BG 18.2

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: The giving up of activities that are based on material desire is what great learned men call the renounced order of life [sannyāsa]. And giving up the results of all activities is what the wise call renunciation [tyāga].

18.2. The Bhagavat said The seers understand the act of renouncing the desire-motivated actions as renunciation; the experts declare the relinishment of the fruits of all actions to be relinishment.

18.2 Lord Shri Krishna replied: The sages say that renunciation means forgoing an action which springs from desire; and relinquishing means the surrender of its fruit.

18.2 Kamyanam etc. The desire-motivated actions : the Agnistoma (sacrifce) etc. All actions etc. : The relinishment is the relinishment of fruits, even while performing all actions tha are to be performed daily or occasionally. Whatever remains to be spoken in this chapter had been examined in detail even by the previous commentators like the revered Bhatta Bhaskara and others. Hence why should we take the trouble of repeating. For, our main concern is to fulfil the promise to show only the hidden purport of this [work]. Therefore now [the Bhagavat] relates different views in order to determine the best in this regard -

18.2 The Lord said Some scholars understand that Sannyasa is complete relinishment of desire-prompted acts. Some other wise men say that the meaning of the term Tyaga, according to the Sastras dealing with release, is relinishment of the fruits not only of all desiderative (Kamya), but also of obligatory and occasional, duties . Here, the problem is, whether the Tyaga taught in the Sastras concern desiderative acts themselves, or fruits of all acts. Sri Krsna has used the terms Sannyasa in one place and Tyaga elsewhere. From this it is understood that Sri Krsna uses the terms Tyaga and Sannyasa as synonyms. Likewise, the decisive teaching is about Tyaga alone in the statement: 'Hear My decision, O Arjuna, about Tyaga' (18.4). That the terms are synonymously used to denote the same sense, is conclusively established from such passages as: 'But the renunciation (Sannyasa) of obligatory work is not proper. Abandonment (Tyaga) of it through delusion is declared to be Tamasika' (18.7); and 'To those who have not renounced the fruits of actions, threefold are the conseences after death - undesirable, desriable and mixed. But to those who have renounced, none whatsoever' (18.12).

18.2 Some kavayah, learned ones; viduh, know; sannyasam, sannyasa, the meaning of the word sannyasa, the non-performance of what comes as a duty; to be the nyasam, giving up; karmanam, of actions; kamyanam, done with a desire for reward, e.g. Horse-sacrifice etc. Sarva-karma-phala-tyagah, abandonment of the results of all actions, means the giving up of the results accruing to oneself from all actions- the daily obligatory and the occasional (nitya and naimittika) that are performed. Vicaksanah, the adepts, the learned ones; prahuh, call, speak of that; as tyagam, tyaga, as the meaning of the word tyaga. Even if 'the giving up of actions for desired results' or 'the abandonment of results' be the intended meaning, in either case the one meaning of the words sannyasa and tyaga amounts only to tyaga (giving up); they do not imply distinct categories as do the words 'pot' and 'cloth'. Objection: Well, is it not that they say the daily obligatory (nitya) and the occasional (naimittika) rites and duties have no results at all? How is the giving up of their results spoken of-like the abandoning of a son of a barren woman?! Reply: This defect does not desire. It is the intention of the Lord that the nitya-karmas (daily obligatory duties) also have results; for the Lord will say, 'The threefold results of actions-the undesirable, the desirable and the mixed-accrue after death to those who do not resort to tyaga', and also, 'but never to those who resort to sannyasa (monks)' (12). Indeed, by showing that, it is only in the case of sannyasins (monks) alone that there is no connection with the results of actions, the Lord asserts in, '৷৷.accrue after death to those who do not resort to tyaga (renunciation)' (abid.), that the result of daily obligatory (nitya) duties accrue to those who are not sannyasins (monks).

18.2 The Lord said The sages hold that Sannyasa is the giving up of all works which are motivated by desire. The wise declare Tyaga to be the abandonment of fruits of all works.

18.2 The Blessed Lord said The learned ones know sannyasa to be the giving up of actions done with a desire for reward. The adepts call the abandonment of the results of all works as tyaga.