{ "verse_id": "2.51", "mūla": { "devanāgarī": "कर्मजं बुद्धि-युक्ता हि फलं त्यक्त्वा मनीषिणः | जन्म-बन्ध-विनिर्मुक्ताः पदं गच्छन्त्य् अनामयम्", "iast": "karmajaṃ buddhi-yuktā hi phalaṃ tyaktvā manīṣiṇaḥ | janma-bandha-vinirmuktāḥ padaṃ gacchanty anāmayam", "chapter_position": "Chapter 2 (Sāṅkhya-Yoga (The Yoga of Knowledge)), verse 51", "speaker": "Krishna", "addressed_to": "Arjuna" }, "word_by_word": [ { "surface_form": "karma", "lemma": "karman", "grammar": "compound (compound member)", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "कर्म" }, { "surface_form": "jam", "lemma": "ja", "grammar": "accusative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "जम्" }, { "surface_form": "buddhi", "lemma": "buddhi", "grammar": "compound (compound member)", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "बुद्धि" }, { "surface_form": "yuktāḥ", "lemma": "√yuj", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural participle noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "युक्ताः" }, { "surface_form": "hi", "lemma": "hi", "grammar": "", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "हि" }, { "surface_form": "phalam", "lemma": "phala", "grammar": "accusative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "फलम्" }, { "surface_form": "tyaktvā", "lemma": "tyaj", "grammar": "conv", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "इति व्यवहितेन संबन्धः", "school": "advaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "shankara" ] }, { "sense": "कर्म कुर्वन्तः तस्माद् जन्मबन्धविनिर्मुक्ताः अनामयं पदं गच्छन्ति", "school": "viśiṣṭādvaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "ramanuja" ] }, { "sense": "। अप्राप्तस्य फलस्य कथं त्याग इत्यतो व्याचष्टे अकामनये ति। प्रकृत्यादिभ्य उपसङ्ख्यानात्तृतीया। एतत्प्रागुक्तमित्यतः प्रक", "school": "dvaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "jayatirtha" ] }, { "sense": "जन्मैव बन्धरूपं तेन विनिर्मुक्ता अनामयं पदं धाम अक्षराख्यं स्वरूपं गच्छन्ति", "school": "śuddhādvaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "vallabha" ] }, { "sense": "केवलमीश्वराराधनार्थमेव कर्म कुर्वाणा मनीषिणो ज्ञानिनो भूत्वा जन्मरूपेण बन्धेन विनिर्मुक्ताः सन्तोऽनामयं सर्वोपद्रवरहितं", "school": "bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "sridhara" ] }, { "sense": "केवलमीश्वराराधनार्थं कर्माणि कुर्वाणाः सत्त्वशुद्धिद्वारेण मनीषिणस्तत्त्वमस्यादिवाक्यजन्यात्ममनीषावन्तो भवन्ति तादृशाश्", "school": "advaita-bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "madhusudan" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "त्यक्त्वा" }, { "surface_form": "manīṣiṇaḥ", "lemma": "manīṣin", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "ज्ञानिनो भूत्वा जन्मबन्धविनिर्मुक्ताः जन्मैव बन्धः जन्मबन्धः तेन विनिर्मुक्ताः जीवन्त", "school": "advaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "shankara" ] }, { "sense": "इति पौनरुक्त्यपरिहारायाऽऽह बुद्धी ति", "school": "dvaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "jayatirtha" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "मनीषिणः" }, { "surface_form": "janma", "lemma": "janman", "grammar": "compound (compound member)", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "जन्म" }, { "surface_form": "bandha", "lemma": "bandha", "grammar": "compound (compound member)", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "बन्ध" }, { "surface_form": "vinirmuktāḥ", "lemma": "vi-√nirmuc", "grammar": "nominative masculine plural participle noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [ { "sense": "जीवन्त", "school": "advaita", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "shankara" ] }, { "sense": "सन्तोऽनामयं सर्वोपद्रवरहितं विष्णोः पदं मोक्षाख्यं गच्छन्ति", "school": "bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "sridhara" ] }, { "sense": "विशेषेणात्यन्तिकत्वलक्षणेन निरवशेषं मुक्ताः पदं पदनीयमात्मतत्त्वमानन्दरूपं ब्रह्म अनामयमविद्यातत्कार्यात्मकरोगरहितमभयं", "school": "advaita-bhakti", "weight": 0.8, "witnesses": [ "madhusudan" ] } ], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "विनिर्मुक्ताः" }, { "surface_form": "padam", "lemma": "pada", "grammar": "accusative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "पदम्" }, { "surface_form": "gacchanti", "lemma": "gam", "grammar": "present indicative 3rd person plural verb", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "गच्छन्ति" }, { "surface_form": "anāmayam", "lemma": "anāmaya", "grammar": "accusative neuter singular noun", "senses_attested_in_panel": [], "theme_lists": [], "surface_devanagari": "अनामयम्" } ], "intertextual_panel": [ { "verse": "3.26", "type": "cross-chapter thematic parallel", "score": 0.9226, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8526, "theme_graph": 2.