Timeless guidance for life's questions, from the Bhagavad Gītā, the Tirukkuṟaḷ and the Yoga Sūtras — each passage cited, and shown only where SevaCart can trace it.
This is not a chatbot and nothing here is generated. Every passage shown is real text from a source SevaCart already holds, selected by a reviewed mapping, and shown with its citation. Where a source has nothing to say about your situation, the page says so instead of finding a verse that nearly fits.
Vidura Nīti — SevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
Bhīṣma's counsel — SevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
Yakṣa Praśna — SevaCart's scripture library does not yet hold a citable passage of this work. It is reviewed and suitable — the text has not been entered, so there is nothing to quote and nothing has been substituted for it.
Chāṇakya Nīti — NO LOCATOR. Maxims attributed to Chāṇakya circulate widely with no edition behind them. Without a verse reference, printing one as scripture would manufacture the citation. Note also that Chāṇakya Nīti is not the Arthaśāstra — they are separate works and separate entries here, so the two cannot be conflated by accident.
Arthaśāstra — WRONG GENRE. A manual of statecraft: its counsel on rivals, leverage and force is addressed to a ruler managing a kingdom, and does not transfer to a devotee's difficulty with a colleague.
The Principal Upaniṣads — WRONG GENRE at the depth available. A mahāvākya is the summit of its Upaniṣad, not counsel for a difficulty, and selecting one to answer a personal problem flattens it. The Kaṭha carries the reflective load instead, because it can be quoted at enough length to keep a passage inside its own argument.
Rāmāyaṇa — WRONG GENRE, with a locator problem besides. Rāma's choices are narrative: what a character did under one dharma is not a rule for a devotee, and a card implying otherwise would teach the wrong thing about the epic.
Aṣṭāvakra Gītā — WRONG GENRE. Uncompromising Advaita addressed to a listener already established in it — Janaka is realised before the dialogue begins. "You were never bound" is true inside that dialogue and cruel outside it, and a person in grief or fear is not its audience.
Subhāṣita — NO LOCATOR, unevenly. Some verses name a work; others record only an anthology tradition with no verse. Quoting the collection wholesale would put well-cited and uncited verses on one card under one authority. Splitting it verse by verse is a content-authority pass.
The minor Gītās — NOT ONE WORK. This names several distinct texts — Guru Gītā, Devī Gītā, Śiva Gītā and others — and it must stay several: any future enablement gives each its own entry. A blended "other Gītās" source would erase the difference between a Śākta text and a Śaiva one.
Dharma Śāstra — NOT SUITABLE, and this is not a coverage gap to be closed. The smṛtis carry historically situated social and penal prescriptions, some ordered by birth and by sex. Surfacing those as personal guidance would put SevaCart on the wrong side of both Indian law and its own devotees. They belong in the library with their historical context intact.
Brahma Sūtras — WRONG GENRE. The sūtras adjudicate between readings of the Upaniṣads. They are a text about texts, and there is no honest route from one to a devotee's difficulty at work.
Your situation
On What is actually my responsibility — doing my own work badly, or someone else's well, one source in SevaCart's library speaks to this closely enough to cite. What follows is its perspective, not a decision.
Source perspectives
Bhagavad Gita
Mahabharata
Why this was shownThese three verses say the same difficult thing in three places: your own work done imperfectly is better than someone else's done well. 18.48 adds that no work is free of fault.
English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.
3.35Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.The Yoga of Action (Karma Yoga). Arjuna asks: if wisdom is superior, why must I act? Krishna answers - no one can refrain from action even for a moment. Action offered as yajna (sacrifice) does not bind. Doing one's own duty imperfectly is better than another's well performed.
English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.
18.47Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation (Moksha Sanyasa Yoga). The longest and concluding chapter. Sannyasa = renunciation of action; tyaga = renunciation of fruit. Krishna sums up all earlier teachings and ends with the supreme word: surrender all dharmas to me - I will free you from all sin.
सहजं कर्म कौन्तेय सदोषमपि न त्यजेत् ।
सर्वारम्भा हि दोषेण धूमेनाग्निरिवावृताः ॥
Transliteration
saha-jaṃ karma kaunteya sa-doṣam-api na tyajet | sarvārambhā hi doṣeṇa dhūmenāgnir-ivāvṛtāḥ ||
English translation pending source and rights review. The received text is shown above.
18.48Spoken by Krishna to Arjuna.
SevaCart’s reflection
Written by SevaCart, not by the source above.
The Gītā keeps returning to svadharma — the work that is actually yours by nature and situation — and it is blunt that yours will be flawed. Every undertaking is wrapped in some fault, it says, as fire is wrapped in smoke. That is offered not as an excuse but as a reason not to abandon your own work while waiting for a version of it you could do cleanly.
What it does not mean
It is not a defence of doing your work badly, and it is not a statement that your role is fixed by birth or that you may never change what you do. It addresses abandoning the work in front of you for one that looks cleaner. Note also how 3.35 ends — better death in one's own duty. That is emphasis, in a text spoken before a battle, and it is not an instruction to endure something that is harming you.
Is this yours, or are you carrying it because nobody else has?
Are you comparing your real work to someone else's from the outside?
What would doing this imperfectly, but doing it, look like?
One thing you could do
List what in this is yours to do and what belongs to someone else, and say so to them.
What this is not
This is reflection, not a ruling. Nothing here decides anything for you.
The passages are shown under their own source. Where SevaCart has added an application, it is labelled as SevaCart's words, not the text's.
Where a passage shows no English, its translation is withheld pending source and rights review — not missing. The original text is shown as the library holds it.
Different sources answer differently. Where they do, both readings are shown rather than merged.
Corpus 7a532a24 · mappings 1.0.0 · reference sc_xt7sf1