What "Karmanyevadhikaraste" (Gita 2.47) actually means
It means the work is in your hands, the result is not. In Gita 2.47 Krishna tells Arjuna that the craving for a result should not become the reason you act. But most people remember only half the shlok. The second line says: do not use that as an excuse to stop working. Drop the attachment, not the effort.
This is verse 47 of the Bhagavad Gita's second chapter (Sankhya Yoga). On the field of Kurukshetra, with Arjuna refusing to fight, Krishna says:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥
Word by word
- karmani eva adhikarah te — your right is in the work alone.
- ma phaleshu kadachana — never in the fruits.
- ma karma-phala-hetuh bhuh — do not let the craving for a result become the reason you act.
- ma te sangah astu akarmani — and do not grow attached to not acting either.
The big mistake: half a shlok
Most people stop at the first line and read it as "work hard, forget the outcome, whatever happens happens." The fourth line exists precisely to block that reading. Krishna plainly says: do not get attached to inaction. If the whole teaching were only "let go of the result," then Arjuna putting down his bow and walking away would have been the right answer — and Krishna spends the entire Gita arguing against exactly that.
It never says the fruit will not come
The verse does not claim that action bears no fruit. It says you have no adhikar — no claim, no control — over the fruit. When it comes, how much of it comes, and what form it takes are not in your hands. So do not hang your mind where your effort has no grip. Having a goal is not forbidden; letting anxiety about the goal become the only reason you work is.
The next verses complete it
In 2.48 Krishna adds "siddhy-asiddhyoh samo bhutva samatvam yoga uchyate" — staying the same in success and failure, that is yoga. In 2.50, "yogah karmasu kaushalam" — yoga is skill in action. And in the eighth verse of chapter three (Karma Yoga) he is blunter still: "karma jyayo hy akarmanah", doing the work is better than not doing it.
A small spelling slip
You will often see it written as "karmanye vadhikaraste", as though "karmanye" were a word. It is not. The two words here are karmani and eva, which join in sandhi to become "karmanyeva". When reading or chanting, the break belongs there: karmani-eva-adhikarah-te.