Hear my settled judgment, best of the Bharatas, on this matter of relinquishment, where these alternative views about relinquishment and renunciation have been set out. With the thought that what is meant by the words 'relinquishment' and 'renunciation' is one and the same thing, the Lord says: relinquishment is well declared in the scriptures to be of three kinds, by the modes of tamas and the rest. Since the thing meant by the words 'relinquishment' and 'renunciation', when it belongs to one qualified for action and ignorant of the self, can be of three kinds by the difference of tamas and the others, but not so for the seer of the highest truth, this matter is hard to know; and so on this point no one else is competent to state the truth. Therefore hear from Me the divine and settled judgment, the conclusion that bears on the highest meaning of scripture.

There, where disputants are at odds about relinquishment, hear from Me the settled judgment about relinquishment. In the Vedic actions, while they are being done, relinquishment was already declared by Me before to be of three kinds, by way of the fruit, by way of the action, and by way of agency: 'casting all actions upon Me, with a mind turned to the self, become free of longing and free of the sense of mine, and, with your fever gone, fight'. The thought 'the fruit, heaven and the rest, born of the action, is not to be mine' is the relinquishment of fruit. The giving up of the sense of mine toward the action, with the thought 'this action of mine is the means of a fruit of mine', is the relinquishment that bears on action. The giving up of one's own agency, by the dwelling on agency as resting in the Lord of all, is the relinquishment that bears on agency.

And Krishna states the manner of it, with 'the settled judgment' and so on. The kinds of sacrifice were stated in 'the sacrificers by substance' (4.28) and the rest, and within giving, the giving of fearlessness is included. The sense is that, among these, some sacrifice and the like must necessarily be done. Otherwise there would be a conflict with the Vyasa-smrti, 'whether a celibate student, a householder, a forest-dweller, or a renunciate, if one wishes to take one's stand on release, let one resort to the highest order'. For those orders consist of the sacrifice of knowledge, learning, the giving of fearlessness, celibacy, austerity and the rest. Hence, whatever word seems to mean otherwise is to be construed by a difference of qualification; otherwise the rest would have no course at all.