Cluster 0119 — BG 3.22 (न मे पार्थाऽस्ति कर्तव्यं — The Divine Exemplar of Svadharma)

BG-3.22

Cluster 0118 (BG-3.21) stated the general-mechanism: यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठः ... लोकस्तदनुवर्तते — whatever the great-one does, the rest follow; whatever standard he sets, the world adopts. The mechanism was named in the abstract: there is a class of person (the śreṣṭha) whose action sets the world's measure. BG-3.22 makes the specific-identification: and I am that one.

Four Marathi ovis (3.160–3.163) elaborate the move. 3.160 names the speaker as the exemplar (देखैं मीच इये राहाटी । वर्तत असें — behold, I myself dwell in this practice). 3.161 raises the natural objection in advance (काय सांकडें कांहीं मातें ... आचरें मी धर्मातें म्हणसी जरी — if you say what compulsion is on him? by what desire does he practice dharma?). 3.162 makes the positive-recast (पुरतेपणालागीं । आणिकु दुसरा नाहीं जगीं । ऐसी सामुग्री माझ्या अंगीं — for completeness, there is no other in the world; such fullness-of-resources is in my person). 3.163 seals the argument by witnessed-evidence: मृत गुरुपुत्र आणिला । तो तुवां पवाडा देखिला — the dead son of the guru I brought back; that miracle you yourself saw — and yet, the verse closes, तोही मी उगला । कर्मीं वर्तें — even that I, quietly, dwell in action.

The 3.163 reference is to the canonical gurudakṣiṇā-līlā: Kṛṣṇa, on completing his studies at the āśrama of his guru Sāndīpani (Sāndīpani in Sakhare's tradition, Sandīpani elsewhere), is asked by the guru — as his teacher's fee — to retrieve his dead son. Kṛṣṇa descends to Yamaloka and (in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.45.31–49 recension) crosses the ocean to slay the demon Pañcajana, returns the son alive, and presents him to the guru. The episode is one of the foundational Kṛṣṇa-līlās demonstrating that for him the question of need does not apply: he can do anything, attain anything; nothing he has not already attained could be attained. Jñāneśvar does not retell the episode — he names it by its essential structure (the dead-guru-son was brought back) and trusts Arjuna's prior knowledge to do the rest.

The argumentative structure is unusual in adhyāya 3. The chapter has, until now, run on cosmological-mechanism (BG 3.9–15, the yajña-chakra), on negative-foil (BG 3.16, the chakra-skipper), on exception-clause (BG 3.17, the ātmaratiḥ exception), and on śreṣṭha-mechanism in the abstract (BG 3.20–21). BG-3.22 is the first verse of adhyāya 3 grounded in Kṛṣṇa-biography rather than in doctrine — the appeal to a witnessed-event (पवाडा देखिला) does the work that no further doctrinal-argument could do. The exemplar is not asserted; he is shown, and the disciple is asked to recall what he already knows.

Stage-thread: this cluster is the position-2 (svadharma) third-strike anchor in the karma-yoga-arc. The position was first opened at 3.78–3.80 (cluster 0106) with the BG-3.8 prescription नियतं कुरु कर्म त्वं (perform your fitting action). It was re-affirmed at 3.143 (cluster 0113) as the chapter's positive-imperative under the negative-foil's shadow. It is now anchored a third time — but with a radical interpretive twist: not as a duty laid on the disciple, but as a practice modeled by the divine. The śreṣṭha of BG-3.21 is identified as Kṛṣṇa; the svadharma-doctrine is now grounded in divine-example, not merely in social-mechanism. 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 → position 3 closure at 3.139 → position 2 re-affirmation at 3.143 → position 2 divine-exemplar grounding at 3.160 / 3.163.

