Cluster 0113 — BG 3.16 (एवं प्रवर्तितं चक्रं नानुवर्तयतीह यः — The Failure-Mode of the Yajña-Chakra)

BG-3.16

The yajña-chakra is now built. Cluster 0107 (BG-3.9) named yajña as the frame that releases action from binding. Clusters 0108–0111 (BG-3.10–3.13) unfolded the prajāpati-narrative: how the chakra was created, how gods and humans co-prosper through it, how the eaters of yajña-leftovers are freed from sin. Cluster 0112 (BG-3.14–3.15) closed the cosmological mechanism: anna → bhūta, parjanya → anna, yajña → parjanya, karma → yajña, brahma → karma — the whole turning wheel.

BG-3.16 is the counter-portrait. After the construction, the indictment: what about the one who does not turn this wheel? Sanskrit answers in eight terse words: अघायुः इन्द्रियारामः मोघं पार्थ स जीवति — sin-lived, sense-revelling, living-in-vain. Jñāneśvar takes those eight words and produces eight Marathi ovis (3.138–3.145), and the register shifts visibly. The earlier clusters were cosmological-explanatory; this cluster is invective. The chakra-skipper is named with one of the strongest concrete images in adhyāya 3 — the goat's neck-teats (गळां स्तन अजेचे), the udder dangling uselessly at the throat, a settled Sanskrit illustration (ajāgalastana) of an utterly purposeless appendage, rendered into rural Marathi. The fruitless life is an out-of-season cloud (अभ्रपटल अकाळींचें) — visually impressive, totally barren. The chakra-skipper is a heap of sins (पातकांची राशी) and a burden on the earth (भार भूमीसी), importing the Puranic bhū-bhāra trope.

Then, in the cluster's last three ovis (3.143–3.145), Jñāneśvar makes the move that distinguishes him from a mere moralist: he turns the negative-foil into a positive-imperative. Therefore, do not abandon svadharma. Having a body, the duty has come with the body — in its very flow (वोघें आलें). And those who, having received the form of a body, sulk about the action that comes with it, are गांवढे — rustics, dull-witted villagers. The chapter's central claim, that svadharma-practice is the path, is re-affirmed under the foil's shadow.

Stage-thread: this cluster is the position-3 (yajña) closure-anchor in the karma-yoga-arc. 3.139 explicitly welds svadharma to yajña — स्वधर्मरूप क्रतु (the svadharma-shaped sacrifice) — and so names the seam between position 2 (opened at cluster 0106) and position 3 (opened at cluster 0107). 3.143 is a second-strike anchor for position 2 — the disciple, having heard the foil, briefly fears svadharma is secondary, and the verse immediately re-affirms it. The arc now reads: position 1 (niṣkāma-karma) at 2.264 → position 2 (svadharma) at 3.78–3.80 → position 3 (yajña) at 3.81 → (chakra-block) → position 3 closure at 3.139 → position 2 re-affirmation at 3.143. Position 4 (jñāna-emergence) was anticipated at 2.280 (cluster 0078) and will receive its formal adhyāya-3 entry at BG 3.17 (cluster 0114, the ātmaratiḥ exception).

Ovi 3.138

Original (Marathi): ऐशी हे आदि परंपरा । संक्षेपें तुज धनुर्धरा । सांगितली या अध्वरा । लागूनियां ॥१३८॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (explicit Arjuna-vocative धनुर्धरा — "O bow-bearer")

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
ऐशी हे	thus, this
आदि परंपरा	the primal tradition / the original sequence
संक्षेपें	in brief / in compressed form
तुज धनुर्धरा	to you, O bow-bearer (Arjuna)
सांगितली	[has been] told
या अध्वरा	this sacrificial-ritual (adhvara — Vedic term for yajña)
लागूनियां	with reference to / on account of

Literal translation

English: "Thus, this primal tradition has been told to you, O bow-bearer, in brief, with reference to this sacrificial ritual."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "अशी ही आदि-परंपरा (मूळ-सूत्र) तुला, हे धनुर्धरा, संक्षेपात सांगितली — या यज्ञ-कर्माच्या संदर्भात."

This is a summary-frame ovi. आदि-परंपरा (primal-tradition) names the whole prajāpati-yajña-chakra narrative that began at 3.85 (cluster 0107) — the sṛṣṭi-ādi narrative of how Brahmā set up the chakra. संक्षेपें (in brief) is a meta-marker: Kṛṣṇa is closing the long narrative-block. The Sanskrit term अध्वर is a Vedic word for the soma-yajña specifically, and Sakhare's retention of it here signals that the immediately-following indictment is being delivered within the technical sacrificial-vocabulary of the Veda — not in some looser ethical register. This matters: the chakra-skipper is being judged by yajña-standards, not by sentiment.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.85–3.137 (clusters 0107–0112, the prajāpati-yajña-chakra narrative). आदि-परंपरा recapitulates the entire arc opened at 3.85. The संक्षेपें is the structural signal that what follows is argument-closing.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram does not stage the prajāpati-yajña-chakra cosmology; his bhakti-frame replaces yajña-mechanics with Name-sankīrtana as the chakra-equivalent (abhang 2448). Not a substantive parallel to this summary-frame line.)
Source citation: (empty — this is Jñāneśvar's own structural summary-frame, not a Sanskrit-anchored line.)

