Chapter 18 · Verse 5·Spoken by Krishna
यज्ञदानतपःकर्म न त्याज्यं कार्यमेव तत्।यज्ञो दानं तपश्चैव पावनानि मनीषिणाम्
yajña-dāna-tapaḥ-karma na tyājyaṁ kāryam eva tat yajño dānaṁ tapaśh chaiva pāvanāni manīṣhiṇām
Acts of sacrifice, charity, and austerity should not be given up. They should be performed. Sacrifice, charity, and austerity purify the wise.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rishna now gives his own settled verdict in the dispute over what kind of action a seeker should renounce. The three acts named are yajna (sacrifice, the offering of ritual worship), dana (giving, the surrender of one's own substance or wealth), and tapas (austerity, disciplined hardship undertaken as religious practice). These, he says, are 'na tyajyam', not to be given up; rather they are 'karyam eva', to be done, and the word 'eva' makes the command emphatic. The point is that these particular actions stand outside the category of things a renunciant may drop. Several commentators note the double phrasing, the negative ('not to be abandoned') paired with the positive ('it must be done'), and read the repetition as deliberate stress: Krishna is settling a debated point, so he both forbids dropping these acts and positively enjoins them.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The reason given is that these three acts are 'pavanani', purifiers. They cleanse the inner instrument, the citta or antahkarana (the mind and the seat of thought and feeling). Several commentators describe this purification concretely. It is the washing-off of the taint of past wrong action that obstructs the rising of knowledge, and the building-up of the inner fitness in which knowledge can arise. So sacrifice, giving, and austerity are not ends in themselves; they prepare the ground. The clean mind they produce is the very ground on which discrimination and self-knowledge can later stand. This is why these acts must continue: dropping them would be dropping one's own means of purification.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The purifying power belongs to these acts when they are done by the 'manishinah', the thoughtful or discerning, and crucially when they are done without craving the fruit. The verse itself names the thinkers as those for whom these acts purify, and most commentators tie the purification directly to the absence of any aim at reward. Several stress that the acts are to be performed in the light of self-knowledge, by those who know their own inner nature, and free of any longing for some other result. The emphatic 'eva' is read as ruling out exactly such craving: the act is to be done, and done without grasping after its fruit.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
When done in this way, action loses its power to bind. Several commentators draw out that the very acts the disputants had called 'tainted' turn out to be the means of freedom. Action skilfully performed, without craving, sweeps out the lower tendencies and frees rather than fetters. This sets up the well-known turn that the action itself becomes the means of rescue from the bondage of action, which Krishna says he will now explain. The point is striking: the same karma the world treats as mere religious adornment is, rightly done, the inner instrument of release.
Vallabhācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as describing preparation for the knowledge that liberates. Sacrifice, giving, and austerity purify the mind by washing off the sin-taint that obstructs knowledge and laying in the merit-quality that makes the mind fit for knowledge to arise. The purification is described as belonging to the act through the purity of the one who is qualified, the desireless and sincere person who longs for purity of the inner organ. One notes the double assertion is repeated 'for an excess of regard', or alternatively because the act is scripturally enjoined as a duty and so cannot be dropped at all. The purifying applies to one qualified for action who still seeks inner purity; the goal beyond is knowledge and thence liberation.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Viśiṣṭādvaita
These commentators read the action as Vedic action bound up with caste and stage of life (varna and ashrama), and they extend it explicitly to 'sacrifice, giving, austerity, and the rest', not just the three named. They make the duty lifelong: it is never to be relinquished by the seeker of liberation but to be done day by day, until departure, until the very end of life. One reads 'pondering' (the manishinah) as worship itself, so these acts destroy the earlier karma that obstructs the ongoing worship the seeker carries on as long as he lives. One also notes the chapter here sides with the school that holds these acts mandatory, on this practical matter.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators hold that the Lord here accepts in part the Mimamsaka (ritualist) position. One reads the three acts as forms or feet of bhagavad-dharma, the Lord's own dharma, grounded in scripture: by the sruti 'sacrifice is verily Visnu', the very act of sacrifice has the form of the Lord; giving is surrendering one's substance with a deity in view; austerity is the keeping of one's own dharma. These are not to be given up even by one who seeks release, but done daily to the last breath, simply because the Veda enjoins them and no part of the Veda may be abandoned. The acts the thinkers had called 'tainted' are in fact bringers of good to the wise, so the supposed taint is set aside; one cites Yudhisthira accepting Krishna's word and acting on it, the work itself being a purifier. The other notes the three kinds will be analysed later, and stresses that performed in the light of self-knowledge by the wise who know their inner form, these acts cleanse the citta and so must be done.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators dwell on the purification as the practical ground of the spiritual path. One states plainly that sacrifice, gift, and austerity make the inner instrument clean, and this cleanness is the very ground on which discrimination later stands. The other unfolds the point through a chain of images: one should not stop these acts any more than a wayfarer stops taking steps before reaching his destination, or a rower deserts his boat before the bank, or a light is put out before the thing sought is found. As acid coatings burn the alloy from gold and leave it pure, so action done with firm faith sweeps out the lower qualities of rajas and tamas and brings the temple of pure sattva into view. Holy waters wash external filth; right action brightens the interior, so right action is itself the pure holy water, and activity itself rescues the seeker from the very fetters of action.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
These commentators present the verse as a clear practical teaching. One states the acts purify the hearts of those who have no desire for rewards, are obligatory and ought to be performed, and that action skilfully performed loses its power to bind and frees the soul from bondage. One renders 'pavana' simply as mind-purifiers, for even the wise. One gives a precise inner account: these three cleanse the antahkarana of mamata (mine-ness), asakti (attachment), and the sense of doership, because yajna offers up the act, dana offers up the object, and tapas offers up the body to the will of the Lord, each removing one grip that prakriti has on the seeker. On this last reading, the verse confirms that the fourth philosophical school was right at least in this much, that these acts are not to be set aside, and the seeker who drops them in the name of advancement has dropped his own means of purity; this is offered as a non-sectarian devotional teaching rather than a school doctrine.
Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If sacrifice, charity, and austerity are themselves a kind of action, how can keeping them up be the path to freedom from the bondage of action?
The answer turns on how the act is done. These three are called purifiers, pavanani, precisely for those who do not crave the fruit. It is craving the reward, not the act itself, that binds. Action done without grasping after its result purifies the mind instead of fettering it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Rāmānujācārya
What these acts actually do is clean the inner instrument. They wash off the taint of past wrong action that obstructs knowledge and build up the fitness in which knowledge can arise. The clean mind they leave behind is the ground on which discrimination and self-knowledge later stand, so far from binding you, they prepare the very freedom you are seeking.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
So the same action that fetters when done with craving becomes the means of rescue when done skilfully and without desire. Action performed this way loses its power to bind and frees the soul, which is exactly why Krishna says he will go on to explain how action removes the fetters of action itself.
Swami Sivananda · Vallabhācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar
Contemplation
Look honestly at what these three acts ask of you, because each one loosens a different grip that the world has on you. In yajna, sacrifice, you offer up the act itself, so you stop clutching the sense that you are the doer. In dana, giving, you offer up the object, your own substance, so you loosen mine-ness, the feeling that things are yours. In tapas, austerity, you offer up the body to the will of the Lord, so you loosen attachment. So do not be quick to set these aside in the name of being advanced. The very acts the world treats as mere religious adornment are, rightly understood, your inner instruments of cleansing. To drop them as beneath you is to drop your own purifier.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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