Sanskrit
योगसंन्यस्तकर्माणं ज्ञानसञ्छिन्नसंशयम् । आत्मवन्तं न कर्माणि निबध्नन्ति धनञ्जय ॥
yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇaṃ jñāna-sañchinna-saṃśayam ātmavantaṃ na karmāṇi nibadhnanti dhanañjaya
Translation
He who hath renounced actions by yoga, who hath cloven asunder doubt by wisdom, who is ruled by the Self, actions do not bind him, O Dhananjaya.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The fusion the whole chapter has been assembling: one who has renounced action through yoga and severed doubt through knowledge — yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇam, jñāna-sañchinna-saṃśayam — is not bound by action at all. This is Chapter 3’s karma-yoga, action without attachment to its fruit, and Chapter 4’s jñāna, knowledge that dissolves doubt, named side by side in a single compound sentence, which is as close as the Gita gets to stating outright that its two apparently competing paths were never actually separate paths. The two compounds are welded together on purpose: yoga does the renouncing, jñāna does the cutting, and the result is one ātmavant — a person in possession of themselves. Chapter 5 opens by having Arjuna ask which of the two is better, and Krishna’s answer is essentially this verse.
Study deeper
Word by word
- yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇaṃयोग-संन्यस्त-कर्माणं
- one who has renounced action through yoga (yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇam)
- jñāna-sañchinna-saṃśayamज्ञान-सञ्छिन्न-संशयं
- whose doubt is cut by knowledge (jñāna-sañchinna-saṃśayam)
- ātmavantaṃ na karmāṇiआत्मवन्तं न कर्माणि
- the self-possessed one — actions do not (ātma-vantam + na + karmāṇi)
- nibadhnanti dhanañjayaनिबध्नन्ति धनञ्जय
- bind, O Dhanañjaya (nibadhnanti + dhanañjaya)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Read quickly, the verse looks like it’s naming two things — action renounced through yoga, doubt severed through knowledge — set side by side. There’s a third term easy to skip past: ātmavantam, one established in or possessed by the Self. Without it, the first two could pass for two separate achievements, a technique for action and a technique for doubt. With it, they read instead as two descriptions of a single underlying condition — being grounded in the Self is what both the acting and the knowing actually rest on.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If you've built two disciplines in your life that look separate — a practice for managing action, another for managing doubt — look for the quieter third thing underneath both of them, the way this verse names 'established in the Self' as what actually holds the other two together.
Professional
- Two skills that look unrelated on your résumé — sharp technical judgment and calm stakeholder communication — may both be resting on one quieter underlying trait, like genuine clarity about what you're actually trying to achieve; find and name that foundation rather than treating the two skills as separate things to develop in parallel.
Family & Social
- Two things you do well in a relationship that seem unrelated — staying patient, staying honest — might both be expressions of one quieter underlying commitment to that person; naming that shared root can matter more than working on the two behaviors as if they were separate projects.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.