BG 4.23 — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga

Bhagavad Gītā 4.23Chapter 4 · Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga · Krishna → Arjuna · anuṣṭubh

गतसङ्गस्य मुक्तस्य ज्ञानावस्थितचेतसः ।

यज्ञायाचरतः कर्म समग्रं प्रविलीयते ॥

gata-saṅgasya muktasya jñānāvasthita-cetasaḥ

yajñāyācarataḥ karma samagraṃ pravilīyate

spokensingle-voice recital; rendered via IndicF5 conditioned on a Sanskrit reference clip

meaning

When a person acts without attachment, free from possessiveness, with the mind fixed in knowledge and every act offered as sacrifice, the whole of that karma dissolves without remainder.

ekras · bhāṣya

The verse names the dissolution of karma in the right actor. "For the gata-sanga, the mukta, whose chitta is fixed in jnana, who acts yajnaya — for the sake of yajna — the entire karma dissolves." Three qualifications precede the verse's central claim. Gata-sanga — sanga, sticky-attachment, has departed. Mukta — released; the binding force of dharma and adharma alike no longer adheres. Jnanavasthita-chetas — the inner instrument is fixed in knowing. Each names a different layer of the inner condition.

Madhva is crisp and hierarchical: gata-sanga means free of phala-sneha — affection for fruit; mukta means free of sharira-abhimana — body-identification; jnanavasthita-chetas means the citta rests in knowing. The closing verb is samagram praviliyate. The whole karma dissolves — praviliyate, melts away as ice melts in water — without remainder. The samagram is precise. Not just future karma; not just unmanifest accumulation; the entire karmic content.

Madhusudana addresses an objection: if even the renunciate's alms-gathering does not bind, why would the householder Janaka's yajnas bind? The answer holds the same condition for both. Outer form does not determine binding force. The yajnaya — for the sake of yajna, for the sake of the Lord, without phala-sanga — converts the act into a non-binding act, regardless of whether it is alms-gathering or coronation-ritual. The verse closes the four-verse expansion of 4.18. The doer-without-doership has been described from four angles. Each describes the same person.

Context

where

Chapter 4 · Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga · meter anuṣṭubh

who speaks

Krishna → Arjuna

preceded by — BG 4.22

Content with whatever comes on its own, free from envy, unmoved by success or failure, such a person acts and is not bound.

What's going on

When a person acts without attachment, free from possessiveness, with the mind fixed in knowledge and every act offered as sacrifice, the whole of that karma dissolves without remainder.

Sūtras through this verse (52)

ŚrīdharaclassicalB

The Lord descends out of compassionbetween

4.9His acts are willed only to bless others.───→here4.23───→11.1By high compassion He showed the world-form.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalA

Sorrow and delusion are the diseasebetween

2.69Ignorance is night, wisdom alone wakes.───→here4.23───→4.42Cut the heart's doubt with the sword of knowledge.

MadhvaclassicalT1

Hari is supreme — the running reading-rulebetween

2.18'Imperishable' is said to mark off the Lord.───→here4.23───→4.24Every word for ritual points back to Viṣṇu.

show all 52

RamsukhdasclassicalA

What binds you (and how to let go)station · anchor

───→here4.23───→

RamsukhdasclassicalA

What binds you (and how to let go)station · anchor

───→here4.23───→

RamsukhdasclassicalH

All paths arrive at the same roomstation · anchor

───→here4.23───→

RamsukhdasclassicalH

All paths arrive at the same roomstation

───→here4.23───→

Madhvaclassicalmadhva_pratibimba

Madhva Pratibimbabetween · other

4.14Acts without clinging───→here4.23───→5.14Two tiers of rulership

MadhvaclassicalT3

Ranking is real — and it never collapsesbetween

4.6Avatāras differ in their fullness of Hari.───→here4.23───→6.9Devas, asuras, mortals are three native kinds.

MadhvaclassicalT5

Mirror-and-image — how seeming-action worksbetween

4.14He acts but does not cling to the act.───→here4.23───→5.14The Lord rules the modes; the soul rules the body.

MadhvaclassicalT6

Citation is the spine — texts carry the loadbetween

4.8Ṛgveda khilas explain the descent as play.───→here4.23───→6.6Maitrāyaṇī defines the stilled mind.

MadhvaclassicalT10

The deluder is named — three goddesses, one Lordbetween

4.6Even the unborn descends through the deluder Durgā.───→here4.23───→7.4Eight elements name the inert side of nature.

MadhvaclassicalT12

Closure by gloss — the small repertoirebetween

4.11'Me' is glossed by what the speaker is doing.───→here4.23───→4.25'Divine' just means the Lord, named indirectly.

