“The yogi is greater than the ascetics (tapasvins), greater than the men of knowledge, and greater than the men of ritual action (karmins) — therefore, Arjuna, be a yogi.” The karmin here is the ritualist who acts for results, however pious; the tapasvin the austerity-doer; the jñānī of this verse the merely learned. The yogi is set above them all not because their paths are worthless but because the yogi has taken the essence of each — the karmin's action, the jñānī's knowledge, the tapasvin's discipline — and married it to the surrender of the fruit. He is the synthesis, not a rival.