The seat, the body, the support on which desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, knowledge, and the rest become manifest; the doer, the experiencer marked by the limiting adjuncts; the instrument of various kinds, the twelve organs that grasp sound and the other objects; the manifold and separate functions, the movements of the vital airs, the in-breath, the out-breath, and the others; and the deity as the fifth, completing the five, the sun and the other deities that favour the eye and the rest of the organs.

In every action, right, established by scripture, or contrary, prohibited, whether of body, of speech, or of mind, these five are the causes. The seat is the body; the body, of the form of the aggregate of the great elements, presided over by the individual self, is the seat. Likewise the doer is the individual self; that this individual self has knowership and agency was established by the aphorisms 'it is a knower, just for that reason' and 'it is a doer, because scripture would otherwise be meaningless'. And the instrument of various sorts is the fivefold organ of action, speech, hands, feet, and the rest, together with the mind, of various sorts since it has separate workings in the accomplishing of action. And the manifold and separate movements: by the word 'movement' the fivefold air is meant, by a word that denotes its workings; the manifold working of the fivefold air, divided into the in-breath, the out-breath, and the rest, that upholds the body and the senses. And the deity as the fifth here: in this assemblage of causes of action the deity is the fifth; the meaning is that the supreme Self, the inner ruler, is the chief cause in the accomplishing of action; for it was said, 'I am seated in the heart of all; from Me are memory, knowledge, and their loss', and it will be said, 'the Lord, Arjuna, stands in the heart-region of all beings, whirling all beings, mounted on the machine, by His maya'. And that the individual self's agency depends on the supreme Self was established by the aphorism 'but from the supreme, since revelation declares it so'. It may be objected: thus, the individual self's agency depending on the supreme Self, the individual self becomes one not to be set to action, so the scriptures of injunction and prohibition would be without purpose. This objection too was set aside by the aphorism-maker himself: 'but in dependence on the effort made, by reason of the non-purposelessness of the enjoined and the prohibited, and the rest'. This is what is said: with the instruments, the body, and the rest given by the supreme Self and resting on Him, with their power placed in them by Him, the individual self too, itself resting on Him and with its power placed in it by Him, of its own will, for the accomplishing of action, begins the effort that has the form of presiding over the instruments and the rest; and the supreme Self, abiding within, by the giving of His consent, sets it going; so the individual self too, by its own understanding, has the being a cause of engagement. As, in the engagements that have for their fruit the moving of an exceedingly heavy stone, a tree, and the like, accomplished by many men, the manyness has both the being a cause and the being subject to injunction and prohibition.

'The seat' (adhishthana) is the body and the rest. 'The doer' is Vishnu, for it has been said that He is the doer of all, and the proof of the living being's non-agency has been given. The 'instrument' (karana) is the senses and the rest. The 'efforts' (cheshta) are the activities; by the activities of the hands and the rest, the works of offering and the like arise; and even for meditation and the rest, the effort of the mind is a cause; the prior effort too serves as a cause, by being the cause of the formative tendency. 'Fate' (daiva) is the unseen. So the Ayasya scripture says, 'the body, the one whose aim is Brahman, the senses and the rest, the activities, and then the unseen as the fifth, are the causes of action'.