Modern application

When you have just finished a long technical explanation — to a child, a junior, a partner — and need a single beat to mark now I'm going to land it before the actual point hits. The ovi names that beat: thus, in brief, I have told you this — on this point. Without that beat, the listener cannot land.
When you have been studying a long doctrine (a meditation system, a code-base, an organizational structure) and your teacher pauses to say what I have just laid out is the whole foundation; now I will say what depends on it. This is the same structural move. The foundation-summary lets the consequence-claim be properly weighted.
When you are about to deliver a hard message and are tempted to skip the recapitulation — to say only the consequence without re-anchoring the premise it follows from. The ovi corrects: the indictment lands only if the chakra-tradition is first recalled.

Sādhanā

Today, before saying the next hard thing you have to say to someone — at work or at home — first say one sentence that recapitulates what the two of you have already established. Watch how that one sentence changes how the hard thing is heard.

Arc

Having marked the foundation-summary, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.139 lands the consequence: the one who, having heard all this, still does not perform the svadharma-yajña.

Ovi 3.139

Original (Marathi): म्हणौनि समूळ हा उचितु । स्वधर्मरूप क्रतु । नानुष्ठी जो मत्तु । लोकीं इये ॥१३९॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (sustained second-person Kṛṣṇa-speech; the third-person reference is to the chakra-skipper, not a voice-shift)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
म्हणौनि	therefore
समूळ	from the root / entire / wholesale
हा उचितु	this fitting [action]
स्वधर्मरूप क्रतु	the sacrifice (kratu) in the form of svadharma
नानुष्ठी	does not perform / does not practice (Sanskrit नानुष्ठायी; न + अनुष्ठा)
जो मत्तु	he who [is] intoxicated / sense-drunk / proud
लोकीं इये	in this world

Literal translation

English: "Therefore, in this world, he who, sense-drunk, does not perform — from the very root — this fitting svadharma-shaped sacrifice ..."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "म्हणून जो उन्मत्त माणूस, मुळातून, या लोकीं स्वधर्म-रूप यज्ञ — हा उचित अनुष्ठान — करीतच नाही ..."

This ovi is the structural welding-line of the cluster. The Sanskrit BG-3.16 says, terse, "he who does not keep turning the wheel"; the Marathi unpacks "the wheel" as स्वधर्मरूप क्रतु — a sacrifice in the form of svadharma. Two earlier moves are formally joined here: position 2 (svadharma, opened at 3.78–3.80, cluster 0106) and position 3 (yajña, opened at 3.81, cluster 0107) are now welded into a single compound. कृतु (Sanskrit kratu) is one of the technical Vedic yajña-words; coupling it with स्वधर्म-रूप says: the sacrifice you are obligated to is the svadharma-sacrifice, and skipping svadharma is skipping yajña. The chakra-skipper is the svadharma-skipper. समूळ ("from the root, entire") closes the escape-route of partial-performance — there's no half-credit here.

The Sakhare reading मत्तु (intoxicated) is interpretively striking. Sanskrit नानुवर्तयतीह यः is neutral (he-who-does-not-keep-turning); the Marathi imports मत्तु and so reads back from the second half of the Sanskrit śloka (इन्द्रियारामः, sense-revelling) into the verb-form. The non-performer is not merely lazy; he is sense-drunk. The two halves of the Sanskrit śloka are read as causally linked: the sense-drunkenness is why the chakra is not turned.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. (The Sanskrit word चक्र here is the yajña-chakra of BG 3.14–15, not a Nāth-tantric body-cakra. Discipline held.)

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.78–3.80 (cluster 0106, BG-3.8) and 3.81 (cluster 0107, BG-3.9). The welding of svadharma + yajña into स्वधर्मरूप क्रतु formally joins position 2 and position 3 of the karma-yoga-arc thread.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram does not use the technical kratu vocabulary; his yajña-equivalent is Name-sankīrtana, structurally adjacent but lexically different.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.16 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit नानुवर्तयतीह यः → Marathi नानुष्ठी जो मत्तु. The interpretive gloss मत्तु (intoxicated) reads back from the second half of the Sanskrit śloka (इन्द्रियारामः, sense-revelling) into the verb-form.

Modern application

When you are advising someone whose work is "spiritually serious" — long retreats, careful reading — but whose actual life-station is unattended (the elderly parent uncalled, the colleague's promise unkept, the rent late). The ovi diagnoses: the svadharma is the yajña; spiritual-serious work that skips svadharma is not slightly defective yajña, it is no yajña at all.
When you have been doing a "discipline" — meditation, fast, study — while ignoring the obvious fitting-thing in front of you. The ovi calls the discipline samūḷa unperformed: the discipline that bypasses svadharma is, at the root, no discipline.
When you encounter the idea (in casual reading or a teacher's offhand remark) that yajña is some discrete ritual you may or may not get around to. The ovi corrects: yajña is shaped as svadharma. Performing your fitting-action is performing the sacrifice. There isn't a separate thing called yajña that you can save for retirement.

Sādhanā

Today, identify one item you have been treating as your "real" spiritual practice (a meditation, a study-routine, a fast) and one item you have been treating as your "ordinary" obligation (a phone call to a parent, a debt-paying task, a difficult message to send). For 24 hours, treat them as the same kind of thing — both as svadharma-shaped yajña, neither higher nor lower than the other. Notice what changes in how each is done.

Arc

Having named the chakra-skipper, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.140 names his ontological condition — not a temporary lapse but a structural state.

