Sanskrit
श्रेयान् स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात् । स्वभावनियतं कर्म कुर्वन्नाप्नोति किल्बिषम् ॥ ४७ ॥
śreyān sva-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmāt sv-anuṣṭhitāt svabhāva-niyataṃ karma kurvan nāpnoti kilbiṣam
Translation
Better is one's own duty though destitute of merits than the well-executed duty of another. He who doeth the duty laid down by his own nature incurreth not sin.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
This line is a near-verbatim repeat of 3.35 (“śreyān svadharmo viguṇaḥ paradharmāt svanuṣṭhitāt”) — better one’s own duty done imperfectly than another’s discharged well — and the repetition is deliberate, not lazy. Chapter 3 planted the claim as a working premise for Arjuna’s crisis; chapter 18 returns to it as a settled conclusion, now backed by fifteen additional chapters of guna theory, meditation, and devotion. Svadharma here isn’t a claim that one’s assigned duty is easy or comfortable, only that it is authentically one’s own, and chasing a better-performed duty that belongs to someone else is treated as the greater risk. Śreyān sva-dharmo viguṇaḥ — the near-verbatim return of BG 3.35, now at the poem’s close. The Gita frames its whole answer to Arjuna between these two statements: your own duty, imperfectly, over another’s done well.
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Word by word
- śreyān sva-dharmo viguṇaḥश्रेयान् स्व-धर्मो विगुणः
- better one's own duty, [though] imperfect (śreyān + sva-dharmaḥ + viguṇaḥ)
- para-dharmāt sv-anuṣṭhitātपर-धर्मात् स्व्-अनुष्ठितात्
- than another's duty well performed (para-dharmāt + su-anuṣṭhitāt)
- svabhāva-niyataṃ karmaस्वभाव-नियतं कर्म
- doing the work fixed by one's nature (svabhāva-niyatam + karma)
- kurvan nāpnoti kilbiṣamकुर्वन् नाप्नोति किल्बिषं
- one incurs no sin (kurvan + na + āpnoti + kilbiṣam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This verse doesn’t stand alone; verse 48 immediately follows it with the obvious objection, what if my own duty is done imperfectly, and answers it before Arjuna can even raise it. Read together, 47 and 48 form a single two-part argument: state the principle, then preempt its most natural counter, a construction the Gita uses more than once when it wants a claim to survive first contact with doubt rather than merely be repeated.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
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Lessons
Personal
- If you keep returning to the same piece of advice for yourself across years, that repetition is itself informative — it's probably pointing at something load-bearing, not something you've already fully learned.
Professional
- A principle your team keeps re-deriving independently — about scope, ownership, or role clarity — is worth writing down explicitly rather than re-learning it from scratch each time.
Family & Social
- A boundary or value you find yourself repeating to the same family member across years isn't a sign you're failing to communicate — some things need restating, not rewording.
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