Ovi 3.160

Original (Marathi): आतां आणिकांचिया गोठी । कायशा सांगों किरीटी । देखैं मीच इये राहाटी । वर्तत असें ॥१६०॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (explicit Arjuna-vocative किरीटी — "O Crown-bearer", and emphatic first-person subject मीच — "I myself")

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
आतां	now
आणिकांचिया गोठी	the affairs / talk of others
कायशा सांगों	why should I tell / what is there to tell
किरीटी	O Crown-bearer (epithet for Arjuna, derived from the diadem Indra gave him)
देखैं	behold / look
मीच	I-myself (emphatic)
इये राहाटी	in this practice / in this customary-way / in this routine
वर्तत असें	I am dwelling / I continue to be engaged

Literal translation

English: "Now what should I tell you of the affairs of others, O Crown-bearer? Behold — I myself am dwelling in this practice."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "आता दुसर्‍यांच्या गोष्टी काय सांगू तुला, किरीटी? पाहा — मीच या प्रथेमध्ये, या रिवाजात, वर्तत आहे."

This ovi makes the exemplar-claim of BG-3.22. The previous cluster (0118, BG-3.21) named the general-mechanism in third-person abstract: whatever the great-one does, the rest follow. The opening turn here — आणिकांचिया गोठी ... कायशा सांगों (why should I keep talking about others?) — is the rhetorical pivot from third-person-abstract to first-person-specific. The śreṣṭha of BG-3.21 is now identified.

Three Marathi choices carry the work. First, देखैं (behold) is the demonstrative-of-witness: the disciple is being asked not to consider an argument but to look. Second, मीच (I-myself, with emphatic -च suffix) makes the subject load-bearing — it is not someone like me, not a teacher among teachers, but precisely-this-speaker. Third, राहाटी is a Marathi word for daily-routine, customary-way, the practice-as-lived-in (the verb राहणे, to dwell, sits in its root). This matters: Kṛṣṇa is not naming a doctrine he upholds in some special-ceremonial register; he is naming the practice of his ordinary action. The Sanskrit verb वर्ते is preserved as वर्तत असें, and the whole construction is in the continuous-present — I am [right now, continuously] dwelling in.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. (राहाटी is a Marathi domestic-routine word, not a Nāth-tantric kriyā-reference.)

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.158 (cluster 0118, BG-3.21). The general-mechanism's श्रेष्ठ is now identified as Kṛṣṇa himself, by first-person self-reference. The structural seam between the two clusters is precisely this identification.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram's bhakta-stance corpus does not include divine-self-reference at the I-myself-am-the-exemplar register. The closest structural analogue would be the avatāra-claim of BG-4.7-8 (saṃbhavāmi yuge yuge), which Tukaram echoes in trust-prayer rather than in self-claim. Not a substantive parallel to this ovi's specific move.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.22 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit वर्त एव च कर्मणि → Marathi देखैं मीच इये राहाटी । वर्तत असें. The verb वर्त is preserved verbatim across the languages; the demonstrative देखैं and the emphatic मीच are Jñāneśvar's interpretive additions, which clarify that the Sanskrit eva (the particle of emphasis) attaches to the speaker, not merely to the verb.

Modern application

When you have spent a long meeting laying out a standard of conduct (a code-review norm, a meeting-discipline, a parenting rule) and the temptation is now to close the meeting with a final third-person formulation. The ovi suggests a different close: and let me show you what I do, day-to-day, in this same practice. Without that close, the standard hangs in the air as imposition.
When you are advising someone who suspects (rightly) that the standards you are recommending are standards you don't yourself live by. The ovi's move is the only one that lands: stop generalizing, name the specifics of your own daily-routine in the practice in question. If you cannot point to specifics, the standards are not yours to recommend.
When you read a teacher's text and find yourself wondering whether the teacher lives the doctrine. The ovi names that worry as ancient and legitimate, and demonstrates how it is dispatched: by direct first-person testimony that asks to be looked at, not merely heard.

Sādhanā

Today, identify one practice or standard you have lately been recommending to someone in your life (a child, a partner, a colleague, a younger friend). Without telling them, audit yourself against it for the next 24 hours. At day's end, note honestly: am I in a position to use the देखैं मीच move on this point, or am I still in आणिकांचिया गोठी territory? Whichever answer comes, let it correct your speech tomorrow.

Arc

Having named himself as the exemplar, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.161 anticipates the natural objection — if you have nothing pressing you, no want pulling you, why do you act at all?