ŚrīdharaclassicalD

The path that turns no one awaybetween

4.11However they come, I meet them so.───→here4.23───→7.16Four kinds of seekers, all good-hearted.

ŚrīdharaclassicalE

Inner cleansing reconciles work and knowingbetween

3.3One path, two grades: impure, then pure mind.───→here4.23───→4.39Faith earns knowing; work readies that faith.

ŚrīdharaclassicalI

His evenness as ground for refugebetween

4.11I meet each one as that one approaches.───→here4.23───→9.29Even to all — yet near to those who turn.

RamsukhdasclassicalE

Your own work as worshipbetween

4.13The four orders are His own creation.───→here4.23───→18.41Each order's work is born of its nature.

ŚrīdharaclassicalC

Devotion is both the way and the homeapproach

───→here4.23───→6.47Be a devotee: that is the meaning.

ŚrīdharaclassicalJ

Insight given as a gift, not earned aloneapproach

───→here4.23───→4.34Knowers will pass it to you by teaching.

ŚrīdharaclassicalL

Chapter prefaces as the bhāṣya's spineapproach

───→here4.23───→5.1Settling the doubt: renounce or work?

RamsukhdasclassicalI

The Lord already inside the heartapproach

───→here4.23───→6.30See Me everywhere, I am never lost.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalE

Ignorance is the only enemybetween

4.18See not-doing in doing, doing in not-doing.───→here4.23───→5.13Body-self confusion is the only error.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalF

The Lord is born only as it werebetween

4.9My birth and acts are not of this world.───→here4.23───→7.14Divine illusion is hard to cross alone.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalG

After knowing, act only to hold the worldbetween

4.18The post-knowledge actor does no action at all.───→here4.23───→5.8I do nothing at all, says the knower.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalJ

Scripture stands behind every claimbetween

4.13The four orders are the Puruṣa's own body.───→here4.23───→15.1The world-tree is the tree of the Kaṭha.

ŚaṅkaraclassicalH

The Lord is friend of every beingapproach

───→here4.23───→5.29Friend of all beings, the witness of every act.

Ekrasmodernkarma_yoga

Karma yoga — the apprentice pathbetween · v2

4.18Action in inaction───→here4.23───→5.6Renunciation needs the path

Ekrasmodernstress

Stress — panic to shelterbetween · v2

4.16Even the wise are confused───→here4.23───→7.14Cross the maya

Gauravmoderninterfaith_cosmology

Interfaith Cosmologybetween

4.11'Ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham.' As they approach me, so I───→here4.23───→7.21'Yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah shraddhayarchitum ichchhati.' Whatever form the dev

Gauravmodernsanatana_dharma_101

Sanatana Dharma 101between

4.8'Paritranaya sadhunam vinashaya cha dushkritam, dharma-samsthapana-arthaya sambh───→here4.23───→9.27Dharma-as-offering pillar. 'Yat karoshi yad ashnasi yaj juhoshi dadasi yat.' Gau

RāmānujaclassicalD

Karma-yoga as kainkarya (worship)between

3.30Surrender every act.───→here4.23───→4.24Brahman the offering, Brahman the offerer.

RāmānujaclassicalG

Māyā is real causal powerbetween

4.6Self-power, not self-illusion.───→here4.23───→7.14Māyā is real wonder, not unreality.

RāmānujaclassicalH

Prapatti / śaraṇāgati — universal upāyabetween

4.11As they approach Me, so do I receive them.───→here4.23───→7.14Surrender alone crosses the māyā.

VallabhaclassicalA

Two paths — rule-bound and grace-onlybetween

4.11Each soul takes the path Krishna assigns to it.───→here4.23───→9.4The Lord pervades all, yet stays untouched.

VallabhaclassicalD

Chapter-opening preludesbetween

4.1Four-verse prelude names avatāra-līlā.───→here4.23───→5.1Single-verse prelude sets sannyāsa-yoga eka.

VallabhaclassicalG

The Lord plays — calf-affection, not contractbetween

4.8A mother chastising her child is no cruelty.───→here4.23───→7.1The play-Person of every form opens chapter 7.

Ekrasmodernmeditation

Meditation — the dhyāna tourapproach · v2

───→here4.23───→6.10Solitary seat

Gauravmodernchaplaincy_kit_of_tools

Chaplaincy Kit Of Toolsapproach

───→here4.23───→4.34Paramparā / direct transmission. 'Tad viddhi pranipatena pariprashnena sevaya, u

RāmānujaclassicalC

Three ṣaṭkas (1–6 / 7–12 / 13–18)approach

───→here4.23───→5.1A four-clause summary of all of 2 through 4.