Ovi 3.140

Original (Marathi): तो पातकांची राशी । जाण भार भूमीसी । जो कुकर्में इंद्रियांसी । उपेगा गेला ॥१४०॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the imperative जाण — "know!" — directly addresses Arjuna; sustained Kṛṣṇa-speech)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
तो	he [the chakra-skipper]
पातकांची राशी	a heap of sins
जाण	know!
भार भूमीसी	a burden to the earth
जो	who
कुकर्में	through evil-actions
इंद्रियांसी उपेगा गेला	has gone to the use / service of the senses (became useful only to the senses)

Literal translation

English: "He is a heap of sins — know this — a burden to the earth, [the one] who, through evil actions, has gone over into the senses' service."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "तो पातकांचा ढीगच आहे — हे जाणून घे — भूमीला भार आहे, जो कुकर्मांद्वारे इंद्रियांच्याच कामात (सेवेत) गेलेला आहे."

The Sanskrit अघायुः (one whose life-substance is sin) is rendered as पातकांची राशी — a literal stockpile of pātaka. The chakra-skipper is rendered ontologically: not a person who occasionally sins, but a stockpile that has the shape of a person. Then comes Jñāneśvar's own move, not present in the Sanskrit: भार भूमीसी — a burden on the earth. This imports a well-attested Puranic-Mahābhārata trope (bhū-bhāra — the earth groans under the weight of unrighteous beings; in the Mahābhārata this trope is one of the rationales for Kṛṣṇa-avatāra; the Gītā itself echoes it at 4.7–8 with the dharma-decline avatāra-rationale). The earth itself bears the cost of the chakra-skipper.

The closing phrase इंद्रियांसी उपेगा गेला ("gone over into the use of the senses") renders Sanskrit इन्द्रियारामः (sense-revelling) with a sharper twist: the human being has become useful to the senses (not vice versa). The senses, which should serve the chakra, have become the entity served. Inversion of telos.

Metaphor-unfold

Literal image	Philosophical referent	Modern equivalent
`भार भूमीसी` — a load that the earth has to carry	the unrighteous-being's cost is not merely personal but borne by the ecological-cosmic substrate; structural debt	the high-consumption, no-contribution life that the planet's biosphere is presently absorbing the cost of — the resource-consumer who has become someone the earth literally bears
`इंद्रियांसी उपेगा गेला` — gone over into the senses' service	telos-inversion: the limbs and faculties, which should be instruments of svadharma-yajña, have become servants of the appetites they were meant to direct	the executive whose skills, time, and intelligence have all been quietly reassigned from service-to-his-station to service-of-his-appetites — the very capabilities still operate, but for the wrong master

Metaphor-family: bhara-bhumisi (the Puranic bhū-bhāra trope of the earth as bearer-of-the-unrighteous).

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: (empty — the bhū-bhāra image is not developed elsewhere in the immediate decoding-range; Jñāneśvar uses it once here, then drops it.)
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram is harsher on the chakra-skipper in his own register (e.g. 2755 śūdra-vamśī autobiographical, 2744 anti-name-laziness) but does not use the bhū-bhāra trope specifically. Better empty than topical.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.16 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit अघायुः → Marathi पातकांची राशी. The further भार भूमीसी is Jñāneśvar's own image, importing the Puranic bhū-bhāra trope which the Gītā elsewhere echoes at 4.7–8 (the dharma-decline avatāra-rationale).

Modern application

When you encounter a news story about a person whose accumulated impact (financial, ecological, social) has clearly exceeded what they have given back over a lifetime, and you notice the discomfort the story produces — that discomfort is the bhū-bhāra recognition. The ovi names what the discomfort is: the earth is bearing this cost.
When you take honest stock of your own consumption-pattern over a year — food eaten, fuel burned, waste generated, attention spent on dopamine-feeds — against what your work has actually returned to others, and find the ratio uncomfortable. The ovi names the ratio: gone over into the service of the senses. The senses you should be using are now the master.
When you have noticed that someone you know is technically high-functioning (capable, intelligent, well-resourced) but all of that capacity has, over years, been quietly redirected into appetites — and the person now has the skills of a chakra-turner but the function of a sense-server. The ovi names the inversion.

Sādhanā

Today, take 10 minutes and list, on one side of a sheet of paper, the three capacities you possess that you most value (intelligence, a particular skill, energy, a kind of access). On the other side, list the three appetites or compulsions that take the most of your time and attention. Draw a line between any capacity and any appetite where the capacity has, in fact, been recruited into the appetite's service. Notice what you see.

Arc

Having named the ontological condition, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.141 names the evaluative consequence — such a life is fruitless — and grounds it in the first of the cluster's vivid concrete images: the out-of-season cloud.

Ovi 3.141

Original (Marathi): तें जन्म कर्म सकळ । अर्जुना अति निष्फळ । जैसें कां अभ्रपटल । अकाळींचें ॥१४१॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (explicit Arjuna-vocative अर्जुना)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
तें	that
जन्म कर्म सकळ	birth, action, all [of it]
अर्जुना	O Arjuna
अति निष्फळ	extremely fruitless / utterly without fruit
जैसें कां	just like
अभ्रपटल	a sheet / mass of clouds
अकाळींचें	out-of-season / untimely

Literal translation

English: "That birth, that action — all of it — O Arjuna, is utterly fruitless, just like a sheet of out-of-season clouds."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "ते जन्म, ते कर्म — सर्व काही — हे अर्जुना, पूर्णपणे फलहीन आहे, जसा अकाळी आलेला ढगांचा थवा."

