uld not be abandoned. As to that abandonment,
listen to my decision, O best of the sons of Bharata, for abandonment, O
tiger among men, hath been declared to be of three kinds. The works of
sacrifice, gifts, and penance should not be abandoned. They should,
indeed, be done. Sacrifice, gift, and penance, are the purifications of
the wise. But even those works should be done, abandoning attachment and
fruit. This, O son of Pritha, is my excellent and decided opinion. The
renunciation of an act prescribed (in the scriptures) is not proper. Its
abandonment (is) from delusion, (and) is (therefore,) declared to be of
the quality of darkness.[294] (Regarding it) as (a source of) sorrow,
when work is abandoned from (fear of) bodily pain, one making such an
abandonment which is of the quality of passion never obtaineth the fruit
of abandonment. (Regarding it) as one that should be done, when[295] work
that is prescribed (in the scriptures) is done, O Arjuna, abandoning
attachment and fruit also, that abandonment is deemed to be of the
quality of goodness. Possessed of intelligence and with doubts dispelled,
an abandoner that is endowed with the quality of goodness hath no
aversion for an unpleasant action and no attachment to pleasant
(ones).[296] Since actions cannot be absolutely abandoned by an embodied
person, (therefore) he who abandons the fruit of actions is truly said to
be an abandoner. Evil, good and mixed-action hath (this) three-fold fruit
hereafter for those that do not abandon. But there is none whatever for
the renouncer.[297] Listen from me, O thou of mighty arms, to those five
causes for the completion of all actions, declared in the Sankhya
treating of the annihilation of actions.[298] (They are) substratum,
agent, the diverse kinds of organs, the diverse efforts severally, and
with them the deities as the fifth.[299] With body, speech, or mind,
whatever work, just or the reverse, a man undertakes, these five are its
causes. That being so, he that, owing to an unrefined understanding,
beholdeth his own self as solely the agent, he, dull in mind, beholdeth
not. He that hath no feeling of egoism, whose mind is not sullied, he,
even killing all these people, killeth not, nor is fettered (by
action).[300]--Knowledge, the object of knowledge, and the knower, form
the three-fold impulse of action. Instrument, action, and the agent, form
the three-fold complement of action.[301] Knowledge, action, and agent,
are declare