The verse and its meaning · Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 4 · The Ancient Teaching

Act as the Ancients Did

Bhagavad Gita 4.15

एवं ज्ञात्वा कृतं कर्म पूर्वैरपि मुमुक्षुभिः। कुरु कर्मैव तस्मात्त्वं पूर्वैः पूर्वतरं कृतम्

Meaning · English

Knowing this, even the ancient seekers of liberation performed their actions. Therefore you too should perform your duty, just as it was performed in earlier times by those who came before.

Three words carry the verse. Karma is action, the work a person does. Mumukshu is a seeker of liberation, from the wish to be freed. Purva means earlier, the ones who came first. Krishna has just said that he acts yet is not tainted by action, and that desire for its fruit does not bind him. Knowing this, he says, the old seekers of liberation still worked. They did not leave action behind to become free. They understood how action works and went on doing it. So he tells Arjuna to do his duty, as those before him did it in earlier times. The reason is the problem Arjuna carries into the chariot: he wants to put down his weapons and walk away, thinking that is how a seeker behaves. Krishna answers with precedent. People who truly wanted freedom kept acting, and they were not bound by it. What he asks is that Arjuna act, and act with the same understanding they had. Shankara reads the knowing as knowledge of the Self, so that action done in that light is a path of purification. Ramanuja reads it as action offered to God and joined with devotion. Madhva stresses that duty is done in service of the Supreme, and that freedom comes by his grace.

A hiker comes to a fork in the hills and sees a worn path with bootprints pressed into the mud. Others have crossed here before and arrived. The path does not make the walk shorter, but it shows the walk can be done. The old seekers are the prints, and duty is the path.

1. Choose one ordinary duty you have been putting off, such as a call, a bill, or a chore someone relies on. 2. Think of one person, living or gone, whom you respect for doing such things steadily. Picture them doing it for a moment. 3. Do the task today, at a set time, for as long as it takes. 4. When it is done, notice whether you were waiting for a result or simply finished the work.

A woman sits in her car outside her mother's care home, hands on the wheel. She is tired, and part of her wants to drive on, because visiting feels pointless when her mother barely knows her now. She thinks of a quieter life where duties like this do not press on her. The verse speaks to this moment. Krishna's point is that those who wanted freedom did not escape their tasks. They did the task and let go of what they hoped to get from it. So she might stop asking whether the visit will work. She might ask only whether it is hers to do, then go in, sit, hold a hand, and leave when the time is up. Ordinary experience confirms that a task without a demanded result often weighs less, and that knowing others have carried the same load makes it easier to lift. The verse does not promise her mother will recover, or that the grief will lessen, or that exhaustion needs no rest. If she is worn through, she may need help, and a doctor or a counsellor is a fair place to start.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Acting Without Stain · Bhagavad Gita 4.14
• All of Bhagavad Gita · Ask Krishna about it

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