Sanskrit
प्रकृत्यैव च कर्माणि क्रियमाणानि सर्वशः । यः पश्यति तथाऽऽत्मानमकर्तारं स पश्यति ॥
prakṛtyaiva ca karmāṇi kriyamāṇāni sarvaśaḥ yaḥ paśyati tathātmānam akartāraṃ sa paśyati
Translation
He who seeth that Matter verily performeth all actions, and that the Self is actionless, he seeth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The refrain’s third and most consequential instance: seeing that Matter (prakriti) alone performs every action, and that the Self is actionless (akartaram). This is the chapter’s sharpest statement of the argument chapter 3 opened with (3.27-28) — that the gunas act upon the gunas, and the ego’s sense of “I am doing this” is a category error — now derived from the prakriti/purusha framework built up since verse 20 rather than simply asserted on its own.
Concepts