The Sanskrit says मोघं पार्थ स जीवति — in vain, O Pārtha, does he live. The Marathi extends the indictment by one step: not only is the living vain, but the जन्म (the birth itself, the very having-come-into-this-body) and the कर्म (the doing) are both fruitless. The body that BG-3.8 named as the very seat of obligation is, when the chakra is skipped, simply a fruitless body. This is the strong reading of मोघं.

Then the image: अभ्रपटल अकाळींचें — an out-of-season cloud-mass. This is a brilliant choice. The image lives off the agricultural-cosmological logic of BG-3.14: rain at the right season is the chakra's gift; the parjanya that yajña produces is seasonal, in proper sequence with the wheel. A cloud that arrives out-of-season is not the chakra's cloud at all. It looks like a cloud — has the visual impressiveness, the bulk, the appearance-of-rain-coming — but it cannot actually produce the crop because it is dis-articulated from the seasonal-sacrificial rhythm. The chakra-skipper's life is exactly that: visually impressive (he is alive, embodied, active) but disarticulated from the chakra's rhythm and so producing no fruit.

Metaphor-unfold

Literal image	Philosophical referent	Modern equivalent
`अभ्रपटल अकाळींचें` — an out-of-season cloud-mass	a life that has all the surface-features of a fruit-bearing life (birth, body, action, accomplishment) but is dis-articulated from the chakra-rhythm that would make any of it fruitful; visual impressiveness without seasonal-fit	the career that has every visible marker of success (title, position, awards) but produces no real-world good that anyone, including the worker, can identify; the impressive-looking life that, asked what does this actually grow?, has no answer

Metaphor-family: abhra-patala-akali (out-of-season cloud — barrenness in the form of apparent richness). Connects backward to cluster 0112's parjanya-anna-bhūta cosmology: the rain at the proper season is the chakra's fruit; the out-of-season cloud is its counterfeit.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: parallel-image to 3.134 (cluster 0112, BG-3.14). 0112 named the chakra's seasonal rain (parjanya from yajña); 0113's out-of-season cloud is the dis-articulated counterpart — the same atmospheric vocabulary turned inside-out to mark counterfeit.
Tukaram parallel: abhang 2797 (Kāḷa-grāsāvayā mortality-warning) — thematic-resonance. Tukaram holds the structurally adjacent claim: a life unbraced by Hari-smaraṇa is fruitless before Time's mouth; only Chakrapāṇi saves, not king/elder/kin. Both texts share the diagnostic that the unfit-life is fruitless and the fruitlessness is structural. Substantive parallel, not topical.
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.16 — direct-paraphrase. मोघं पार्थ स जीवति → तें जन्म कर्म सकळ ... अति निष्फळ. The Marathi extends मोघं to cover both birth-itself and action — a slightly stronger reading than the Sanskrit alone but defensible.

Modern application

When you find yourself, mid-career, glancing sideways at your visible markers of arrival — title, network, body-of-work — and being unable to identify a single piece of fruit any of it has grown for the world. The ovi names the condition: the cloud has been impressive, but out-of-season. The visible bulk is not the fruit.
When you sit through a long, content-rich talk by someone with all the surface-marks of authority — credentials, presence, fluency — and afterwards find you cannot identify one usable claim. The ovi is the diagnostic vocabulary: out-of-season cloud. Looks like rain. Was not.
When you encounter the sense (in yourself, or in someone you love) that a long stretch of life has been "very busy" but somehow fruitless — that the activity-volume and the actual yield have come uncoupled. The ovi names what came uncoupled: action came uncoupled from the chakra-rhythm. The activity is real; it is not articulated to the wheel that turns yield from action.

Sādhanā

Today, look back over the last 12 months and identify one stretch of activity that was real (you actually did it) but, in honesty, was fruitless (no clear yield for you, your station, or anyone in your circle). Sit with the question: was that an out-of-season cloud? Do not moralize. Just see whether the description fits. If it does, you do not need to fix it today — only see it.

Arc

Having named the fruitlessness with the out-of-season-cloud image, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.142 lands the cluster's most concrete image — the goat's neck-teats — sharpening the indictment from fruitless to purposeless.

Ovi 3.142

Original (Marathi): कां गळां स्तन अजेचे । तैसें जियालें देखैं तयाचें । जया अनुष्ठान स्वधर्माचें । घडेचिना ॥१४२॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the imperative देखैं is a generic Old-Marathi narrative-imperative inside sustained Kṛṣṇa-speech — not a voice-shift; per the cluster 0075 lesson, voice stays Kṛṣṇa-to-Arjuna)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
कां	or rather / or [consider this]
गळां स्तन अजेचे	the goat's neck-teats / the udder at the goat's throat (the vestigial dewlap-teats)
तैसें	thus / like that
जियालें देखैं तयाचें	see his life [is]
जया	for whom
अनुष्ठान स्वधर्माचें	the practice of svadharma
घडेचिना	does not happen at all / does not come about

Literal translation

English: "Or — like the teats at the goat's throat — see, that is what his life is, the one for whom the practice of svadharma does not happen at all."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "किंवा बकरीच्या गळ्याशी असलेले निरुपयोगी स्तन जसे — तसेच त्याचे जगणे आहे, असे पाहा — ज्याच्याकडून स्वधर्माचे अनुष्ठान घडतच नाही."

This is the cluster's signature image. The Sanskrit philosophical idiom अजागलस्तन (literally "goat-neck-teat") refers to the small vestigial teat-like protrusions that hang from the throats of certain goats (the dewlap appendages, anatomically purposeless — they do not produce milk, they serve no biological function, they are simply there). The idiom is used in classical Sanskrit philosophical literature — most notably in Vedānta-paribhāṣā and in Sarva-Darśana-Sangraha — as the standard illustration of an utterly purposeless thing. To say of something that it is ajāgalastana-vat (like a goat's neck-teat) is to say: it has no function, it is without point.

