The passage from 'but seeing the army of the Pāṇḍavas' (Gītā 1.2) down to 'having said to Govinda I will not fight, he fell silent' (Gītā 2.9) should be read as showing the cause from which the faults arise, the faults such as sorrow and delusion that are the seed of transmigration for living beings. For Arjuna displayed in himself sorrow and delusion, brought on by the severing of an affection that rested on notions like 'I am theirs' and 'they are mine', felt toward kingdom, elders, sons, friends, well-wishers, kinsmen and relatives, when he said 'how shall I fight Bhīṣma in battle' (Gītā 2.4) and the like. With his discerning judgement overpowered by sorrow and delusion, though of himself he had set out to the war that is the kṣatriya's duty, he drew back from that war and made ready to take up another's duty, a life of begging and the like. So it is with all living beings whose minds are invaded by faults like sorrow and delusion: they naturally abandon their own duty and take to what is forbidden. And even when they do engage in their own duty, the activity of their speech, mind and body is driven by a craving for results and is shot through with the sense of 'I'. When this is so, by the heaping-up of merit and demerit transmigration goes on unbroken, marked by the gaining of desired and undesired births, pleasures and pains. So sorrow and delusion are the seed of transmigration; and their cessation comes from nothing other than the knowledge of the Self preceded by the renunciation of all action. Wishing to teach this, for the good of all the world, taking Arjuna as the occasion, the Blessed Lord Vāsudeva said 'you grieve for those who should not be grieved for' (Gītā 2.11) and the rest. Here some say that liberation is not reached from steadfastness in the knowledge of the Self preceded by the renunciation of all action taken alone; rather, the settled teaching of the whole Gītā is that liberation comes from knowledge joined with the rites of śruti and smṛti, the fire-oblation and the like. As evidence they cite 'if you will not wage this lawful war' (Gītā 2.33), 'your right is to action alone' (Gītā 2.47), 'therefore do you perform action' (Gītā 4.15) and so on. And the worry that Vedic action, since it involves violence, would lead to demerit should not be raised, they say; for the kṣatriya's action, marked by war and by the slaying of teachers, brothers and sons, cruel though it is, is his own duty and so does not lead to demerit, and by saying 'and not doing it you will lose your own duty and your fame, and incur sin' (Gītā 2.33) it is established that the rites enjoined by scripture, marked by the slaying of animals, were never demerit in the first place. This is wrong, because of the statement dividing the two steadfastnesses, which rest on two different kinds of understanding. The setting-out of the supreme reality of the Self, made by the Blessed Lord from 'you grieve for those who should not be grieved for' (Gītā 2.11) down to 'and looking to your own duty too' (Gītā 2.31), is Sāṅkhya. The understanding that arises from it, fixing the topic's sense that the Self is no doer since it is free of the six modifications such as birth, is the Sāṅkhya understanding; the knowers in whom it is fitting are the Sāṅkhyas. Yoga, by contrast, is the practice of the means to liberation, preceded by the discernment of merit from demerit and resting on the view, held before that understanding arises, that the Self is distinct from the body and is a doer and an enjoyer; the understanding whose object is that is the yoga understanding, and the doers of action in whom it is fitting are the yogins. So the Blessed Lord pointed out two distinct understandings: 'this understanding has been told to you in Sāṅkhya; now hear it in yoga' (Gītā 2.39). The steadfastness resting on the Sāṅkhya understanding, by the path of knowledge, He will state as distinct: 'told by Me of old' (Gītā 3.3); and the steadfastness resting on the yoga understanding, by the path of action, He will likewise state as distinct: 'by the yoga of action for the yogins' (Gītā 3.3). Seeing that knowledge and action cannot rest in one person at one time, since they rest on understandings of doership and non-doership, of oneness and manyness, the Blessed Lord Himself stated these two distinct steadfastnesses. The same division is shown in the Brāhmaṇa of the Śatapatha: having enjoined the renunciation of all action with 'wishing for this world alone, the brāhmaṇas go forth as wanderers' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.22), it adds 'what shall we do with offspring, we whose Self is this world' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.22). There, before the taking of a wife, the man is in his natural, unawakened state; after the wish to know dharma, all the rites of śruti and the rest are shown as belonging to one who still has ignorance and desire, where 'he desired' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 