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 6.1285, "stem_prefix": 5.0 } }, { "verse": "2.49", "type": "thematic-cluster continuation", "score": 0.9144, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8544, "theme_graph": 1.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 10.5361, "stem_prefix": 5.0 } }, { "verse": "9.28", "type": "long-distance thematic echo", "score": 0.914, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.844, "theme_graph": 1.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 15.1506, "stem_prefix": 6.0 } }, { "verse": "2.41", "type": "cross-chapter thematic parallel", "score": 0.9041, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8441, "theme_graph": 1.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 11.1532, "stem_prefix": 5.0 } }, { "verse": "5.12", "type": "cross-chapter thematic parallel", "score": 0.9034, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8534, "theme_graph": 1.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 9.0361, "stem_prefix": 4.0 } }, { "verse": "4.18", "type": "cross-chapter thematic parallel", "score": 0.9024, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8524, "theme_graph": 2.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 4.7718, "stem_prefix": 3.0 } }, { "verse": "2.50", "type": "next-verse continuation", "score": 0.8996, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8496, "theme_graph": 2.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 4.7718, "stem_prefix": 3.0 } }, { "verse": "2.39", "type": "cross-chapter thematic parallel", "score": 0.8975, "feature_breakdown": { "cosine": 0.8375, "theme_graph": 2.0, "vocative": 0.0, "substring": 0.0, "lemma_overlap": 6.1285, "stem_prefix": 4.0 } } ], "doctrinal_projections": { "advaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "shankara_2.51", "anandgiri_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Those equipped with samatvā-buddhi (equanimity-intellect) abandon the karma-phala (fruit born of action) — specifically, the accrual of desirable and undesirable bodies that constitutes rebirth — because that abandonment is itself the mechanism by which jñāna is disclosed. Becoming thereby maniṣiṇaḥ (men of discernment), they are liberated from janma-bandha (the bondage that IS birth) even while living; birth is not a corridor through which liberation passes but the very fetter that is severed. They attain the parama-pada (supreme station) of Viṣṇu — mokṣa named as anāmaya, utterly free of all upadrava (affliction), which is not a place arrived at but the recognition of what was never bound." }, "viśiṣṭādvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "ramanuja_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Those yoked to buddhi-yoga perform their prescribed karma while relinquishing its phala (fruit), and this relinquishment is not a private psychological act but a liturgical surrender — action becomes kainkarya (service offered to Bhagavān) stripped of self-referential demand. Rāmānuja grounds this in upaniṣadic consensus: 'hi prasiddham etat sarvāsu upaniṣatsu' — this truth is well-attested across all the Upaniṣads, making niṣkāma-karma no mere ethical recommendation but the architecturally established path. From janma-bandha-vinimuktāḥ (those fully freed from the bondage of birth) the padam anāmayam (the station without affliction, the Lord's own abode) is not achieved by merit but disclosed as the natural telos of a self that has ceased generating future births through desire-driven