Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa
यस्य सर्वे समारम्भाः कामसङ्कल्पवर्जिताः ।
ज्ञानाग्निदग्धकर्माणं तमाहुः पण्डितं बुधाः ॥१९॥
yasya sarve samārambhāḥ
kāma-saṅkalpa-varjitāḥ
jñānāgni-dagdha-karmāṇaṁ
tam āhuḥ paṇḍitaṁ budhāḥ
Word for word (synonyms)
- yasya
- one whose
- sarve
- all sorts of
- samārambhāḥ
- in all attempts
- kāma
- desire for sense gratification
- saṅkalpa
- determination
- varjitāḥ
- are devoid of
- jñāna
- of perfect knowledge
- āgni
- fire
- dagdha
- being burnt by
- karmāṇam
- the performer
- tam
- him
- āhuḥ
- declare
- paṇḍitam
- learned
- budhāḥ
- those who know
Translation
One is understood to be in full knowledge whose every act is devoid of desire for sense gratification. He is said by sages to be a worker whose fruitive action is burned up by the fire of perfect knowledge.
Defined in the Gītā
Knowledge
What is knowledge?
Humility, pridelessness, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, approaching a bona fide spiritual master, cleanliness, steadiness and self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification, absence of false ego, the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; nonattachment to children, wife, home and the rest, and evenmindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me, resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self-realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth—all these I thus declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to these is ignorance.
Purport
Only a person in full knowledge can understand the activities of a person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Because the person in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is devoid of all kinds of sense-gratificatory propensities, it is to be understood that he has burned up the reactions of his work by perfect knowledge of his constitutional position as the eternal servitor of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is actually learned who has attained to such perfection of knowledge. Development of this knowledge of the eternal servitorship of the Lord is compared to fire. Such a fire, once kindled, can burn up all kinds of reactions to work.
What this verse teaches
Seeing inaction in action — Symptoms of detached worker
Śrīla Prabhupāda lectures 5
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.14–19 1966-08-01 · New York
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.19 1966-08-03 · New York
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.19–22 1966-08-05 · New York
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.19–25 1969-01-09 · Los Angeles
- Bhagavad-gītā 4.19 1974-04-08
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.