Chapter 17 · Verse 11·Spoken by Krishna
अफलाकाङ्क्षिभिर्यज्ञो विधिदृष्टो य इज्यते।यष्टव्यमेवेति मनः समाधाय स सात्त्विकः
aphalākāṅkṣhibhir yajño vidhi-driṣhṭo ya ijyate yaṣhṭavyam eveti manaḥ samādhāya sa sāttvikaḥ
The sacrifice offered as scripture prescribes, by those who seek no fruits, with the settled conviction that it simply ought to be done, is sattvic.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse defines the first and highest of three kinds of yajna (sacrifice, the ritual offering laid down in scripture). Krishna says a sacrifice is sattvic (of the quality of clarity and purity, the highest of the three gunas or strands of nature) when it meets two conditions together: it is performed exactly as scripture prescribes, and it is performed by people who seek no fruit or reward from it. Several commentators stress that both marks must stand together: conformity to the rule alone is not enough, and desirelessness alone is not enough; either one without the other fails to make the act sattvic.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar
The verse anticipates an obvious question: if the doer wants no fruit, what motivates the sacrifice at all? Krishna's answer is the phrase 'yashtavyam eva', meaning 'it is simply to be performed.' The act is done because it is to be done, as a duty owed, not as a means to any further gain. The doer settles the mind (manah samadhaya) in this single conviction: carrying out the very form of the rite is the whole of the task, and no personal end of mine is to be reached through it. Performing the duty for its own sake is precisely what replaces the missing motive of reward.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
The mind in this sacrifice is steadied and made one-pointed. 'Manah samadhaya' is read as gathering the mind, holding it firmly with conviction, fixed on the rite alone and on nothing it might yield. The doer does not let the attention drift toward what the sacrifice might bring in this world or the next; the resolve is settled and unmoving, that the sacrifice is a duty and is to be done without fail.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
Many commentators explain why this desireless, duty-bound sacrifice is purifying. Because the doer wants nothing for himself, his ego does not fasten onto the act; fruit-desire alone is what binds the doer to his work, and where that desire is absent the bond does not form. Such selfless action cleanses the inner organ (antahkarana, the mind and its faculties), and that purity prepares the seeker to receive knowledge of the Self. On this reading the sattvic sacrifice is not an end in itself but an aid on the way to liberating knowledge.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
This reading sets the verse inside the technical distinction between two classes of scriptural rite. Some sacrifices are 'desire-prompted' (kamya), undertaken for a fixed result, and these must be carried out by the full primary procedure with all their limbs assembled. Others are 'obligatory' (nitya), prompted not by any wished-for result but simply by the occasion of being alive; these must be done even when the full procedure is impossible, by taking up a permitted substitute, so that the fault of omission is avoided. The sattvic sacrifice of this verse is identified with this obligatory class, performed by those who crave no fruit but long for purity of the inner organ; it is undertaken precisely for that purification, which readies the mind for Self-knowledge.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This school reads 'it is simply to be offered' as meaning the sacrifice is to be offered as the worship of the Blessed One, with itself for its purpose. The rite is performed completely as scripture sees it, joined with its mantra, its substance, and its prescribed actions, but its inner stance is that it is divine worship done because it is owed, not for some further gain. The sacrifice thus has its own performance, as service to the Lord, for its whole aim.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
On this reading the phrase 'free of fruit-desire' does not mean desireless in any general sense; it means free of every fruit except one. The single fruit the doer longs for is the Lord's own grace (bhagavat-prasada), and 'vidhi-drishta' is not a bare procedural rule but the fact that the rite is ordained by the Lord himself. The sattvic sacrifice is therefore the one the devotee performs because the Lord has asked it of him, hoping for nothing other than the Lord himself.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
This Gaudiya reading hears a personal address in the scriptural injunction: the offering is enjoined by the Veda 'toward Me', that is, directed to the Lord. So this offering alone is to be done, with the mind composed and made one-pointed in the conviction that no fruit is to be won by it; the act is owed to the Lord and is performed for that reason.
Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
These modern voices widen the meaning of yajna beyond the ceremonial fire-rite. Sivananda takes yajna in a broad sense: any unselfish action done without attachment, without egoism, and without expectation of reward, offered to the Lord, is itself a sacrifice. Ramsukhdas grounds the duty in one's station: because I have received a human body and the standing to act, performing the duty that has come to me in my place in life, according to scripture, is my whole task, and the words 'eva' and 'iti' rule out every thought of what I might gain here or hereafter. He further notes that the sattva-guna at the head of this section, when employed with God-attainment as its aim, breaks the doer's bond with the world and itself becomes pure and beyond the gunas, since the seeker reaches the Supreme only on rising above even sattva.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If I am told to want no reward at all, what is left to make me actually perform the sacrifice, and is wanting nothing even psychologically possible?
The commentators face this question directly. The motive that replaces reward is the sense that the act is simply to be done. 'Yashtavyam eva' means the sacrifice is owed and is performed because it is owed, as a duty in its own right; the steadied conviction 'this is to be done without fail' is itself enough to set the work in motion, with no thought of gain needed.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Vedānta Deśika
The duty is not arbitrary; it is grounded in your situation. Because you have been given a human life and the standing to act, the work that belongs to your place in life is yours to discharge, and that alone is the task; the words 'eva' and 'iti' deliberately shut out any rising thought of advantage here or hereafter.
Swami Ramsukhdas
And the point of dropping reward is not bleakage of all desire but freedom and purity. Fruit-desire is exactly what binds the doer to the deed, so releasing it loosens the bond; the resulting selfless action purifies the mind and readies it for knowledge of the Self. For the devotional readings the longing is not killed but redirected: the one fruit still sought is the Lord's grace, the rite being done because the Lord has asked it.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama
Contemplation
Notice where the binding force in any action really lies. It is not the work itself that ties you down but the wanting of its fruit; fruit-desire alone fastens the doer to the deed. So when you take up any duty that has genuinely come to you, try shifting the whole weight of your attention from what it might yield to the simple fact that it is yours to do. Hold the mind steady in one conviction: this is to be done because it is to be done, and nothing is to be gained here for me. Let go of your hold on the materials, the place, the timing, the outcome; keep only the duty. Done this way, even ordinary work stops adding to your ego and begins to dissolve it, because there is no private gain left for the self to clutch. This is how a simple act becomes a means of inner cleansing and freedom rather than another knot.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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