action." }, "dvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "madhva_2.51", "jayatirtha_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Madhva specifies the operative mechanism precisely: karma-jam phalam tyaktvā is not merely non-attachment but an active 'akāmanayā Īśvarāya samarpya' — surrendering to Īśvara by desire-free dedication, which converts karma into upāsanā (worship). The jīva (individual soul), eternally distinct from Hari, has no independent claim on liberation; karma functions as a jñāna-sādhana (instrument for genuine knowledge of Hari), and that jñāna is in turn the mokṣa-sādhana (instrument for liberation). The verse thus presents a two-link causal chain: desireless action dedicated to Hari → right knowledge of Hari → liberation — each link presupposing the jīva's irreducible dependence on Bhagavān at every stage." }, "śuddhādvaita": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "vallabha_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Vallabha reads this verse as describing the siddhi (accomplishment) of those who follow sādācāra (right conduct) in yogic life — they relinquish karma-ja phala (fruit born of action) and, freed from janma-bandha (birth-as-bondage), reach the anāmaya pada which Vallabha specifically identifies as the akṣara-ākhya dhāma (the abode named Akṣara, the imperishable realm) and svarūpa (one's own essential form). This destination is not an external mokṣa through renunciation but the recognition and return to one's own constitutional nature as a spark of Kṛṣṇa's ānanda (bliss) — fruit-abandonment is the condition that removes the obscuring veil of svārtha (self-interest) to allow Kṛṣṇa's prasāda (grace) to operate unimpeded." }, "bhakti": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "sridhara_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Śrīdhara frames this verse as explaining the precise mode by which karma functions as a mokṣa-sādhana (instrument of liberation): actions performed kevalam Īśvarārādhana-artham eva (solely for the purpose of worship of Īśvara) — with all phala relinquished — purify the practitioner into maniṣiṇaḥ (persons of genuine wisdom) who, freed from the janma-rūpa-bandha (the bondage that consists in birth itself), reach the anāmaya pada of Viṣṇu, which is sarvopadrava-rahita (free from every affliction). The path is neither cold renunciation nor mere ethical neutrality but the transformation of daily obligatory action into an unbroken offering — the very structure of karma re-consecrated as devotion." }, "advaita-bhakti": { "reading_summary": "(reading summary extraction pending; ENABLE_READING_SUMMARIES=true to generate)", "key_cross_references": [], "witness_passages": [ "madhusudan_2.51" ], "score": 0.5, "english_rendering": "Madhusūdana resolves a prior objection — that abandoning even puṇya-phala (meritorious fruit) risks losing the very purāṣārtha (human aim) — by showing that the sacrifice of tuccha-phala (trivial fruit) opens the way to parama-purāṣārtha (the supreme human aim). Those equipped with samatva-buddhi perform karma kevalam Īśvarārādhana-artham (solely as worship of Īśvara), and through this sattva-śuddhi (purification of the inner organ), become maniṣiṇaḥ endowed with the ātma-maniṣā born from mahāvākya-s such as 'tat tvam asi.' Such persons attain the anāmaya pada — Brahman as ānanda-rūpa ātma-tattva, free from avidyā (nescience) and its entire karya (effects) — and approach it not as an external destination but through abheda (non-difference), the advaitin's mokṣa fulfilled within bhakti's vocabulary of surrender." } }, "prosodic_information": { "meter": "anuṣṭubh", "meter_shift_from_previous": true, "meter_shift_to_next": false, "pragmatic_context": { "vocative": "", "preceding_question": "", "following_response": "" } }, "theme_list_memberships": [ { "list": "अनामय", "role": "supporting", "other_verses_in_list": [ "14.6" ] }, { "list": "फलं त्यक्त्वा मनीषिणः", "role": "supporting", "other_verses_in_list": [ "3.30" ] }, { "list": "बुद्धि", "role": "supporting", "other_verses_in_list": [ "2.19", "2.39", "2.41", "2.44", "2.49", "2.50", "2.52", "2.53", "2.63", "2.65", "2.66", "3.1", "3.2", "3.3", "3.26", "3.40", "3.42", "4.18", "5.17", "5.20", "5.28", "6.9", "6.21", "6.43", "7.4", "7.5", "7.10", "8.7", "10.4", "10.10", "12.8", "12.14", "13.5", "15.20", "18.16", "18.17", "18.30", "18.31", "18.32", "18.37", "18.49", "18.57" ] }, { "list": "मनीषिणः", "role": "supporting", "other_verses_in_list": [ "18.3" ] }, { "list": "युक्त", "role": "supporting", "other_verses_in_list": [ "1.14", "2.28", "2.39", "2.50", "2.61", "2.64", "2.66", "3.26", "3.36", "4.18", "5.6", "5.7", "5.8", "5.12", "5.21", "5.23", "5.26", "6.8", "6.14", "6.17", "6.18", "6.29", "6.47", "7.17", "7.18", "7.22", "7.30", "8.8", "8.10", "8.14", "8.27", "9.14", "9.22", "9.28", "9.34", "10.10", "12.1", "12.2", "15.14", "17.5", "17.17", "18.28", "18.51" ] } ], "audit_trail": { "substrate_version": "v2.6-frozen", "fitted_weights": { "a": 1.0, "b": 0.01, "e_v": 0.005, "z": 0.2, "h": 0.0, "th": 0.01 }, "corpus_provenance": { "mūla": "Belvalkar critical edition (BORI 1947), via Ambuda multi-witness", "panel_witnesses": [ "bg-mula", "bg-shankara", "bg-ramanuja", "bg-madhva", "bg-vedantadeshika", "bg-vallabha", "bg-jayatirtha", "bg-anandgiri", "bg-sridhara", "bg-madhusudan" ] }, "extraction_date": "2026-04-21", "score_methodology_documented_at": "Paper 1, Section II.B", "word_by_word_parser": "ByT5-Sanskrit-multitask (Nehrdich/Hellwig/Keutzer EMNLP 2024)", "post_generation_repairs": [ { "date": "2026-05-03", "fix": "verb-lemma-misidentification (broader heuristic: prefix-√root canonical for all verb-tagged tokens)", "scope": "word_by_word[].lemma", "loci": [ "yuktāḥ: yuj -> √yuj", "vinirmuktāḥ: vinirmuc -> vi-√nirmuc" ] } ] }, "so_what_questions": [ "What is the precise difference between Śaṅkara's 'janmaiva bandhaḥ' (birth itself as bondage) and the more common reading that birth is merely the consequence of bondage — and does the distinction change what liberation practice looks like?", "Rāmānuja cites 'sarvāsu upaniṣatsu' (all the Upaniṣads) as consensus for niṣkāma-karma: which specific Upaniṣadic passages is he invoking, and does this cross-textual grounding strengthen or merely assert the claim?", "Madhva introduces 'akāmanayā Īśvarāya samarpyā' (surrendering to Īśvara by desireless dedication) as the operative mechanism — does this dedicatory act require an explicit mental gesture at the time of action, or is a trained dispositional orientation sufficient?", "Vallabha identifies the destination as one's own 'svarūpa' (essential form / Akṣara realm) rather than an impersonal liberation-state — what is at stake theologically in calling mokṣa a return to svarūpa rather than a merging or a reaching?", "All six schools agree that phala-tyāga (fruit-renunciation) is necessary, but they disagree on what makes it sufficient — jñāna (Śaṅkara), service (Rāmānuja), dedication (Madhva), grace-removal (Vallabha), consecration (Śrīdhara), or purification-of-antaḥkaraṇa (Madhusūdana): is this a real disagreement about mechanism or a terminological partitioning of the same process?", "Madhusūdana addresses an objector who worries that abandoning even virtuous fruit constitutes losing purāṣārtha — what is the strongest version of this objection, and does his response fully dissolve it or relocate it?", "The verse uses 'maniṣiṇaḥ' (men of insight/wisdom) as the subject who attain liberation — is this a description of who performs niṣkāma-karma (wise persons perform it) or a result of performing it (performing it makes one wise), and which reading does each school's bhāṣya support?" ], "everyday_applications": { "advaita": "When you complete a demanding project at work, notice the reflex to mentally claim the outcome — the promotion, the recognition, the story about your competence — before it has even arrived. Śaṅkara's instruction is to perform the work with full samatvā-buddhi (equanimity-intelligence) and then release the fruit entirely, not as resignation but as recognition that the one who 'earns' the outcome is itself a constructed identity that perpetuates janma-bandha (the bondage of continued becoming). The practice is not indifference to quality — do the work superbly — but radical non-registration of result