Ovi 3.161

Original (Marathi): काय सांकडें कांहीं मातें । कीं कवणें एकें आर्तें । आचरें मी धर्मातें । म्हणसी जरी ॥१६१॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (Kṛṣṇa voicing the disciple's potential question — the construction म्हणसी जरी means "if you say [...]", marking the rest as the imagined-objection Kṛṣṇa is putting into Arjuna's mouth, not a voice-shift)

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
काय सांकडें कांहीं मातें	what compulsion / pressure / constraint is on me at all?
कीं	or
कवणें एकें आर्तें	by some one longing / felt-lack
आचरें मी धर्मातें	I practice dharma
म्हणसी जरी	if you say / if you would say

Literal translation

English: "If you should say: 'What constraint is on him at all? By what one longing does he practice dharma?' ..."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "जर तू असे म्हणालास — 'त्याच्यावर काय बंधन आहे? कोणत्या एका तीव्र-इच्छेमुळे तो धर्म आचरतो?' — तर..."

This ovi performs a precise rhetorical move: it anticipates the objection and names it in the disciple's mouth before he can voice it. The construction म्हणसी जरी (if you would say) is the standard Old-Marathi grammar for putting a hypothetical question to the interlocutor's lips. Jñāneśvar's craft here is to take the Sanskrit verse's compressed bi-negation — न ... कर्तव्यं ... नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यं (nothing-to-be-done, nothing-unattained-to-be-attained) — and unpack it into the precise two-question form a disciple would actually ask.

The two questions map onto the two Sanskrit negations cleanly: - काय सांकडें (what compulsion?) ↔ कर्तव्यम् (something obligatory) - कवणें एकें आर्तें (by what one felt-lack?) ↔ अवाप्तव्यम् (something to-be-attained)

The Marathi आर्तें is interpretively rich: it names not a desire-in-the-abstract but a felt-longing, a specific aching for some-particular-thing. The disciple's imagined objection is not why do you act if you have no general goal, but why do you act if no particular thing pulls you. The granularity is significant: the verse is denying not goal-directedness-in-general but the presence of any unfulfilled aching whatever.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: (empty — this is the rhetorical-objection-naming move; the answer comes in 3.162-3.163.)
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram's self-disclosure register does not include the move of voicing the listener's objection in advance; his rhetoric is direct-petition or direct-rebuke, not anticipated-debate.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.22 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit न मे ... अस्ति कर्तव्यम् → Marathi काय सांकडें कांहीं मातें; Sanskrit नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यम् → Marathi कवणें एकें आर्तें. The two negations are unpacked into a two-question form that preserves the Sanskrit's specific bi-structure rather than collapsing them into one.

Modern application

When you are presenting an unusual decision to colleagues — leaving a senior role, refusing an obvious promotion, taking a sabbatical — and you know they are silently asking what is he running from? what is he reaching for? The ovi's move is to name both questions aloud, in their own grammar, before answering: if you are wondering whether some constraint pushes me or some longing pulls me — let me speak to both.
When you teach (a class, a junior, a child) and a question is forming on the learner's face that you can already see. The ovi suggests: voice the question for them. Not to display perception but to clear the air for the answer to land.
When a friend has done something you don't understand, and your impulse is either to demand an explanation or to silently judge. The ovi's structure offers a third path: name the two questions you actually have (what compelled? what wanted?) — name them carefully, as the verse does — and let the friend answer either or both. Most disagreements survive on under-articulated questions.

Sādhanā

Today, when you next find yourself about to ask someone why did you do X, pause and split the question first into what pressed you to do X and what pulled you toward X. Ask both, separately. Notice how the conversation that follows differs from the one that would have followed the single fused question.

Arc

Having named the objection, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.162 answers the second half of it (the alleged longing) with the positive-recast: there is no one in the world to make me complete, because the completeness-equipment is already in my person.

