One verse · एकः श्लोकः
One verse, all the way down
Fourteen ways into the same four lines. Nothing new is added at any step — the verse simply opens a little further. Take them in order the first time.
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ॐ
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कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana · mā karmaphalahetur bhūr mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi
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ते कर्मणि एव अधिकारः।
फलेषु कदाचन मा।
कर्मफलहेतुः मा भूः।
ते अकर्मणि सङ्गः मा अस्तु।
Prose order, one clause at a time. Nothing has been translated and nothing has been added — the words are the verse's own, stood back up in the order a Sanskrit speaker would hear them.
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Eight syllables in each of the four pādas — that is anuṣṭubh, the metre of most of the Mahābhārata. The cadence lives in syllables five, six and seven, boxed above: ⏑ – – in the first and third pāda, ⏑ – ⏑ in the second and fourth. You heard that shape long before it had a name.
A closing consonant is printed with the syllable it closes — कर्, not क — because that closing is exactly what makes the syllable heavy.
A closing consonant is printed with the syllable it closes — कर्, not क — because that closing is exactly what makes the syllable heavy.
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The break after the second pāda is where a reciter breathes. But look at the printed second line: भूर्मा — the third pāda's last word and the fourth pāda's first word have welded together in writing, because भूः met मा. The metre still counts them apart. Sound obeys sandhi; the pāda obeys the count.
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Three of this verse's words are in the root harvest, so three roots are named. सङ्गः is not, and gets silence rather than a guess.
कर्मणि एव अधिकारः ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुः भूः मा ते सङ्गः अस्तु अकर्मणि।
The verse opens on कर्मणि — in action — and closes on अकर्मणि — in inaction. Same word, negated, holding the two ends of the line. Between them the verse says मा three times and never once says what to do. It is built as a ring: the thing you are entitled to is named first, its opposite last, and everything in the middle is refused.
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कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
Say it from memory, out loud, all four pādas. Then check.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
A verse you have opened this far will still fade unless it comes back. Its first two pādas are already beads on the verse-line track of the Review Mālā — meet them there in a few days, then a few days after that.
Bhagavad-gītā 2.47 — Mahābhārata, Bhīṣmaparvan. Attested: quoted here as printed in the standard recension, with no editorial change. The four pāda recordings are the site's own.
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This is one verse. The same fourteen steps work on any of the fifty verses in the studio, the verse of the day, or a chant you are learning by heart.