Karma-yoga as Sacrifice:

Tracing the Continuity of Ideas from the Vedas to the Mahābhārata

Abstract

The article "Karma-yoga as Sacrifice: Tracing the Continuity of Ideas from the Vedas to the Mahābhārata" by Irina Kuznetsova examines how the concept of karma-yoga in the Bhagavad Gītā continues and transforms the Vedic notion of yajña (sacrifice) within Indian religious thought. Drawing on the frameworks of scholars like Biardeau, Heesterman, and Sementsov, Kuznetsova identifies three historical-philosophical phases: early Vedic ritualism, the abstract unity of the Upaniṣads, and the synthesis achieved in the Gītā. She argues that the Gītā creatively integrates these earlier views by reconceiving sacrifice as intentional action performed without attachment to results. In this reinterpretation, karma-yoga becomes the ritual of internalized offering, allowing worldly engagement to become a spiritual path. Kuznetsova thus shows how the Mahābhārata articulates a non-dualistic resolution to the tension between renunciation and action through its vision of sacrificial ethics.