Bhagavad Gita 13.21
Spoken by Krishna · Verse 21 of 34
कार्यकारणकर्तृत्वे हेतुः प्रकृतिर् उच्यते / पुरुषः सुखदुःखानां भोक्तृत्वे हेतुर् उच्यते
kārya-kāraṇa-kartṛtve hetuḥ prakṛtir ucyate / puruṣaḥ sukha-duḥkhānāṃ bhoktṛtve hetur ucyate
Prakṛti is the cause of action; puruṣa is the cause of experiencing pleasure and pain in the field.
Word by word (3)
- kārya-kāraṇa-kartṛtve hetuḥ prakṛtiḥ ucyate
- — Prakṛti is said to be the cause (hetu) in the agency (kartṛtva) of effects (kārya) and instruments/causes (kāraṇa) · Kārya = effect (the produced results: body, world, events). Kāraṇa = instruments and causes (senses, organs, the guṇa-machinery). Kartṛtva = the agency, the doership. Prakṛti is the CAUSE of all this activity — the guṇas of prakṛti are the real doers (Ch.3 V27: prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi). The ego that claims 'I am the doer' has mistaken itself for prakṛti.
- puruṣaḥ sukha-duḥkhānām bhoktṛtve hetuḥ ucyate
- — Puruṣa is said to be the cause (hetu) in the experience (bhoktṛtva = the state of being the experiencer) of pleasure (sukha) and pain (duḥkha) · Bhoktṛtva = the quality of being the bhoktā (experiencer/enjoyer). Puruṣa is the cause of EXPERIENCING pleasure and pain — not the cause of action itself. The distinction is crucial: prakṛti DOES; puruṣa EXPERIENCES. The problem of saṃsāra begins when puruṣa wrongly identifies as the doer (Ch.3 V27) AND gets entangled in the experience (Ch.13 V22 — guṇa-saṅga). Liberation = knowing puruṣa is only the witness-experiencer, never the agent.
- hetuḥ ucyate (repeated structure)
- — is said to be the cause — the declarative formula repeated for both lines, emphasising two distinct causal roles · The parallelism of 'hetuḥ ucyate' in both lines is pedagogically precise: Krishna assigns each principle its specific causal domain. Conflating the two — thinking prakṛti is the experiencer or puruṣa is the actor — is the root of ahaṃkāra's error. This verse is the philosophical basis for nirmama-niṣkāma karma: act from prakṛti's energy without claiming the experience as 'mine.'
Nature is said to be the cause in the working of effect and instrument; the Spirit is said to be the cause in the experiencing of pleasure and pain.
A modern analogy
A cinema projector (prakṛti) projects all the drama on screen — it is the cause of all the 'action.' The audience member (puruṣa) experiences pleasure and fear watching the film. The projector doesn't 'feel' anything; the audience member isn't actually doing anything. But when the audience member gets so absorbed they forget they're watching a film — they think they ARE in the story. That forgetting is saṃsāra.
What it does NOT mean
Some readers conclude from this verse: 'Since prakṛti does everything and I only experience, I can do anything.' This misses the crucial follow-up that comes right after: it is precisely guṇa-saṅga (clinging to the experience of the guṇas) that binds puruṣa to rebirth in good and evil wombs. The escape is not indulgence but non-attachment to both action AND experience.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
[SW 13.20 MISSING — project V21] [4]
[Arnold full chapter text; verse assigns Prakriti as cause of action and Purusha as cause of experiencing pleasure-pain] [7]
Nature is declared to be the cause in the production of the effect, the instrument and the agent; and the spirit is declared to be the cause in the experience of pleasures and pains. [9]
Prakriti is said to be the cause in respect of (the production of) effect and instrument. Purusha is said to be the cause in respect of the experience of pleasure and pain. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Instrument, offering, fire, act, destination — all Brahman. One absorbed in Brahman-action reaches Brahman alone.
Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as equal — then engage. No sin follows from this.
Renunciation without yoga is painful to achieve — the yoga-joined muni attains Brahman swiftly.
Regulate food, recreation, effort and sleep — and yoga becomes the destroyer of all pain.
Renouncing ordained/niyata karma is not appropriate; its abandonment through delusion is declared tāmasic.
Sāttvic sukha: poison-like at first, nectar-like at the end — born of the clarity of Self-knowing intellect.
Verse 21 of 34 · back to Chapter 13