Sanskrit
काम्यानां कर्मणां न्यासं संन्यासं कवयो विदुः । सर्वकर्मफलत्यागं प्राहुस्त्यागं विचक्षणाः ॥ २ ॥
kāmyānāṃ karmaṇāṃ nyāsaṃ saṃnyāsaṃ kavayo viduḥ sarvakarmaphalatyāgaṃ prāhus tyāgaṃ vicakṣaṇāḥ
Translation
The Blessed Lord said: Sages have known as renunciation the renouncing of works with desire; the relinquishing of the fruit of all actions is called relinquishment by the wise.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Krishna’s answer is deceptively simple and sets up everything that follows: sannyasa is giving up desire-driven action itself (kamya karma), while tyaga is giving up only the fruit of action, not the action. This quietly resolves the tension chapters 3 and 5 left dangling between “renounce action” and “act without attachment” — they were never actually the same instruction, and tyaga, not sannyasa, is what Krishna has been recommending as karma-yoga all along. He doesn’t call sannyasa wrong, only narrower than tyaga, a hierarchy that becomes explicit once the threefold guna analysis starts in verse 7.