Jñāneśvar imports this settled philosophical illustration into Marathi (गळां स्तन अजेचे) and applies it to the chakra-skipper's life. The move is brutal: not merely fruitless (3.141), but purposeless in the way that a non-functional vestige is purposeless. The image is concrete in a way the abstract mogham could never be — every villager would have seen the goat's neck-teats and known they did nothing.

Then the diagnostic clause: जया अनुष्ठान स्वधर्माचें घडेचिना — for whom the practice of svadharma does not at all come about. The Marathi घडेचिना is striking: not merely "is not done" (which would imply choice) but "does not come about" / "does not happen at all" — as if even the structural possibility has dropped out. The chakra-skipper is not a person who refused svadharma; he is a person for whom svadharma does not even arise as a practice. The vestige has no function because the function-structure itself is absent.

Metaphor-unfold

Literal image	Philosophical referent	Modern equivalent
`गळां स्तन अजेचे` — the goat's neck-teats, the dewlap-vestiges that hang at the throat	a settled Sanskrit philosophical illustration (ajāgalastana) of an utterly purposeless appendage; something that is there — visible, tangible — but has no function whatever; the lack of function is the defining feature, not a temporary failure	the human institution, role, or position that still exists in name and visible-form but has lost its function (the committee that still meets but decides nothing; the office that has staff and a door-sign but no actual portfolio); applied to a person, the life that still has the form of a life but no longer performs the function a life is shaped for

Metaphor-family: aja-galastana (the goat's neck-teat — settled Sanskrit philosophical illustration of purposelessness). Used in nyāya/Vedānta texts canonically; Jñāneśvar's import into Marathi is the cluster's most interesting cross-tradition gesture.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: parallel-image to 3.145 (गांवढे — rustic, dull-witted villagers). Both lines close the cluster's negative-foil with concrete, faintly contemptuous rural-Marathi vocabulary. The pair brackets the cluster's invective block.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram has no exact ajāgalastana parallel; his rural concrete images are deployed differently (e.g. mūngī-eat-sugar at 2882 for the opposite, positive, smallness-as-bhakti). Skipping rather than over-claiming.)
Source citation: Vedānta vocabulary (ajāgalastana) — direct-quote. गळां स्तन अजेचे renders the well-known Sanskrit idiom अजागलस्तन, used canonically in Vedānta-paribhāṣā and Sarva-Darśana-Sangraha as the standard illustration of an utterly purposeless appendage. Jñāneśvar imports the philosophical illustration directly; the Marathi makes it concrete and rural.

Modern application

When you encounter — at work or in a civic context — a role that has retained its title and visible existence but, when examined, has no remaining function: it does not decide, does not produce, does not connect to any outcome. The Sanskrit philosophers would have called it ajāgalastana — the goat's neck-teat. The ovi gives the vocabulary to name what you are seeing.
When you look at a stretch of your own life — perhaps an entire role or relationship that has continued long past its function — and recognize that you have been maintaining the shape without the substance. The ovi names the condition without softening: not underused, not underperforming — but purposeless in the way the vestige is purposeless.
When you read or hear a teacher describing the spiritual seeker who has retained all the markers of practice (the cushion, the books, the meditation-app streak) while the actual svadharma-anuṣṭhāna has not, in fact, come about — and you recognize yourself in the description. The ovi is the strong-mirror: the markers without the function are the goat's neck-teats.

Sādhanā

Today, identify one thing — a role, a habit, a routine — that you have been maintaining the form of, while the function has been quietly absent. Do not yet decide what to do about it. Just write down its name on a piece of paper, and under it the phrase: ajāgalastana — present but functionless. Sit with the recognition for the duration of one cup of tea.

Arc

Having delivered the cluster's strongest indictment image, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.143 pivots the cluster's register: therefore, do not abandon svadharma. The negative-foil has done its work; now the positive-imperative is re-stated in its shadow.

Ovi 3.143

Original (Marathi): म्हणौनि ऐकें पांडवा । हा स्वधर्मु कवणें न संडावा । सर्वभावें भजावा । हाचि एकु ॥१४३॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (explicit Arjuna-vocative पांडवा — "O son of Pāṇḍu"; imperative ऐकें directly to disciple)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
म्हणौनि	therefore
ऐकें पांडवा	listen, O son of Pāṇḍu
हा स्वधर्मु	this svadharma
कवणें न संडावा	by anyone, [it] should not be abandoned
सर्वभावें	with whole-being / with all bhāva
भजावा	should be served / honored / cleaved-to
हाचि एकु	this very one [alone]

Literal translation

English: "Therefore, listen, O son of Pāṇḍu: this svadharma — let none abandon it. With one's whole being, this very one should be served."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "म्हणून ऐक, हे पांडवा — हा स्वधर्म कोणीही सोडू नये. संपूर्ण भावाने (सर्वभावे) हाच एक भजावा (आचरावा)."

This is the cluster's pivot-line. The previous four ovis (3.139–3.142) have built the negative-foil — sense-drunk chakra-skipping, heap of sins, burden on the earth, out-of-season cloud, goat's neck-teat. The disciple, having absorbed all that, might draw the wrong conclusion: if all that comes from skipping the yajña-chakra, then the yajña-chakra is what matters, and svadharma is a means to it. Jñāneśvar shuts that reading down. The म्हणौनि ("therefore") is the pivot: the consequence of the negative-foil is that svadharma should not be abandoned — the svadharma itself, not some separate yajña-construction.