Ovi 3.162

Original (Marathi): तरी पुरतेपणालागीं । आणिकु दुसरा नाहीं जगीं । ऐसी सामुग्री माझ्या अंगीं । जाणसी तूं ॥१६२॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (second-person address sustained — जाणसी तूं "you yourself know")

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
तरी	then / well [as answer to the imagined objection]
पुरतेपणालागीं	for the sake of completeness / for making-full-and-sufficient
आणिकु दुसरा नाहीं जगीं	there is no other, no second, in the world
ऐसी सामुग्री	such fullness-of-equipment / such resources
माझ्या अंगीं	in my person / on my body / in my own being
जाणसी तूं	you-yourself know

Literal translation

English: "Well — for completeness, no other is in the world; such fullness-of-equipment is on my person; you yourself know it."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "तर — पूर्णतेसाठी, माझ्या उपरांत दुसरा कोणीच जगात नाही; अशी संपूर्ण साधन-सामग्री माझ्याच ठिकाणी आहे; हे तू जाणतोस."

This ovi answers the second half of 3.161's imagined objection — the कवणें एकें आर्तें (by what one felt-lack?) question. The answer is the positive-recast of the Sanskrit's नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यम् (nothing-unattained-to-be-attained): there is no completeness-bringer outside me, because the completeness-bringing equipment is already in my person.

Three Marathi choices carry the answer. First, पुरतेपण is one of Jñāneśvar's signature compounds — derived from पुरते (sufficient, full, completed) with the abstract-noun suffix -पण, it names fullness-as-state in a register that the Marathi householder feels in his own kitchen: the rice-pot full enough for the family, the granary stocked enough for the season. The divine-fullness is rendered in domestic terms, not in transcendental abstraction. Second, सामुग्री (Sanskrit सामग्री) names equipment, materials, the complete set-of-things-required-for-a-task — Kṛṣṇa is saying he does not need to seek any further resource because the full kit is on him. Third, जाणसी तूं (you-yourself know) is the rhetorical seal: the answer is not an assertion to be accepted on faith but a recognition Arjuna already has — you know this, the verse says, because you have been around me long enough.

The structural move is to convert Sanskrit's negative formulation (nothing-unattained) into a positive one (full-equipment-in-my-person) — and to do so in vocabulary that is concrete (पुरतेपण, सामुग्री) rather than abstract. The disciple now has both halves of the answer to his imagined objection: no compulsion presses, no want pulls, because completeness is already constituted in the speaker's very being.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi. (The kitchen / household resonance of पुरतेपण and सामुग्री is a register-shift, not an extended image; the words do their work as direct-vocabulary rather than as developed-comparison.)

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.160 — the exemplar-claim of 3.160 (देखैं मीच) is now grounded in the metaphysical fullness-claim of 3.162 (पुरतेपणालागीं आणिकु दुसरा नाहीं). Kṛṣṇa acts not despite having no need but because the question of need does not apply to him.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram's fullness-vocabulary (e.g. पुरे आता abhang-traditions, the अनंत भांडार motif at abhang 2629) is held by the bhakta about the sant-or-Deva, not spoken by Deva of himself. Structurally adjacent but stance-inverted; not a substantive parallel.)
Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 3.22 — paraphrase. Sanskrit नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यम् is positive-recast as पुरतेपणालागीं आणिकु दुसरा नाहीं जगीं । ऐसी सामुग्री माझ्या अंगीं. The Marathi adds the household-virtue compound पुरतेपण and the equipment-noun सामुग्री, neither present in the Sanskrit.

Modern application

When someone you respect makes an unusual choice (refuses a high-status role, leaves a successful enterprise, declines an honor) and you assume there must be some hidden goal or undisclosed limitation. The ovi's answer-form lets you imagine a different possibility: that for some people the question of goal-and-limit simply does not apply — they have the full kit, the सामुग्री, and act from completeness rather than from lack.
When you are tempted to explain your own action by some lack you are trying to fill (the title you don't yet have, the validation you are still waiting for). The ovi proposes a different self-narrative for occasional adoption: what if, today, this one action were performed from the position of having-the-full-kit rather than from the position of seeking? Even rehearsing it changes the action.
When advising a younger person about a major decision (marriage, career, move-of-city) and they keep asking but what should I be trying to achieve? The ovi suggests an underused move: ask them what part of the kit they imagine they are missing, then check whether that missing-piece is real or imagined. Often the kit is already on the person; the seeking-frame masks the fullness.

