Karmanyevadhikaraste: the meaning of Bhagavad Gita 2.47, word by word

12 June 2026 · Niyam

Few lines from the Bhagavad Gita are quoted as often as this one. Karmanyevadhikaraste — "your right is to the work alone" — is invoked in classrooms, in offices, and on the eve of every exam and interview in India. It is short, it is memorable, and it is easy to half-remember and slightly mistranslate. This is a plain guide to what the verse actually says, where it sits in the Gita, and why it has so much to offer anyone trying to do good work without being wrecked by the outcome.

The verse appears in the second chapter, where Krishna is steadying Arjuna on the battlefield. Arjuna is paralysed — not by fear, but by anxiety over consequences. The teaching of this verse is the first practical instruction Krishna gives him: a way to act fully while letting go of the grip of results.

The verse

This is Bhagavad Gita 2.47, one of the most cited verses in the whole text. It is built in two balanced halves, and reading it as a pair of warnings makes its logic clear: the first half tells you where your right lies, and the second half closes off the two ways people go wrong with it.

What it means

Rendered faithfully into plain English: Your right is to the work itself, never to its fruits. Don't let the results be your motive — but don't fall into inaction either. Do what is yours to do, and release the outcome.

The verse is precise, and it is easy to flatten into something it does not say. It is not "don't care about results," and it is certainly not "don't bother." It says something more careful: you have a claim on your effort, which is fully within your hands, and no claim on the harvest, which is not. The outcome depends on countless conditions beyond you — timing, others, luck — so to stake your motive on it is to hand your peace of mind to things you do not control.

This is the teaching the tradition calls nishkama karma — action without craving for its fruit. The crucial move is in the second line, which guards both flanks at once. Ma karmaphalahetur bhuh — "do not become one whose motive is the fruit of action." Ma te sangostvakarmani — "but let there be no attachment in you to inaction either." Krishna anticipates the obvious misreading. If results are not the point, why act at all? Because withdrawing is itself a trap. The instruction is not to stop working; it is to keep working while loosening the grip on what the work will yield.

Word by word

• karmani — in action, in the work itself.
• eva — only, indeed (an emphatic — "in the work alone").
• adhikaraste — adhikāra + te: your right, your entitlement.
• ma — not, never (a prohibition).
• phaleshu — in the fruits, in the results.
• kadachana — at any time, ever.
• ma karmaphalahetuh bhuh — do not become one whose motive (hetu) is the fruit of action (karma-phala).
• ma — let there not (be).
• te — your, for you.
• sangah — attachment, clinging.
• astu — let there be.
• akarmani — in inaction, in not doing.

Read in sequence: In action alone is your right, never in the fruits. Do not let the fruit of action be your motive; and let there be no attachment in you to inaction. The grammar does the work — two prohibitions, one against grasping at results, one against retreating from the task.

Why this verse anchors focus

Set aside the metaphysics for a moment and the verse reads like a remarkably modern piece of advice about attention. Most of what scatters the mind during work is not the work itself — it is the running commentary about how it will turn out. Will this be good enough? What will they think? What if it fails? That commentary is exactly the grasping at fruits the verse warns against, and it pulls attention off the only thing actually in front of you: the next action.

Bringing the mind back to the work alone — this sentence, this rep, this problem — is the same basic move every attention practice trains. The Gita arrived at it as a spiritual teaching; it happens also to be sound psychology. When the outcome stops being the motive, the task gets the whole of your attention, and the work usually gets better as a result. That is why this verse, of all the Gita's verses, sits so naturally at the start of any session of focused effort.

It also offers a quiet protection against the anxiety that breaks concentration. If your peace is staked on results you cannot control, every uncertain task becomes a threat. If your peace is staked on the quality of your effort, which you can control, the same task becomes simply something to do well. The verse does not promise the results will come — only that they were never yours to clutch in the first place.

This is also why the verse rewards repetition. A single reading clarifies the idea; returning to it before each stretch of work is what turns the idea into a habit of mind. The grip on outcomes is reflexive — it returns the moment a task gets hard or the stakes rise — so the loosening of that grip has to be practised, not merely understood. Recited at the threshold of focused work, the verse becomes a small, regular reminder of where your attention actually belongs: not on the harvest, but on the next thing your hands can do.

For a verse from the devotional tradition, read our piece on the Hanuman Chalisa opening — its doha and first chaupais explained. And if the idea of a verse before your feed interests you, read the companion piece on digital sadhana — what happens when a mantra stands between you and your feed.

Source: Bhagavad Gita 2.47. Text and meaning per the Niyam mantra library.