The vocabulary · कर्म
Karma
Action, and what action leaves behind.
What does karma mean in the Bhagavad Gita?
Karma means action. In the Gita the word almost always names what a person does — the work, the deed, the thing performed — and not a ledger of reward and punishment carried between lives. Krishna’s argument is that action cannot be avoided: nobody stays still even for a moment (3.5), and without work the body could not be kept going (3.8). What can be changed is the reason for acting. Stop making the fruit your reason (2.47) and the same work stops binding you (3.9).
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · 115 verses use कर्म
In the text
कर्म
karma
115 versesfirst at 1.15
A verse is counted when its Sanskrit contains the word, compounds included. That is a checkable fact and a floor, not a total — the Gita teaches the idea in verses that never say it.
The word covers more ground than the English action does. It carries the sense of work and of the deed done, and also of rite — the offering made in the fire. Then at 8.3, in a short list of definitions, the Gita gives it a third and much larger sense: the creative act that brings beings into existence goes by the name of karma. So the widening is inside the text itself, and a reader who insists the word only ever means everyday work is being as tidy as the reader who thinks it only means fate.
The Gita does hold that actions bind. Work done for the sake of yajna does not bind, and all other work keeps this world in bondage (3.9). But notice the image, which is bondage and not a court. Nothing is being weighed and nothing is being paid back. The question the text asks is how to act so that the action does not hold you, and its answer is about the motive rather than the deed: give up leaning on the fruit, and what is left over does not attach.
Krishna then says the thing that should stop any confident summary. What action is, and what inaction is, confuses even the wise; the way action works is hard to see (4.17). The verse after praises the one who sees inaction in action and action in inaction. Whatever that means, it is not a system a reader can apply on a first pass, and the Gita’s own warning is a better guide here than a neat explanation would be.
The practical conclusion is narrow and usable. A person with a body cannot give up action completely; what can be given up is the fruit, and the one who gives that up is the real relinquisher (18.11). That is the Gita’s definition of renunciation, and it is entirely about motive rather than about the deed. Nothing in it asks a person to do less. It asks them to want less from what they do.
What it does not mean
Karma means fate — what you did in a past life deciding what happens to you in this one.
That sense exists in Indian thought, and the Gita takes rebirth for granted. But the word in this text almost always means simply action, the work in front of a person. Krishna is not explaining to Arjuna why his life is hard. He is telling a man who has to act today how to act. Where the Gita does speak of what action leaves behind, its interest is in release from the residue rather than in its accounting (2.47, 18.11).
In the Gita’s own words
The verses this rests on.
The Sanskrit and both translations are the text. The note under each verse is the Trust’s reason for pointing at it — you may disagree with the note and still trust the verse.
Bhagavad Gita 2.47Shri Bhagavan
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥Your right is to the action alone, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruit be your reason for acting, and do not be attached to inaction either.
The best-known verse in the Gita, and the whole teaching in one line: a right to the action, none to the fruit, and no refuge in doing nothing either.
Bhagavad Gita 3.5Shri Bhagavan
न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत् ।
कार्यते ह्यवशः कर्म सर्वः प्रकृतिजैर्गुणैः ॥No one can stay even for a moment without doing something. Everyone is made to act, helplessly, by the gunas that arise from their own nature.
Why the question cannot be dodged. Nobody remains without acting even for a moment; the gunas of a person’s own nature see to it.
Bhagavad Gita 3.8Shri Bhagavan
नियतं कुरु कर्म त्वं कर्म ज्यायो ह्यकर्मणः ।
शरीरयात्रापि च ते न प्रसिद्ध्येदकर्मणः ॥Do the work that is laid down for you, for action is better than inaction. Without action you could not even keep your own body going.
Action is better than inaction, and even the body cannot be maintained without it. The plainest refusal of withdrawal as an option.
