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124 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY low.' It attaches little or no value to the intrinsic worth of the deed that is done by any person, so long as it is his own dharma (sva-dharma). The word sva-dharma may bear a wide significance but, as required by the particular context and as specified more than once in the course of the book, it means chiefly, though not solely, the duties incumbent upon the main classes into which society is divided. In other words, it is social obligations mainly that are asked here to be discharged-such as are calculated to secure and preserve the solidarity of society. It is a proof of the severely practical character of the teaching contained in the book that it does not attempt to describe these duties any further. It realizes the impossibility of detailing the acts appropriate to every station in life, and leaves their determination to the good sense or immediate judgment of the individual. There is an attempt made in one or two places to indicate what these obligations are, but only in a general way. It may be thought that the mere injunction that one should do one's dharma leaves the matter vague. But we must remember that in the relatively simple organization of the society when the teaching was formulated, the duties of the several classes were known fairly clearly. In the present case at any rate, there is no doubt as to what the svadharma of Arjuna is. The prominence given to relative duties, such as depend upon the position in society of the individual, show by the way that the treatment which the problem of conduct receives here is, as we remarked before, only partial. There is, for example, no allusion to what may be described as 'right in itself' except incidentally, as in distinguishing the worthy from the wicked—the two broad classes into which the book in one of its sections divides the whole of mankind.3 It emphasizes the social character of man, and, generally speaking, declines to look upon him apart from the community of which he is a member.
From what we have stated so far, it appears that a karmayogin works without a purpose in view. No voluntary activity, however, seems conceivable without some motive or other. Will without desire, it has been said, is a fiction. 1 xviii. 47-8. • ii. 31-8; xviii. 41-4.
3 Ch. xvi.
