Skip to content

Bhagavad Gita 18.26

मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः।सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते॥

muktasaṅgo'nahaṃvādī dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ |siddhyasiddhyornirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate ||

An agent who is free from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with firmness and enthusiasm, and unaffected by success or failure, is considered to be of a Sattvic (pure) nature.

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

But when a person has no sentiment or ego, when they possess courage and confidence, not caring whether they succeed or fail, then their action arises from purity.

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.