The verse and its meaning · Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 18 · What Makes an Action

Three Drivers, Three Parts

Bhagavad Gita 18.18

ज्ञानं ज्ञेयं परिज्ञाता त्रिविधा कर्मचोदना।करणं कर्म कर्तेति त्रिविधः कर्मसंग्रहः

Meaning · English

Knowledge, the thing to be known, and the knower: these three urge action on. The instrument, the act itself, and the doer: these three make up the whole of an action.

Krishna gives Arjuna two lists of three, and the verse turns on the words chodana and sangraha. Chodana means an urging, a push that sets action going. Sangraha means a gathering, the parts an action is made of. The first list is jnana, knowledge; jneya, what is known; and parijnata, the one who knows. Krishna says these three urge a person to act. Before anyone moves, something is understood, there is something to understand, and someone understands it. The second list is karana, the instrument; karma, the act itself; and karta, the doer. These three together make up the action. Hand, task and worker, or tool, deed and person. Krishna lays the whole machinery open. He does this because he has just told Arjuna that the doer who thinks he alone causes everything sees wrongly. Here he takes an action apart so that the doer is seen as one piece among several. Shankara reads the verse as a plain analysis of how action arises, preparing the point that the self stands apart from it. Ramanujacharya reads the three factors as parts of a real process in which the person acts within God's ordering. Madhva stresses that these factors all depend on the Lord. The verse asks Arjuna to see action as many things coming together, not one man's deed.

A potter at a wheel. He sees the shape of the pot in his mind, he has the clay before him, and he knows what he is making. That is the push. Then there are the wheel and his hands, the pot taking form, and the potter himself. The pot comes from all of these together, and he is only one of them.

1. Pick one small task today, such as cooking a meal or writing a message. 2. Before you start, say quietly what you know about it, what exactly is to be done, and who is doing it: you. 3. After finishing, name the tool you used, the act itself, and yourself as the doer. 4. Notice how many things were needed besides you, and how small your own share looks beside them.

A woman stands in her kitchen at six in the morning, packing three lunches before the school bus. She is tired and thinks, nobody else in this house does anything. Krishna's list changes the moment step by step. She sees what she knows, which is who eats what and who is allergic. She sees what is to be known, the hour, the bus, the contents of the fridge. She sees herself as the knower. Then she sees the knife, the work of packing, and herself as the doer. The job stops being one heavy thing called me and becomes parts she can sort and share out. She may ask someone to cut the fruit, or leave a task for the evening. Ordinary experience agrees that a job looks lighter once it is broken into its parts. The verse does not promise that the work will shrink, that tiredness will lift, or that others will help. It does not replace rest, or medical care when exhaustion is more than a bad week.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Acting Without Ego-Bondage · Bhagavad Gita 18.17
• Next: Sorted by Nature's Qualities · Bhagavad Gita 18.19
• All of Bhagavad Gita · Ask Krishna about it

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