Sādhanā

Today, before the next significant action (a hard conversation, a difficult email, a creative task you've been postponing), ask once: is there something I am trying to get out of this, or am I doing it from fullness? Whatever the honest answer is, name it inwardly before beginning. If the answer is "from lack," at least the action proceeds with that lucidity. If the answer is "from fullness," the action will be felt differently in its own happening.

Arc

Having stated the structural absence of lack, Kṛṣṇa now in 3.163 seals the argument with witnessed-evidence: the gurudakṣiṇā-līlā, which Arjuna himself saw.

Ovi 3.163

Original (Marathi): मृत गुरुपुत्र आणिला । तो तुवां पवाडा देखिला । तोही मी उगला । कर्मीं वर्तें ॥१६३॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (sustained — तुवां "by you" addressing Arjuna directly, and मी ... वर्तें "I ... continue")

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
मृत गुरुपुत्र	the dead son of the guru
आणिला	[I] brought / fetched / returned
तो तुवां	that, by you
पवाडा	feat / marvel / miracle (a Marathi word retained in modern usage for a heroic deed, especially a saint's recounted miracle)
देखिला	[was] seen / [you] saw
तोही मी	even that-very I
उगला	quietly / silently / without-fuss
कर्मीं वर्तें	I dwell in action

Literal translation

English: "The dead son of the guru — I brought back; that marvel you yourself saw. And yet that very I, quietly, continue in action."

मराठी (आधुनिक): "गुरूचा मेलेला मुलगा मी आणला; तो चमत्कार तू स्वतः पाहिलास. आणि तरी तोच मी, मूकपणे, कर्मात राहतो."

This ovi is the evidentiary seal of the cluster's argument. The doctrine has been laid (3.160: I-am-the-exemplar; 3.161: but-if-you-doubt; 3.162: completeness-is-on-my-person). What seals the doctrine is not further argument but appeal to a witnessed-event.

The मृत गुरुपुत्र आणिला reference is to the canonical gurudakṣiṇā-līlā: Kṛṣṇa, on completing his education at the āśrama of his guru Sāndīpani, is asked for his teacher's-fee. Sāndīpani's son had drowned in the ocean at Prabhāsa (in the Bhāgavata recension; some traditions place the death at Kāśī or at Yamaloka). Kṛṣṇa descends, slays the demon Pañcajana who had taken the boy, retrieves him from Yama's court, and presents him alive to the guru as the dakṣiṇā. The episode is one of the foundational Kṛṣṇa-līlās demonstrating his omnipotence — he can fetch a soul from Yama himself; he can do anything; the question of need does not apply to him. The episode is canonically narrated at Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.45.31–49 and recapitulated across the Harivamśa and Viṣṇu Purāṇa.

Jñāneśvar's reference is in echo-mode, not direct-quotation. He names the event by its essential structure (मृत गुरुपुत्र आणिला) without retelling, and trusts Arjuna's prior knowledge to do the rest. The word पवाडा (feat, marvel, miraculous-deed) is the standard Marathi word for a saint's recounted miracle — and applied here to Kṛṣṇa it imports the sense of a publicly-attested act, the kind of event that becomes part of common-report in the world. The witness-claim तुवां ... देखिला (by you, [it was] seen) is biographically realist: Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa are lifelong intimates, and the līlā would have been part of either common-knowledge or direct-recounting between them.

The closing two lines carry the argument's seal: तोही मी उगला । कर्मीं वर्तें — and even that very I (the one who returned the dead, the one capable of any feat) quietly, dwells in action. The Marathi उगला (quietly, silently, without-fuss) is the load-bearing word: the same speaker who can perform the impossible chooses the routine. The exemplar is not constituted by his capacity-for-miracle but by his quietness in routine action — the same kind of action the disciple is being asked to take up. This is the verse's deepest move: divinity is shown not by the spectacular feat but by the willing return to ordinary practice after the feat. The disciple is not being asked to attempt the miracle; he is being asked to share the post-miracle stance.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi. (The गुरुपुत्र-restoration is named in echo-mode, not unfolded as image; पवाडा is a register-word for the witnessed-feat, not a developed comparison.)

