The five factors of action (पञ्चकारण)
BG 18.13–BG 18.15 lists five things “stated for the accomplishment of all action”: the seat (adhiṣṭhāna — the body), the agent (kartā), the instruments of various kinds (karaṇa — the senses and faculties), the many distinct efforts (ceṣṭā), and, fifth, daivam — “providence,” the divine or the residue of past action. Whatever a person undertakes “with body, speech, or mind, right or wrong, these five are its causes.”
The point of counting them
BG 18.16 delivers the verdict: “this being so, one who — because of an untrained understanding — sees only the self as the agent, that person of dull mind does not see.” The list is a corrective to Ahaṃkāra (अहंकार): authorship is distributed across a body one did not build, faculties one did not design, circumstances one did not arrange, and an outcome one does not command. BG 18.17 then states the freedom this makes possible — one “free of the notion of I-ness, whose intelligence is not stained,” is not bound by the deed “even if he kills these people.” It is chapter 3’s non-doership teaching, now itemized.
Related
- Karma (कर्म) — the five factors explain why rightly held action does not bind: the “I” was never the whole cause
- Prakṛti and Puruṣa (प्रकृति-पुरुष) — four of the five factors belong to prakṛti; the puruṣa’s contribution is witnessing, not authorship
- Ahaṃkāra (अहंकार) — the “I am the sole doer” this list dismantles
Verses that reference this
The body, the actor, the various organs, the diverse kinds of energies, and the presiding deities also, the fifth.
Whatever action a man performeth by his body, speech and mind, whether right or the reverse, these five are the cause thereof.