Skip to content

Bhagavad Gita 18.15

शरीरवाङ्मनोभिर्यत्कर्म प्रारभते नरः।न्याय्यं वा विपरीतं वा पञ्चैते तस्य हेतवः॥

śarīravāṅmanobhiryatkarma prārabhate naraḥ |nyāyyaṃ vā viparītaṃ vā pañcaite tasya hetavaḥ ||

Whatever action a person performs with their body, speech, and mind, whether right or wrong, these five are its causes.

Translation by Swami Sivananda · Public domain in India (translator d. 1963)

Whatever action a person performs, whether by muscular effort, speech, or thought, and whether it be right or wrong, these five are the essential causes.

Translation by Shri Purohit Swami · Public domain in India (translator d. 1941)

Our plain-language meaning of this verse is waiting for scholar review.

Edition: Common 700-verse recension. Arjuna's opening question in chapter 13, absent from that recension, is kept as 13.0.

Transliteration in IAST, generated from the Devanagari text.

Source: Sanskrit text via gita/gita (Unlicense), from the Gita Supersite, IIT Kanpur. Sanskrit text public domain.