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.160 — the exemplar-claim (देखैं मीच इये राहाटी । वर्तत असें) is now sealed by the witnessed-event evidentiary parallel (तोही मी उगला । कर्मीं वर्तें). The same I who can do anything chooses the ordinary practice.
Tukaram parallel: (empty — Tukaram's miracle-corpus is held about Kṛṣṇa-līlās (e.g. abhang 2540 on Kṛṣṇa's protection of sparrows at Kurukṣetra) but not in the rhetorical form of Kṛṣṇa-speaking-of-his-own-miracle-as-evidence-for-action-without-need. Not a substantive parallel.)
Source citation: Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10.45.31–49 — echo. The gurudakṣiṇā-līlā: Kṛṣṇa retrieves the dead son of his guru Sāndīpani from the ocean / from Yamaloka and presents him alive as the teacher's fee. Jñāneśvar names the event by its essential structure (मृत गुरुपुत्र आणिला) without retelling. Parallel recensions: Harivamśa Viṣṇuparvan 35; Viṣṇu Purāṇa 5.21.

Modern application

When someone you know to be exceptionally capable (in their field, in their family, in their inner life) continues to do the small daily things that anyone could do — the school-run, the routine email, the slow weekly ritual — and you find yourself wondering why they don't reserve themselves for the spectacular. The ovi diagnoses the wondering: the spectacular is not where the practice is. The post-miracle quietness is the practice.
When you have done one impressive thing — a paper, a project, a public talk — and now the temptation is to leverage that into exemption from the ordinary. The ovi cuts cleanly: the exceptional capacity is precisely what makes the ordinary practice load-bearing, not exempting. तोही मी उगला कर्मीं वर्तें — the very-same one continues, quietly, in action.
When trying to discern whether a teacher / saint / public figure is the real thing, the ovi offers a diagnostic that complements but does not replace its predecessors. Look at the post-miracle stance. Anyone can perform a feat once. Whether the feat-performer returns, quietly, to the ordinary practice — that is the available marker.

Sādhanā

Today, find one task in your day that you consider beneath your current level of capacity — a chore, a piece of paperwork, a small attentive act of cleaning or maintenance. Do it with the same care you would bring to your most demanding work. Notice once, during the doing, the inner movement that resists. That movement is what उगला undoes.

Arc

Having sealed the divine-exemplar argument with the witnessed-event, the verse closes. BG-3.23–24 (cluster 0120) will turn from the negative-evidence (no-need-on-my-side) to the positive-consequence (yet-the-worlds-require-it): if I did not act, all these worlds would dissolve. Together, BG-3.22 and BG-3.23–24 form the divine-exemplar's full argument — action without lack is the structure of the divine itself, and that is what the disciple is being asked to emulate.

Cluster summary

Core teaching: Kṛṣṇa identifies himself as the śreṣṭha of BG-3.21 by living example: nothing in the three worlds presses on him as duty, nothing unattained pulls him toward attainment, and yet he continues in action — proven not by argument but by reference to the witnessed gurudakṣiṇā-līlā (returning the dead son of Sāndīpani), the canonical demonstration that the question of "need" does not apply to him.

Theme tags: BG-3.22, krishna-as-shreshtha, svadharma-third-strike, exemplar-by-deed, guru-putra-restoration, purnata-as-supulta, anavapta-avaptavya, rashati-as-routine-practice.

Contains extended metaphor: No. The cluster operates in pure argumentative-rhetorical register — unusual in adhyāya 3, which has otherwise been image-dense.

Chapter arc position: Following the 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 (cluster 0113), BG 3.17–19 ātmaratiḥ exception + return-to-action (clusters 0114–0116), and BG 3.20–21 śreṣṭha-mechanism (clusters 0117–0118), BG 3.22 lands the divine-exemplar grounding. The chapter has just generalized that the great-one's act sets the standard; this verse names the generalizing speaker as the great-one.

Connects to next śloka: BG 3.23–24 (cluster 0120) will make the consequence-claim explicit: यदि ह्यहं न वर्तेयं ... उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोकाः — if I did not act, the worlds would collapse. The seam between this cluster and the next is precisely the move from negative-evidence (no-need on my side) to positive-consequence (yet-the-worlds-require-it). Together, 3.22 and 3.23–24 form the divine-exemplar's full argument: action without lack is the structure of the divine itself, and that is what the disciple is being asked to emulate.