VallabhaclassicalK

Aphorism, gloss, full commentaryapproach

───→here4.23───→6.47Six chapters of aphorism close at this verse.

Ekrasmodernfamily_conflict

Family Conflictexit · other

2.8No grief-remover I see───→here4.23───→

Gauravmoderneminem_dsm_arjuna

Eminem Dsm Arjunaexit

2.11'Ashochyan anvashochas tvam prajna-vadamsh cha bhashase.' You grieve those not t───→here4.23───→

JayatīrthaclassicalD

Saṅgati declared at the head of every adhyāyabetween

4.1Three blocks named at the chapter head.───→here4.23───→6.1Karma-yoga is outer; samādhi-yoga inner.

JayatīrthaclassicalE

Vishnu-sarvottamatva read into apparently neutral wordsbetween

4.11Mām is Viṣṇu, not generic absolute.───→here4.23───→7.5Higher prakṛti is Śrī, not the eight-fold.

JayatīrthaclassicalF

Bhakti-tāratamya: gradation among devotees, gradation in fruitbetween

4.11Fruit proportional to the service offered.───→here4.23───→7.21Other deities give what Viṣṇu permits.

ĀnandagiriclassicalF

Which karma? — fourfold typologybetween

4.18Action-in-inaction needs the typology.───→here4.23───→5.1Body-residue karma vs. fruit-bearing karma.

ĀnandagiriclassicalH

Phala-saṃkalpa is the only upādhibetween

4.18Action-in-inaction: the upādhi seen. Anchor.───→here4.23───→5.13All actions renounced by mind alone.

AbhinavaguptaclassicalB

Recognition, not additionbetween

4.14Recognize, do not learn — the verb shifts.───→here4.23───→7.24Failure of seeing, not absence of presence.

AbhinavaguptaclassicalD

Avatāra: appearance without departurebetween

4.13Four orders made by the one who stays equal.───→here4.23───→9.4He pervades, yet is not in any of it.

VedāntadeśikaclassicalD

Adhikāra — eligibility as architecture, not exceptionbetween

4.11'Yathā' is open; the verb is the gate.───→here4.23───→9.22Yoga-kṣemam: the Lord's work, not the seeker's caste.

VedāntadeśikaclassicalG

Three yogas — three angles on one configurationbetween

3.30Karma offered to the indweller becomes worship.───→here4.23───→4.33Knowledge-rite outranks mere material rites.

MadhusūdanaclassicalG

Knowing and acting cannot run togetherbetween

3.1The grand architecture cannot mix the two.───→here4.23───→4.34Approach a knower; knowing is not earned by action.

Śabda · lemmas (11 unique · 11 occurrences)

कर्म karman — action, deed, the law of action · nominative neuter singular noun
प्रविलीयते pra-√vilī — to dissolve away (pra- + vi- + √lī) · present indicative 3rd person singular verb
मुक्तस्य √muc — to release, free (verbal root) · genitive masculine singular participle noun
यज्ञाय yajña — sacrifice, worship, ritual offering · dative masculine singular noun
सङ्गस्य saṅga — attachment, contact (= saṅga in earlier dict — alternate spelling) · genitive masculine singular noun

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गत √gam — to go (verbal root) · compound participle (compound member)
ज्ञान jñāna — knowledge, wisdom, cognition · compound · also at 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.26, 3.32 +70
अवस्थित ava-√sthā — state, condition, situation · compound participle (compound member)
चेतसः cetas — consciousness, mind, awareness · genitive masculine singular noun
आचरतः √ācar — to perform, conduct oneself (ā- + √car 'move') · genitive masculine singular present participle verb
समग्रम् samagra — (sam- + agra: front) · nominative neuter singular noun

Praśna · so what (7)

01All six schools read 'yajñāya' differently — as sacrifice, as service to Hari, as offering to Brahman, as world-preservation — yet all say the karma dissolves. Is dissolution a function of the act's object, or the actor's interiority, or both?
02Śaṅkara insists karma dissolves along with its phala (fruit) — but Madhusūdana says it dissolves 'at the root' via tattvadraśana (vision of truth). Are these the same mechanism named differently, or genuinely distinct soteriological paths?

