Arjuna’s perplexity.
No conjunction of Knowledge and Action.
Renunciation enjoined in the scriptures.
The following passages from the smriti may also be quoted:—
Mokṣa cannot be the effect of an action
Conjunction is inconsistent with Arjuna’s question.
Which is better, Knowledge or Action?
अर्जुन उवाच —
ज्यायसी चेत्कर्मणस्ते मता बुद्धिर्जनार्दन ।
तत्किं कर्मणि घोरे मां नियोजयसि केशव ॥ १ ॥
arjuna uvāca —
jyāyasī cetkarmaṇaste matā buddhirjanārdana .
tatkiṃ karmaṇi ghore māṃ niyojayasi keśava .. 1 ..
Arjuna said :
If it be thought by Thee that knowledge is superior to action, O Janārdana, why then dost Thou, O Keśava, direct me to this terrible action?
Read the commentary
If it had been meant that knowledge and action should be conjoined, then the means of salvation would be one only; and, in that case, a groundless separation of knowledge from action would have been made by Arjuna declaring knowledge to be superior to action. If the two be regarded as constituting together a single means to a single end, they cannot at the same time be regarded to be distinct as producing distinct effects.* Neither could we account for what Arjuna said—“Why then dost Thou direct me to this terrible action?”—as if meaning to censure the Lord, on finding that He—for what reason Arjuna could not see clearly—had exhorted him to follow the unwholesome course of action after declaring that knowledge was superior to action.
This may be explained with reference to the present case thus :— When knowledge and action are held to form together but one means to moksha, they cannot at the same time be supposed to become distinct as producing distinct effects. If this were possible, Arjuna’s considering of the two as distinct from each other might find some justification.
Now, if a conjunction of knowledge with the smarta-karma only were intended for all by the Lord and understood by Arjuna as so intended, how could we then justify the words of Arjuna † “why dost Thou direct me to this terrible action?”
For, then, the Lord who had taught a conjunction of knowledge and action could not have enjoined mere action on Arjuna, and so there would be no occasion for Arjuna’s complaint.