Sanskrit
काम्यानां कर्मणां न्यासं संन्यासं कवयो विदुः । सर्वकर्मफलत्यागं प्राहुस्त्यागं विचक्षणाः ॥ २ ॥
kāmyānāṃ karmaṇāṃ nyāsaṃ saṃnyāsaṃ kavayo viduḥ sarvakarmaphalatyāgaṃ prāhus tyāgaṃ vicakṣaṇāḥ
Translation
The Blessed Lord said: Sages have known as renunciation the renouncing of works with desire; the relinquishing of the fruit of all actions is called relinquishment by the wise.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Krishna’s answer is deceptively simple and sets up everything that follows: sannyasa is giving up desire-driven action itself (kamya karma), while tyaga is giving up only the fruit of action, not the action. This quietly resolves the tension chapters 3 and 5 left dangling between “renounce action” and “act without attachment” — they were never actually the same instruction, and tyaga, not sannyasa, is what Krishna has been recommending as karma-yoga all along. He doesn’t call sannyasa wrong, only narrower than tyaga, a hierarchy that becomes explicit once the threefold guna analysis starts in verse 7. Saṃnyāsa drops the desire-motivated acts; tyāga drops the fruit of all acts — but BG 18.6 will show they come to the same discipline. This is BG 5.2–BG 5.6’s unification, restated for the capstone.
Study deeper
Word by word
- kāmyānāṃ karmaṇāṃ nyāsaṃकांयानां कर्मणां न्यासं
- the giving up of desire-prompted actions (kāmyānām + karmaṇām + nyāsam)
- saṃnyāsaṃ kavayo viduḥसंन्यासं कवयो विदुः
- the sages know as renunciation (saṃnyāsam + kavayaḥ + viduḥ)
- sarvakarmaphalatyāgaṃसर्वकर्मफलत्यागं
- the relinquishing of the fruit of all action (sarva-karma-phala-tyāgam)
- prāhus tyāgaṃ vicakṣaṇāḥप्राहुस् त्यागं विचक्षणाः
- the discerning call relinquishment (prāhuḥ + tyāgam + vicakṣaṇāḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The Sanskrit couplet balances the two definitions on strictly parallel grammar — desire-driven action renounced in one clause, the fruit of all action renounced in the other — so the distinction arrives less as an argument than as a shape the ear can catch before the sense fully lands. That built-in parallelism is doing real philosophical work: it’s what lets two words that sound like near-synonyms in ordinary speech get treated as structurally distinct for the rest of the chapter.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Site Commentary — Second Reading
Each definition is credited to a different class of knower — “kavayaḥ,” the sages or poets, for sannyasa; “vicakṣaṇāḥ,” the discerning, for tyaga — rather than the verse simply saying “some call it this, others call it that” as competing opinions. That attribution implies a hierarchy of insight, not a disagreement: recognizing that giving up desire-driven action is a kind of renunciation is the more available observation, while seeing that only the fruit need be relinquished is credited to the sharper, more discriminating eye.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Before you decide to 'give something up,' get specific about which of two very different things you mean: stopping the activity itself, or releasing your grip on how it turns out. Conflating the two leads to either quitting things you didn't need to quit, or clinging to outcomes you meant to release.
Professional
- When you step back from a project, be explicit with your team about which kind of stepping back it is — handing off the work itself, or just releasing your need for credit while staying involved. Treating the two as the same move confuses everyone about what actually changed.
Family & Social
- If you tell a family member you're 'letting go' of an old disagreement, clarify whether you mean dropping the topic entirely or just releasing your attachment to being proven right about it — the two produce very different relationships afterward.
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