Two phrases are doing real work. कवणें न संडावा — let none abandon it — is universal in scope. Not "let Arjuna not abandon it"; let no one. The svadharma-imperative is not particular; it lands on every reader. And सर्वभावें भजावा — serve with whole-being — uses the verb भजावा (the bhakti-verb) for svadharma-practice. Svadharma is not merely a duty to be performed but a relationship to be served, with the full-bhakti-orientation. This is one of Jñāneśvar's quiet doctrinal moves: svadharma-anuṣṭhāna and bhakti are not two paths but two registers of the same act. The सर्वभावें is the bhakti's all-in clause; the हाचि एकु ("this very one alone") is its exclusivity-clause.

The verse formally re-anchors position 2 (svadharma) in the karma-yoga-arc thread. The first formal entry was at 3.78–3.80 (cluster 0106); 3.143 is a second-strike anchor, where the disciple — having been shown the failure-mode — is told again, with greater emphasis (कवणें न संडावा, universal scope), that svadharma is the irreducible matter.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.78–3.80 (cluster 0106, BG-3.8). Cluster 0106 named svadharma-anuṣṭhāna as the mokṣa-vehicle; 3.143 universalizes the imperative (कवणें न संडावा — let none abandon) and uses the bhakti-verb (भजावा) for it.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram's svadharma-imperative is most clearly at abhang 2854 (canonical householder-dharma 5-verse), already cited at cluster 0106. Re-citing here would be redundant; the parallel holds but does not need a second-strike entry.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.35 — foreshadows. हा स्वधर्मु कवणें न संडावा prefigures BG-3.35's श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुणः (better one's own dharma, even imperfect). And सर्वभावें भजावा anticipates BG-18.66's सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य ... मामेकं शरणं व्रज — the same syntactic pattern of total-orientation.

Modern application

When you have just sat through a long sermon (literal or metaphorical) on what spiritual non-fruitfulness looks like — and you find yourself thinking the takeaway is that I need a stronger practice. The ovi corrects: the takeaway is that svadharma should not be abandoned, not that a stronger separate practice should be added. The fitting-action of your station, served with whole-being, is the practice.
When a person you respect has just diagnosed someone else's life harshly (perhaps justifiably) and you are absorbing the diagnosis as instruction for yourself — and you are tempted to turn it into "I will do X-special-thing." The ovi says: turn it instead into "I will not abandon my fitting svadharma." The corrective from any failure-portrait is back to the irreducible station-work.
When a religious teacher has been pressing on you the importance of some particular formal practice (a specific yajña, a specific liturgy) and you have been quietly wondering whether you should drop your obviously demanding householder-station to take it on. The ovi is the load-bearing instruction: none should abandon svadharma. Not for any other practice. The other practice is at best the same svadharma under a different name; at worst it is an evasion of it.

Sādhanā

Today, write down one sentence: my svadharma, in this station and at this time, is X. Be plain. Then add: let me not abandon this. Read the two sentences aloud, once. The point of the practice is not to do anything new today; it is to formally re-take the position-2 vow that the karma-yoga-arc's whole structure rests on.

Arc

Having re-affirmed the svadharma-imperative, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.144 closes the rhetorical loop: if you have a body, the duty has come with the body — abandoning is structurally not on offer.

Ovi 3.144

Original (Marathi): हां गा शरीर जरी जाहलें । तरी कर्तव्य वोघें आलें । मग उचित कां आपुलें । ओसंडावें ? ॥१४४॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the colloquial हां गा — "look, sir" / "now, then" — is direct second-person address; sustained Kṛṣṇa-speech)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
हां गा	look, sir / now then (direct address-particle)
शरीर जरी जाहलें	since [you have] come to have a body
तरी	then
कर्तव्य वोघें आलें	duty has come [along] in its flow / in its current
मग	then
उचित कां आपुलें	one's own fitting [action], why
ओसंडावें ?	should [it] be abandoned / cast off ?

Literal translation

English: "Look — since you have come to have a body, duty has come along in its very flow. Then why should one's own fitting [action] be cast off?"

मराठी (आधुनिक): "अरे, जर शरीर लाभलेच आहे, तर कर्तव्य त्याच्या ओघातच आलेले आहे. मग आपले उचित कर्म कशासाठी सोडावे?"

The ovi closes the rhetorical loop. BG-3.8 (cluster 0106) said: शरीरयात्रापि च ते न प्रसिद्ध्येदकर्मणः — even the body-journey does not succeed without action. 3.144 makes the same point with a striking image: कर्तव्य वोघें आलें — duty has come in [the body's] flow. The word वोघें (in the current / in the stream / in the flow) is doing real work. Duty does not stand discrete from the body, as if you could choose to take the body and decline the duty separately. The body is a stream, and the duty is the stream's flow. To have come to have the body is, already, to have come to have the duty.

The closing rhetorical question — उचित कां आपुलें ओसंडावें ? — is unanswerable on its own terms. If the duty has come in the body's flow, then abandoning the fitting-action is structurally incoherent: it would mean trying to keep the body while declining the stream the body is. The chakra-skipper's basic mistake is now clear: he is trying to inhabit the body's form without performing the body's flow. That is the goat's neck-teat of 3.142 — the form retained, the function declined.