Bhagavad Gita 3.9Shri Bhagavan
यज्ञार्थात्कर्मणोऽन्यत्र लोकोऽयं कर्मबन्धनः ।
तदर्थं कर्म कौन्तेय मुक्तसङ्गः समाचर ॥Work done for the sake of yajna does not bind; all other work keeps this world in bondage. So do your work for that purpose, Kaunteya, free of attachment.
Where the Gita states that action binds — and, in the same breath, the condition under which it does not.
Bhagavad Gita 4.17–18Shri Bhagavan
कर्मणो ह्यपि बोद्धव्यं बोद्धव्यं च विकर्मणः ।
अकर्मणश्च बोद्धव्यं गहना कर्मणो गतिः ॥कर्मण्यकर्म यः पश्येदकर्मणि च कर्म यः ।
स बुद्धिमान्मनुष्येषु स युक्तः कृत्स्नकर्मकृत् ॥Action has to be understood, wrong action has to be understood, and inaction has to be understood as well. The way action works is hard to see. The one who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is wise among men. He is steady in yoga, and all his work is complete.
The Gita’s own warning against a tidy theory of action. Even the wise are confused here, and the way action works is called hard to see.
Bhagavad Gita 8.3Shri Bhagavan
अक्षरं ब्रह्म परमं स्वभावोऽध्यात्ममुच्यते ।
भूतभावोद्भवकरो विसर्गः कर्मसञ्ज्ञितः ॥The imperishable is the supreme brahman. A being's own essential nature is called adhyatma. The creative act that brings beings into existence goes by the name of karma.
The widest use of the word in the text: the creative act that brings beings into existence is itself called karma.
Bhagavad Gita 18.11Shri Bhagavan
न हि देहभृता शक्यं त्यक्तुं कर्माण्यशेषतः ।
यस्तु कर्मफलत्यागी स त्यागीत्यभिधीयते ॥It is not possible for one who wears a body to give up actions entirely; but one who gives up the fruit of action is called a relinquisher.
The definition of relinquishment, and the reason karma cannot simply be escaped: the embodied cannot give up action, only its fruit.
In practice
What it looks like when someone does it.
A shopkeeper opens at the same hour whether the previous day took twelve thousand rupees or nine hundred. The work is identical on both mornings; what differs is what he is carrying while he does it. The Gita’s instruction applies exactly here. His right is to the sweeping, the stock, the accounts and the courtesy. The day’s takings are not his to command, and treating them as though they were is what makes a slow morning unbearable.
A student sits the examination she has prepared for. She cannot make the paper easy or the marking generous. She can read the question properly, and give the whole of the three hours to the paper rather than a third of it to the paper and two-thirds to what the result will mean. That division of attention is what 2.47 is about, and it is why the verse is a practical instruction rather than a consolation.
It is worth noticing what none of this licenses. Karma yoga is not a reason to be careless, since carelessness is simply worse work. And it is not a reason to accept harm done to you, because the Gita’s subject in these verses is your own action and its motive, not other people’s conduct towards you. The text says nothing here about what you should tolerate.
Words that travel with it
Common questions
About karma.
Does karma mean fate?
Not in the Gita, or only rarely. The word here means action — what a person does. Krishna uses it to tell Arjuna how to act, not to explain why his circumstances are what they are. The English habit of saying “it is my karma” about a misfortune belongs to a later and looser usage than the one this text mostly employs.
What is the difference between karma and karma yoga?
Karma is the action itself. Karma yoga is a way of doing it: fully, and without making the result the reason. The action can be identical in both cases. What changes is the motive, and the Gita’s claim is that this change is enough to keep the work from binding the one who does it (2.47, 3.9).
Can I avoid karma by not acting?
No, and the Gita blocks this exit twice. No one remains actionless even for a moment (3.5), and without action the body itself could not be maintained (3.8). Refusing to act is itself a choice with consequences. 2.47 names inaction specifically as something not to be attached to.
Does the Gita say good actions are rewarded?
It says something stranger. One joined to this understanding leaves behind both good deeds and bad, here in this life (2.50). What is held out is not a better balance in the account but release from being held by the account at all. That is a different proposition from moral book-keeping.