as yours, which Śaṅkara says is the condition under which jñāna (liberating knowledge) can actually arise.", "viśiṣṭādvaita": "Before beginning any task — cooking, filing taxes, a difficult conversation — frame it explicitly as kainkarya (service-to-Bhagavān), however briefly: 'this action is offered to the Lord.' Rāmānuja's reading of this verse is that niṣkāma-karma is not a private psychological technique but a liturgically validated path confirmed across all the Upaniṣads, which means this reframing is not self-help but participation in the tradition's tested mechanism. The result Rāmānuja describes — janma-bandha-vinimuktāḥ (full freedom from birth-bondage) — begins accruing in increments each time a mundane action is genuinely offered rather than performed for personal accumulation.", "dvaita": "Madhva's two-link chain — desireless action dedicated to Hari → right knowledge of Hari — means that in ordinary life, the habit of mentally dedicating each action to Hari before performing it is not decorative piety but a causal mechanism that gradually builds the correct relational knowledge of who Hari is and who the jīva (individual soul) is in relation to Him. When you face an outcome you deeply wanted but did not receive, the Dvaitin practice is to name it clearly: 'I wanted this; Hari did not give it; Hari's will governs, mine does not — and this is the good news, not the bad news.' That re-cognition, repeated under real conditions, is how Madhva's jñāna-sādhana actually functions.", "śuddhādvaita": "Vallabha's reading suggests that the ordinary anxious pursuit of outcomes — career security, parental approval, relationship outcomes — is not neutral striving but the specific mechanism that conceals one's akṣara-svarūpa (one's essential nature as a spark of Kṛṣṇa's joy). The daily application is to treat each moment of fruit-release not as loss but as the lifting of a veil: when you stop insisting on the outcome, what remains is not emptiness but the ānanda (bliss) that was already present and obscured. In Puṣṭi-mārga terms, this is not achieved through effortful renunciation — effort itself can re-install svārtha (self-interest) — but through the continuing reception of Kṛṣṇa's prasāda, cultivated by remembrance and satsaṅga (company of the devoted).", "bhakti": "Śrīdhara's formulation 'kevalam Īśvarārādhana-artham eva karma kurvāṇāḥ' (performing action solely as worship of Īśvara) is a practical criterion for every action: ask, before acting, whether you are performing this for Īśvara's worship or for some other end, and be honest about the answer. In practice, few actions pass this test cleanly — most are mixed — and Śrīdhara's framework implies that the percentage that passes is precisely the measure of one's spiritual maturation. The movement from 'mostly self-serving with pious overlay' to 'genuinely offered' is the gradual purification that makes one, in Śrīdhara's terms, a true maniṣin (person of wisdom), and wisdom here is not intellectual mastery but the stable capacity to act without ownership.", "advaita-bhakti": "Madhusūdana's path requires holding two movements simultaneously in daily life: the bhakti movement of offering action to Kṛṣṇa (Īśvarārādhana), and the jñāna movement of recognizing through mahāvākya-s such as 'tat tvam asi' that the ātman performing those actions is non-different from Brahman. In practice, this means neither collapsing into pure devotional emotion (which can bypass the hard cognitive work of ātma-maniṣā) nor retreating into dry intellectual non-attachment (which can bypass the warming, stabilizing power of bhakti). When an action succeeds or fails, Madhusūdana's practitioner neither attributes it to personal agency nor dismisses it as illusory — they offer the outcome as Kṛṣṇa's, rest in the antaḥkaraṇa-śuddhi (purified inner instrument) that the offering produces, and let that purity be the soil in which ātma-tattva recognizes itself." }, "primary_meaning": "Those who act with steady understanding, giving up the fruits that action breeds, break free from the bondage of rebirth and reach a state untouched by sorrow." }