1.4.17) is said of a son, the means to the three worlds, and of wealth of two kinds, human and divine, human wealth being action, the means to the world of the ancestors, and knowledge being divine wealth, the means to the world of the gods. The going-forth, 'rising up from these they wander forth' (Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.22), is enjoined for one free of desire who wishes for the Self alone as his world. This statement of division would make no sense if the Blessed Lord intended a combination of Vedic action and knowledge. Nor would Arjuna's question, 'if knowledge is held by You to be better than action' (Gītā 3.1) and the rest, make sense. If the Blessed Lord had not earlier said that understanding and action cannot be carried out by one person, how could Arjuna have falsely attributed to Him, regarding something never heard, the superiority of knowledge over action? Further, if a combination of understanding and action had been taught for everyone, it would have been taught for Arjuna too; then how, both having been taught, could his question, 'tell me for certain the one of these two that is better' (Gītā 5.1), bear upon one alone? When a physician has prescribed to one who wishes to be cured of bile that he should eat what is sweet and cool, no question arises asking which of the two cures the bile. And if Arjuna's question be supposed to arise from his failure to grasp the distinction in the Blessed Lord's words, even so the answer should suit the question, 'I taught a combination of understanding and action; why are you confused?', and not be something other than what was asked, 'two steadfastnesses were taught by Me of old'. Nor, if the combination of knowledge with smṛti action alone were intended, would the statements of division make sense; and since the kṣatriya knows that war, a smṛti action, is his own duty, his reproach 'why then do you urge me to this terrible action' (Gītā 3.1) would make no sense. Therefore, in the scripture of the Gītā, no one can show even the slightest combination of the knowledge of the Self with action, whether of śruti or of smṛti. But for one who, through ignorance or faults like passion, has engaged in action, and whose being has been purified by sacrifice, gift or austerity, knowledge may arise whose object is the supreme reality, 'all this is one Brahman, and no doer'; and though for him action and the purpose of action have ceased, what is seen as activity in him, when he engages as before, with effort, for the holding-together of the world, is not action by which a combination with knowledge could arise. Just as the kṣatriya activity of the Blessed Lord Vāsudeva is not combined with knowledge for the gaining of a human end, so too for the knower, since the absence of any craving for the result and of the sense of 'I' is the same. The knower of the truth does not think 'I act', nor does he aim at the result. As one who has set up the sacred fires for the sake of heaven, having begun the optional fire-oblation, still performs it even if his desire is destroyed when the rite is half done, yet it is then no longer the optional rite: so the Blessed Lord shows, 'though acting, he is not stained' (Gītā 5.7) and 'he neither acts nor is stained' (Gītā 13.31). As for 'what was done by the ancients of old' (Gītā 4.15) and 'by action alone Janaka and the rest attained perfection' (Gītā 3.20), this must be understood by distinguishing cases. If the ancients, Janaka and the rest, were knowers of the truth and yet engaged in action, then they attained perfection by knowledge alone while continuing in action for the holding-together of the world, 'the qualities move among the qualities' (Gītā 3.28); even when renunciation was available to them they attained perfection while still in action. But if they were not knowers of the truth, then it must be explained that they attained perfection, that is, the purity of being or the perfection marked as the arising of knowledge, by action offered to the Lord as a means. The Blessed Lord will state this very meaning: 'they perform action for the purification of being' (Gītā 5.11); and having said 'worshipping Him by his own action, a man finds perfection' (Gītā 18.46), He will state the steadfastness in knowledge for one who has reached perfection, in 'how, having reached perfection, he reaches Brahman' (Gītā 18.50) and the rest. Therefore, the settled meaning of the Gītā is that liberation is reached from the knowledge of the truth alone, not from knowledge combined with action; and how this is so we shall show, dividing it topic by topic, here and there. Seeing no rescue for Arjuna, his mind bewildered as to dharma, possessed of false knowledge, sunk in a great ocean of sorrow, except in the knowledge of the Self, the Blessed Lord Vāsudeva, out of compassion, wishing to draw Arjuna up, led him toward the knowledge of the Self and said.
Contemporary English rendering of the Sanskrit bhāṣya, pending scholar review.