Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 18, Verse 45: Krishna to Arjuna — Mokṣa-Sannyāsa-Yoga
Each person absorbed in their own work attains perfection. Hear how one devoted to their duty finds it.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Each person, absorbed in their own prescribed action (svakarmābhirata), attains a purification (saṃsiddhi) that is not liberation itself but the removal of impurity (aśuddhi-kṣaya) — rendering body and senses fit for jñāna-niṣṭhā (steadiness in knowledge). Śaṅkara is explicit: svakarmānuṣṭhāna does not yield mokṣa directly; it yields yogyatā (qualification). Hear now how the one devoted to svakarmā arrives at siddhi through this indirect path.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
The person who is absorbed in the karma appropriate to their station (yathoditaṃ karmaṇi abhirataḥ) attains saṃsiddhi — and Rāmānuja glosses this as paramapada-prāpti, the reaching of the supreme abode of Bhagavān. Karma here is kainkarya (service), not mere duty; its fruit is not purification alone but direct access to the highest goal. Hear now how the svakarmanirata attains that paramam padam.
- Madhvadvaita
Reconstructed from the dvaita school's doctrine, not translated from Madhva's commentary at this verse.
Sve sve karmaṇyabhirataḥ saṃsiddhiṃ labhate naraḥ — each nara (person), absorbed in his own appointed karma, attains saṃsiddhi (full accomplishment). Svakarmanirataḥ siddhiṃ yathā vindati tacchṛṇu — how one who is fixed in svakarma (one's own duty) finds siddhi (attainment), hear that now. Each jīva (individual self) is paratantra (eternally dependent) on Hari, and svakarma is not mere social function but the mode of worship appropriate to that jīva‘s adhikāra (qualification) within the taratamya (graded ontological hierarchy). The pañca-bheda (five-fold real distinction) stands intact: the jīva who performs svakarma does not dissolve into Hari but arrives, as a distinct paratantra self, at a grade of saṃsiddhi proportioned to devotion and qualification. Abhirati (deep absorption) in svakarma is itself a form of bhakti (devotion as ontological subordination), since all activity of the dependent self, when rightly directed, flows toward and is sustained by Hari‘s will. The imperative śṛṇu (‘hear this') opens the disclosure of how Hari‘s anugraha (grace) mediates the ascent from vocation to liberation — a liberation that is real arrival of the jīva at its proper dependent station, never dissolution.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha reads ‘sva-sva' (each one's own) as the operative constraint: this karma must be one's own, not another's (paradharma is explicitly excluded by this reduplication). The saṃsiddhi — one's own perfection — flows directly from staying within the prasāda-field of Kṛṣṇa's own dispensation. Each jīva's assigned station is Kṛṣṇa's līlā-arrangement; deviation to para-dharma severs that prasāda-channel.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara frames this verse as the pivot where varna-āśrama karma is shown to be the cause of jñāna, not an obstacle to it: the person established (pariniṣṭhita) in svādhikāra-vihita karma (action prescribed for one's own station) attains saṃsiddhi understood as jñāna-yogyatā (fitness for knowledge). The following half-verse promises to explain the process (prakāra) by which this karma-pariniṣṭhā leads to tattvajñāna.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Sve sve karmaṇyabhirataḥ saṃsiddhiṃ labhate naraḥ — absorbed in one's own prescribed duty, a person attains perfection. Madhusūdana opens by situating svakarmā within the five-fold scheme of dharma drawn from the Bhāviṣya Purāṇa: vṛṇadharmaḥ, āśramadharmaḥ, varṇāśramadharmaḥ, gauṇadharmaḥ, and naimittikadharmaḥ — dharmācchhreyaḥ samuddiṣṭaṃ sa tu pañcavidhaḥ prokto vedamūlaḥ sanātanaḥ. Varṇadharma is that duty operative solely through one's varṇatva, such as upanayana; āśramadharma through one's āśrama, such as bhikṣādaṇḍādika; the gauṇadharma — yo guṇena pravarteta guṇadharmaḥ sa ucyate — flows from quality alone, as in a king's protection of his subjects; the naimittika — nimittamekam āśritya yo dharmāḥ saṃpravartate — depends on occasion, as in prāyaścitta. Hārīta's four-fold classification then intersects this: pṛthagdharmaḥ, viśeṣadharmaḥ, samānadharmaḥ, and kṛtsnadharmaḥ — the last being the one most relevant to the mumukṣu (the liberation-seeker). Madhusūdana specifies: mokṣahetv-ātmajñānotpatti-pratibandhakaparihārāya niṣkāmakarmānuṣṭhānaṃ kṛtsnadharma ityarthaḥ — niṣkāma performance of duty constitutes kṛtsnadharma precisely because it removes the pratibandhaka (obstruction) to the arising of ātmajñāna (knowledge of the self), the cause of liberation. The fruits of svakarmā are graduated. Manu is quoted: śrutiSmṛtyuditaṃ dharmam anutiṣṭhann hi mānavaḥ iha kīrtim avāpnoti pretya cānuttamaṃ sukham — in this life, kīrti (renown); after death, the highest happiness, taken as indicating the appropriate fruit in each case. Āpastamba confirms: sarvavaṇānāṃ svadharmoṣṭhāne paramaparimitaṃ sukham. Gautama further adds that varṇā āśramāś ca svakarmmaniṣṭhāḥ pretya karmaphalam anubhūya tataḥ śeṣeṇa viśiṣṭadeśajātikularūpāyuḥśrutavṛttavittasukhamedhasaḥ janma pratipādyante viṣvañco viparītā naśyanti — those who go in all directions as they please, contrary to dharma, fall into hellish births and perish in insect and worm forms, losing all puruṣārtha. Hārīta's verse clinches the distinction between sakāma and niṣkāma performance: kāmyaiḥ kecid yajñadānais tapobhir labdhvā lokān punar āyānti janma kāmair muktāḥ satyayajñāḥ sudānās taponiṣṭhāś cākṣayān yānti lokān — those freed from desire and steadfast in truth attain imperishable worlds. Niṣkāmakarmā thus flows upward toward ātmajñāna; kṛtsnadharma is its name when directed to removing every obstruction on that path. The verse's injunction — svakarmanirataḥ siddhiṃ yathā vindati tacchṛṇu — calls Arjuna to hear precisely how this graded movement from duty to saṃsiddhi operates.