Metaphor-unfold

The image कर्तव्य वोघें आलें (duty has come in its flow) is suggestive rather than fully unfolded — Jñāneśvar drops it as a one-line image without expanding it into a tableau. Worth noting: it places duty in the same image-family as the chakra's rotation and the parjanya's seasonal-rain (cluster 0112) — all three are flows rather than discrete events. The body is not a static substance to which duty is later attached; body and duty arrive in a single stream. No fully extended metaphor-unfold here, but the वोघें choice is a small image worth flagging.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: echo of 3.77 (cluster 0106, BG-3.8) — नैष्कर्म्य होआवें तरी एथ तें न संभवे (you may wish for actionlessness, but here it is not possible). The two ovis make the same structural point with different vocabulary: actionlessness is unavailable to the embodied; the body comes with the duty in its current.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram does not stage the abstract "body-comes-with-duty-in-its-flow" claim with this concrete वोघें (current/flow) image. His parallel territory is the householder-dharma material at 2854, already cited.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.8 — echo. शरीर जरी जाहलें । तरी कर्तव्य वोघें आलें directly echoes Sanskrit शरीरयात्रापि च ते न प्रसिद्ध्येदकर्मणः. The Marathi वोघें (in flow) is a stronger image-choice than the Sanskrit शरीर-यात्रा (body-journey) — duty does not merely accompany the body; it is the body's stream.

Modern application

When someone you respect has been quietly speaking about leaving a difficult and obligation-heavy life-station for something simpler-and-purer, and you have been quietly weighing the same move. The ovi is the diagnostic: the body and the duty have arrived together, in a single flow. The simpler-and-purer life would not, in fact, be without duty; it would be the same body in a different current — and the duty would have rearranged, not vanished.
When you find yourself, in a difficult patch, wishing the duties of your station would just stop for a while — wishing you could keep the body but skip its flow. The ovi names the wish as incoherent. The flow is the body. The body is the flow. The wish is for something that does not exist in any human form.
When you encounter a religious-rhetoric that promises a station-without-duty (a permanent ashram-life with no logistical-or-relational tax, a withdrawn-life with no ongoing claims-on-you), and find yourself drawn to it. The ovi is the corrective: any embodied station is a stream of duty. The promise is not false because the station is bad, but because no embodied station exists without its flow.

Sādhanā

Today, in the next 30 minutes, take stock of the next three demands the body's flow will place on you — the next meal you must eat, the next message you must answer, the next promise you must keep. Acknowledge that each of these arrived as part of the same stream as the body itself. Do not resent the duty; do not romanticize it. Just see that it came in the flow, and let it pass through you in the flow.

Arc

Having shown that the body and the duty arrive together in a single stream, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.145 closes the cluster by naming, in concrete contempt, those who do not get this: the rustics, the village-dull, the ones for whom even possessing a human body has not produced the recognition.

Ovi 3.145

Original (Marathi): परिस पां सव्यसाची । मूर्ति लाहोनि देहाची । खंती करिती कर्माची । ते गांवढे गा ॥१४५॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (explicit Arjuna-vocative सव्यसाची — "ambidextrous one"; imperative परिस पां — "you listen!"; final colloquial गा re-engages the disciple)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
परिस पां	listen, then / hear it
सव्यसाची	O ambidextrous one (Arjuna-epithet — the one who shoots with either hand)
मूर्ति लाहोनि देहाची	having received / obtained the form of a body
खंती करिती कर्माची	grieve about / lament action
ते गांवढे गा	those — they are rustics (gāvaḍhē — village-dull, the rural-uncultured), look

Literal translation

English: "Listen, O Savyasāchin: those who, having received the form of a body, grieve about action — they are rustics."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "ऐक, हे सव्यसाची — ज्यांना देहाचे रूप लाभले आहे, तरी जे कर्माविषयी खंत बाळगतात — ते गांवढे (अडाणी, खेडवळ) आहेत."

The cluster closes in the same register as 3.142. गांवढे is rural-Marathi for "villager / rustic," carrying the additional faint connotation of unsophisticated, uncultured, dull-of-perception. It is mild invective. The construction is precise: not "those who grieve about action are wrong" (which would be a flat doctrinal claim) but "those who, having received the form of a body, then grieve about the action that comes with it, are rustics." The structure of the indictment is the structure of incomprehension — the rustic does not see the connection between the body he has been given and the action he is being asked to perform. Body and action are in the same flow (3.144); to grieve about action while holding the body is to fail to recognize what the body is.

खंती करिती कर्माची — they grieve about action — names a specific failure-pattern. Not "they refuse action" (which would be active defiance), but "they lament action" (which is the spiritual-tourist's failure: keeping the body, keeping the action, but lamenting the keeping). This is one of the most precise diagnostic-phrases in adhyāya 3. The chakra-skipper of 3.139 is not a fierce defier; he is a low-grade resenter, complaining about the action even as he goes through its motions. That is the spiritual-rustic.