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03Rāmānuja converts action into a 'form of knowledge' (jñānākāra) when performed with ātma-svarūpa-anusandhāna (continuous attention to the ātman's true nature). Does this dissolve the sharp karma/jñāna boundary that Advaita maintains?
04Madhva's qualifier 'parameśvara-jñānin' makes the agent's metaphysical knowledge of Hari's independence (svatantra) the load-bearing condition. Is this compatible with the Advaita reading, or does it smuggle in an irreducible ontological difference?
05Śrīdhara's dual lens — inner dissolution of vāsanā (latent impressions), outer loka-saṃgraha — suggests that the same outward act can carry different soteriological weights depending on which interior register is active. How do we test or verify the interior register?
06Vallabha's 'akarmabhāvam āpadyate' (attaining the state of non-action) and Śaṅkara's 'vinaśyati' (it perishes) both point to dissolution, but Vallabha implies a positive arrival-state while Śaṅkara implies simple annihilation. Which dissolves the problem of karma more completely?
07If Madhusūdana's causal chain is correct — gnosis causes absence of superimposition, which causes detachment — then effort to detach before gnosis is achieved is putting the cart before the horse. What, then, is the practitioner supposed to do first?

Vyavahāra · try it in your life

Advaita

Before any significant work today, pause and ask: 'Who expects the result?' If you catch a subtle expectation — of praise, of outcome, of self-vindication — name it aloud and proceed anyway, dedicating the act to the task itself rather than to a self that will be fed by the outcome. The Śaṅkara reading says the soil that grows binding karma is ownership of the result; withdrawing that ownership, even provisionally, thins the root.

Viśiṣṭādvaita

Before entering a meeting, a difficult conversation, or a creative session, take sixty seconds to consciously re-anchor in the awareness of the ātman as distinct from the role you are about to play. Rāmānuja's reading says that when 'ātma-svarūpa-anusandhāna' (continuous attention to the ātman's nature) underlies the act, the act becomes a form of knowledge rather than a generator of fresh bondage. This is a discipline of remembrance, not withdrawal.

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Dvaita

When a project outcome disappoints, Madhva's reading offers a precise corrective: check whether you had silently appointed yourself as the independent cause of the success. The jīva's nature (per Dvaita) is pāratantra — essentially dependent. Recognizing this is not humiliation but accurate ontology. Re-dedicate the act to Hari as the only independent agent; the residue of self-congratulation or self-blame — which is what binding karma actually is — no longer has ground to stand on.

Śuddhādvaita

Vallabha's reading implies that aesthetic delight in work — cooking a meal, making music, caring for a child — can itself be the yajna when the act is offered as Kṛṣṇa's own līlā (play) manifesting through you. The application is not grim duty but joyful surrender: do the work with full craft and skill, then release it as an offering that returns to its source. The residue of 'I made this' is what dissolves.

Bhakti

Śrīdhara's loka-saṃgraha limb applies directly to any role involving institutional responsibility — teacher, parent, manager. Perform the structural act (curriculum, household, team meeting) not for personal legacy but for the preservation of the order itself. The vāsanā-dissolving limb applies in private: notice when you avoid an act because it won't be seen or rewarded. That avoidance is a vāsanā (latent impression); performing the unseen act cleanly erases it.

Advaita-Bhakti

Madhusūdana's causal chain — gnosis → absence of superimposition → detachment — suggests that the fastest route to genuine non-attachment is not willpower but direct investigation: spend five minutes each day inquiring 'who is the one doing this?' not as a rhetorical move but as an honest phenomenological question. When the superimposition (kartṛtva-adhyāsa) is seen clearly even once, detachment follows naturally rather than being forced. Act from that seeing, and the Gītā's dissolution is already in motion.

Adhiṣṭhāna · substrate signature

substratev2.6-frozen

parserByT5-Sanskrit-multitask (Nehrdich/Hellwig/Keutzer EMNLP 2024)

mūlaBelvalkar critical edition (BORI 1947), via Ambuda multi-witness

show all metadata

weightsa=1 · b=0.01 · e_v=0.005 · z=0.2 · h=0 · th=0.01

anchorfit on Ramsukhdas's Sādhak Sañjīvanī (1980), frozen across the eight-commentator panel; cross-validated R@4 = 71.6% on Śaṅkara

extracted2026-04-21

methodPaper 1, Section II.B

↓ view raw per-verse object (JSON)↗ per-verse-object schema ↗ substrate code (MIT) + data (CC-BY 4.0)

The schema generalizes to any bounded-polysemy corpus with discrete primary text units, attested witness traditions, identifiable schools, and formal substrate. Port the per-verse object; refit weights on a domain-appropriate Layer-3 anchor; ship.

Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 4, Verse 23: Krishna to Arjuna — Jñāna-Karma-Sannyāsa-Yoga