Sanskrit
प्रकृतेः क्रियमाणानि गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः । अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते ॥
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ ahaṅkāravimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate
Translation
All actions are wrought by the qualities of nature only. The self, deluded by egoism, thinketh: "I am the doer."
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chapter returns to verse 5’s guna argument and sharpens it into a claim about the illusion of agency itself: it’s specifically ahamkara, ego, that manufactures the sense “I am the doer” over what is actually the gunas acting. This is a doctrine of non-doership the Gita keeps returning to, most fully in 13.29 and 14.19-20, rather than resolving here — verse 28 gives the corrective view, not a refutation of the mechanism.