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
*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.