Sanskrit
न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभुः । न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते ॥
na kartṛtvaṃ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ na karmaphalasaṃyogaṃ svabhāvas tu pravartate
Translation
The Lord of the world produceth not the idea of agency, nor actions, nor the union together of action and its fruit; nature, however, manifesteth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Prabhu here names the indwelling Lord, the Self within each being, and the claim is a clean metaphysical severing: it manufactures neither the sense of agency, nor the actions themselves, nor the linkage between action and fruit — svabhāva, one’s own inherent nature, does all of that work. This is the philosophical spine underneath every “you are not the doer” statement in the chapter, not a comforting metaphor but a specific claim about causality that assigns doership entirely to nature’s machinery and leaves the Self as witness. It sets up the harder question of the next verse: if the Self doesn’t act, why does it seem implicated in either sin or merit at all.