Verse 18.13

पञ्चैतानि महाबाहो कारणानि निबोध मे ।

साङ्ख्ये कृतान्ते प्रोक्तानि सिद्धये सर्वकर्मणाम् ॥

18.13

Transliteration

pañcaitāni mahābāho kāraṇāni nibodha me |

sāṅkhye kṛtānte proktāni siddhaye sarvakarmaṇām ||

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · @indic-transliteration/sanscript 1.3.3

Translation

Learn from Me, O mighty-armed Arjuna, these five causes as declared in the Sankhya system for the accomplishment of all actions.

From the owner's sheet · +1 more

Word by word

five
these
O mighty-armed one
causes
learn
from me

in the Sankhya
in the final doctrine
declared
for the accomplishment
of all actions

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · claude-opus-5-5 · 2026-11-08

Explanation

Krishna now introduces a new analysis of action itself. He asks Arjuna to learn the five causes for the accomplishment of every action, as taught in Sankhya, the school of analytical knowledge, described here as the teaching in which action comes to its end. Readers have understood this either as a particular philosophical system or more generally as the path of discriminating knowledge. The analysis that follows aims to loosen the sense that the individual alone is the doer.

By Sanskrit System · Machine draft · claude-opus-5-5 · 2026-11-08