, reaches the same goal.
Study deeper
Word by word
- kṛṣi-gaurakṣya-vāṇijyaṃकृषि-गौरक्ष्य-वाणिज्यं
- farming, cattle-tending, and trade (kṛṣi-gaurakṣya-vāṇijyam)
- vaiśya-karma svabhāvajamवैश्य-कर्म स्वभावजं
- — the work of a vaiśya, born of nature (vaiśya-karma + svabhāva-jam)
- paricaryātmakaṃ karmaपरिचर्यात्मकं कर्म
- work of the nature of service (paricaryā-ātmakam + karma)
- śūdrasyāpi svabhāvajamशूद्रस्यापि स्वभावजं
- is the śūdra's too, born of nature (śūdrasya + api + svabhāva-jam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Every other varna in this sequence is defined by an activity of its own: teaching and self-discipline for the Brahmana, combat and rule for the Kshatriya, farming and trade for the Vaishya. The Shudra alone is defined relationally, service, an activity that exists only in reference to someone else’s needs rather than a content of its own. That’s a different kind of definition, not just a shorter one, and it deserves naming as plainly as the space given to it.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Notice if you've come to define your own worth purely in terms of who you serve rather than by any capability or activity that's yours regardless of who needs you — the second kind of identity survives a change in who's asking.
Professional
- A role on your team defined purely as support for other people's work, rather than by any activity or expertise of its own, will always be underweighted in recognition and pay, the way this verse structurally underweights it — name the actual skill inside the service role.
Family & Social
- If a family member's role has quietly become defined only by whom they take care of rather than by anything that's theirs, that's a structural imbalance worth naming directly, not a personality trait to admire uncritically.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.