The final गा ("look, then") is colloquial and warm — it pulls Arjuna back into intimate-address, closing the cluster's invective in a tone of teacherly familiarity rather than coldness. The teacher has been hard, but the disciple is still the disciple.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: parallel-image to 3.142 (गळां स्तन अजेचे / ajāgalastana). Both lines close the cluster's invective-register with concrete, faintly contemptuous rural-Marathi vocabulary. The pair brackets the cluster's negative-foil block. गांवढे (rustic) at 3.145 functions as the human-grade equivalent of the goat's-neck-teat: the chakra-skipper is not a sophisticated opponent but a rustic-of-perception.
Tukaram parallel: abhang 2744 (पोटासाठी खटपट anti-name-laziness) — thematic-resonance. Tukaram's structural rebuke is identical: you hustle for the stomach but for Rāma-Rāma your jaw locks. The body works hard for itself, but balks at its own due. Same diagnostic of inverted priority. Daily-quoted across Maharashtra. Substantive parallel.
Source citation: (empty — this is Jñāneśvar's own concrete-rural closure; the Sanskrit BG-3.16 does not name the chakra-skipper as "rustic," only as aghāyuḥ indriyārāmaḥ. The गांवढे move is Jñāneśvar's interpretive register-choice.)

Modern application

When you find yourself complaining about a duty you have already accepted — the job you took, the parent you committed to caring for, the partner you chose, the project you signed on to — and notice that you are neither refusing it nor performing it well, just grieving about it. The ovi is the mirror: this is the gāvaḍhē-pattern. Not refusal, not acceptance, but lament.
When you observe a person who has obvious privileges (the body, the resources, the position) but spends their inner life in a low-grade complaint about what their privileges require of them — and recognize the pattern without yet recognizing it in yourself. The ovi names what the pattern is.
When you have, today, in some small interaction, performed an obligation (returned a message, sent a payment, picked someone up) while internally lamenting that you had to do it. The ovi is the small mirror: even the small-lament is the gāvaḍhē-pattern. Not refused, not failed, just resented. The teaching is to either do it cleanly or stop pretending to do it.

Sādhanā

Today, identify one duty you have been internally lamenting while still going through its motions. Either do it cleanly (without the internal complaint), or, if you cannot drop the complaint, formally renegotiate the duty with whoever it is owed to. What you may not continue doing is the gāvaḍhē-thing — performing while lamenting. Either-or.

Arc

This closes the cluster. BG-3.17 (cluster 0114, यस्त्वात्मरतिरेव स्यात्) will open the only exception to the chakra-obligation: the one already at-rest-in-ātman, satisfied in ātman alone, for whom no further कार्य is. 3.16's universal indictment requires 3.17's exception-clause to be intellectually honest, and that seam between this cluster and the next is the chapter's next move.

Cluster summary

Core teaching. The one who does not keep turning the yajña-chakra — who, embodied, refuses to act in the svadharma-yajña mode — is sin-lived, sense-revelling, a burden on the earth; his birth and action both are fruitless, like an out-of-season cloud or the udder dangling at a goat's throat. Therefore, none should abandon their svadharma; the body and its duty arrive in a single flow, and those who grieve about action while holding the body are rustics.

Theme tags. BG-3.16 · yajna-chakra-failure-mode · aghayuh · indriyaramah · mogham-jivati · aja-galastana · ovi-as-invective · svadharma-re-affirmation.

Extended metaphors. Three. (a) The out-of-season cloud-mass (अभ्रपटल अकाळींचें, 3.141) — visually impressive, totally barren. (b) The goat's neck-teat (गळां स्तन अजेचे = Sanskrit ajāgalastana, 3.142) — the settled Vedānta-paribhāṣā illustration of a purposeless appendage, imported into rural Marathi. (c) The burden-on-the-earth (भार भूमीसी, 3.140) — the Puranic bhū-bhāra trope. All three together produce one of adhyāya 3's most concentrated invective-blocks.

Chapter arc position. The negative-foil that closes the BG 3.14–16 yajña-chakra block. After cluster 0112 (BG 3.14–15) names the cosmological chakra — anna → bhūta, parjanya → anna, yajña → parjanya, karma → yajña, brahma → karma — 0113 names the cost of stepping off the chakra. The chapter has now run: BG 3.4–7 diagnosis (clusters 0102–0105), BG 3.8 prescription (cluster 0106), BG 3.9–13 yajña-frame (clusters 0107–0111), BG 3.14–15 cosmological mechanism (cluster 0112), BG 3.16 failure-foil (this cluster). The block is complete; BG 3.17 will open the only exception.

Connects to next śloka. BG 3.17 (cluster 0114) opens the only exception to the yajña-chakra obligation: यस्त्वात्मरतिरेव स्यादात्मतृप्तश्च मानवः — except for the one already at-rest-in-ātman, satisfied in ātman alone, for whom no further कार्य is. 3.16's universal indictment (everyone-not-turning-the-chakra is mogham) requires 3.17's exception-clause to be intellectually honest; the seam between this cluster and the next is precisely that exception.

Method-note. Methodologically clean cluster. Three extended images all unfolded; the ajāgalastana identification at 3.142 is the cluster's most interesting cross-reference — a settled Sanskrit philosophical idiom domesticated into rural Marathi. Voice attribution is unusually strong: four Arjuna-vocatives across 8 ovis (धनुर्धरा 3.138, अर्जुना 3.141, पांडवा 3.143, सव्यसाची 3.145). Worth marking in notes/observations.md as (a) the cluster where Jñāneśvar's invective-register is fully visible (गांवढे, अजागलस्तन, भूमी-भार); (b) the position-3 (yajña) closure-anchor in the karma-yoga-arc; (c) the cluster that imports the Puranic bhū-bhāra trope at 3.140. Note on user-hypothesis: the brief mentioned BG-3.18 or 3.19 (tasmād asaktaḥ satatam) as the likely identification; the actual Sanskrit at 0113 is BG-3.16 (the chakra-skipper indictment). The 3.19 niṣkāma-karma anchor comes later in the chapter; this cluster does not contain it.