---
type: Concept
bundle: dharmic-ethics
bundle_version: "0.5.0"
id: ishvara-pranidhana
title: "Īśvara-Praṇidhāna — Surrender of Action and Fruit to the Lord"
iast: "īśvara-praṇidhāna"
devanagari: "ईश्वरप्रणिधान"
description: "The offering of all one's actions, and their fruits, to the Lord as a yogic discipline; the fifth niyama and third limb of kriyā-yoga. Not submission to a deity out of fear, not the bhakti self-surrender of śaraṇāgati, and not the metaphysics of Īśvara treated in the yoga bundle."
darshana:
  - Yoga Darśana
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
school_scope: "Fifth niyama (YS 2.32, 2.45) and third limb of kriyā-yoga (YS 2.1). The THIRD treatment of surrender / Īśvara-relation in the library; must be kept distinct from bhakti śaraṇāgati and from the Sāṃkhya-Yoga doctrine of Īśvara (ishvara-yoga)."
text_source: "YS 2.45, 2.1, 1.23"
tags:
  - ishvara-pranidhana
  - niyama
  - surrender
  - tier-2
not:
  - term: "submission (out of fear)"
    why: "submission to a deity from fear seeks safety by appeasement; īśvara-praṇidhāna is the calm offering of one's actions and their fruits as a discipline that quiets the ego, its fruit being absorption (samādhi-siddhi, YS 2.45), not divine favor purchased by obedience"
    instead: "Render īśvara-praṇidhāna as the offering of action and its fruit to the Lord as a yogic discipline; not as fearful submission."
  - term: "śaraṇāgati (bhakti surrender)"
    why: "śaraṇāgati (bhakti-marga) is total loving self-surrender that is itself the means and the goal of the devotional path; īśvara-praṇidhāna is one niyama among several, a yogic limb that loosens egoic attachment to outcomes, related but not identical, a discipline within yoga rather than the whole way of bhakti"
  - term: "Īśvara (the Yoga doctrine of the Lord)"
    why: "ishvara-yoga (yoga-darśana) treats what Īśvara IS, a special unafflicted puruṣa, the first teacher; īśvara-praṇidhāna is a PRACTICE, what the yogī DOES, the act of offering, not the metaphysics of the one offered to"
  - term: "resignation / fatalism"
    why: "fatalism abandons effort to fate; īśvara-praṇidhāna offers the fruit of full effort, so one acts completely and surrenders the result, the opposite of not acting"
related:
  - /concepts/tapas.md
  - /concepts/svadhyaya.md
  - /concepts/nishkama-karma.md
  - /concepts/santosha.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Īśvara-Praṇidhāna — ईश्वरप्रणिधान

**Not:** submission (out of fear), śaraṇāgati (bhakti surrender), Īśvara (the Yoga doctrine of the Lord), resignation / fatalism

Īśvara-praṇidhāna is the offering of all one's actions and their fruits to the Lord, taken up as a yogic discipline. As the fifth niyama and the third limb of kriyā-yoga, it loosens the ego's grip on outcomes by laying both the deed and its result at a reality larger than the self.

## Etymology

A compound of *īśvara* (the Lord, the capable one; from √*īś*, to rule, to be master) + *praṇidhāna* (placing down before, application, profound offering; *pra* + *ni* + √*dhā*, to set down). The image is of setting one's whole activity down before the Lord, a laying-before rather than a giving-up.

## What It Actually Means

Patañjali gives īśvara-praṇidhāna two roles. As the third limb of kriyā-yoga (YS 2.1), alongside tapas and svādhyāya, it is the surrender that completes disciplined effort and study. As the fifth niyama (YS 2.45), its fruit is the attainment of samādhi: the offering of self-will dissolves the agitation of the ego enough that absorption becomes possible. Earlier (YS 1.23) Patañjali names īśvara-praṇidhāna as itself a direct route to the goal. So this is not piety added on top of yoga; it is a yogic technique whose effect is the quieting of the I that obstructs absorption.

## The Third Treatment of Surrender (a Disambiguation to Keep)

This concept is the library's third treatment of surrender and the Lord-relation, and an agent holding several bundles must keep all three distinct.

| Bundle | Concept | What it names |
|--------|---------|---------------|
| `okf/yoga-darshana/` | `ishvara-yoga` | the metaphysics of Īśvara: a special, ever-free puruṣa, the first teacher (what Īśvara IS) |
| `okf/bhakti-marga/` | `sharanagati` | total loving self-surrender as the very means and goal of the devotional path |
| `okf/dharmic-ethics/` (this bundle) | `ishvara-pranidhana` | a yogic discipline: offering action and fruit to the Lord to loosen the ego (what the yogī DOES) |

Īśvara-praṇidhāna is a practice within aṣṭāṅga yoga; śaraṇāgati is the whole posture of the bhakta; ishvara-yoga is a doctrine about the Lord. Same neighborhood of words, three different things.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Submission out of fear" and "resignation" both read surrender as either appeasement or the abandonment of effort, when īśvara-praṇidhāna is the offering of fully engaged action. Collapsing it into bhakti's śaraṇāgati erases the difference between one yogic limb and an entire path; collapsing it into the Yoga doctrine of Īśvara confuses a practice with a metaphysics.

## Cross-References
- [Tapas](tapas.md) — with svādhyāya, the three limbs of kriyā-yoga (YS 2.1)
- [Svādhyāya](svadhyaya.md) — study and surrender are the inward two of the three kriyā-yoga limbs
- [Niṣkāma-Karma](nishkama-karma.md) — offering the fruit to the Lord and renouncing attachment to the fruit are kindred movements
- [Santoṣa](santosha.md) — surrender of outcomes and contentment with what comes are one motion

## Audience Metaphor

Think of a singer who finally stops watching the audience. As long as the performer is calculating the applause, every note is half-strangled by self-consciousness, and the ego stands between the singer and the song. The moment the singer offers the whole performance up, to the music itself, to something beyond the verdict, the voice opens and the singing becomes effortless. Īśvara-praṇidhāna is that letting-go offered as a discipline: not singing worse, not refusing to sing, but laying down the anxious self that was managing the result, so that what remains can finally pour through.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtra](/references/yoga-sutra.md) 1.23, 2.1, 2.32, 2.45 — īśvara-praṇidhāna as a direct route, a kriyā-yoga limb, and the fifth niyama whose fruit is samādhi
2. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 9.27, 12.6-7 — offering all action to the Lord and the grace that meets it
3. [Manusmṛti](/references/manusmriti.md) — the dedication of works to the Lord among the duties of the disciplined
