Sanskrit
संन्यासस्य महाबाहो तत्त्वमिच्छामि वेदितुम् । त्यागस्य च हृषीकेश पृथक्केशिनिषूदन ॥ १ ॥
saṃnyāsasya mahābāho tattvam icchāmi veditum tyāgasya ca hṛṣīkeśa pṛthak keśiniṣūdana
Translation
Arjuna said: I desire, O mighty-armed, to know severally the essence of renunciation, O Hrishikesha, and of relinquishment, O Keshinishudana.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Arjuna opens the final discourse by asking Krishna to distinguish two words that have been used almost interchangeably so far — sannyasa (renunciation) and tyaga (relinquishment) — signaling that the loose, poetic use of “renounce” across chapters 3 through 6 papered over a real conceptual gap he now wants closed before the teaching can end. Addressing Krishna as Hrishikesha, “lord of the senses,” while asking how to give things up is a pointed touch: the one who governs the senses is being asked how a person governs the will to act. This is also the last question Arjuna asks in the entire poem; everything from here to verse 78 answers this single request for terminological precision.