Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Verse 17

यस्य नाहङ्कृतो भावो बुद्धिर्यस्य न लिप्यते । हत्वाऽपि स इमाँल्लोकान्न हन्ति न निबध्यते

yasya nāhaṅkṛto bhāvo buddhiryasya na lipyate | hatvā'pi sa imā~llokānna hanti na nibadhyate

Translation

He who is free from egotistic notion, whose mind is not tainted — though he kills these creatures, he kills not, he is not bound.

— Alladi Mahadeva Sastri

Word meanings

yasya

of whom

na

not

ahaṅkṛtaḥ

egoistic

bhāvaḥ

notion

buddhiḥ

reason

yasya

of whom

na

not

lipyate

is affected

hatvā

having slain

api

also

saḥ

he

imān

these

lokān

peoples

na

not

hanti

slays

na

not

nibadhyate

is bound

Śaṅkarācārya's commentary

He whose mind has been well trained in the scriptures, by a master's instructions, and in the sound principles of reasoning, is free from the egotistic notion that 'I am the agent.' He thinks thus: It is these five — the body etc., ascribed to the Self through avidyā — that are the causes of all action, not I. I am the witness of their actions, I am pure and immutable. He whose antaḥ-karaṇa, which is an upādhi of the Self, is not tainted, does not repent thus: "I have done this; thereby I shall go to naraka." He is wise; though he kills all these living creatures, he commits no act of killing, nor is he bound by the fruit of adharma as an effect of that act. The Self being by nature immutable, He cannot be in conjunction with the body etc. Wherefore the actions of the body are not the actions of the Self.