संन्यासं कर्मणां कृष्ण पुनर्योगं च शंससि ।यच्छ्रेय एतयोरेकं तन्मे ब्रूहि सुनिश्चितम्॥
sannyāsaṃ karmaṇāṃ kṛṣṇa punar yogaṃ ca śansasiyac chreya etayor ekaṃ tan me brūhi su-niścitam
Word by word
The verse says
Arjuna said: You praise setting action down, Krishna, and then you praise the practice of action. Tell me plainly which one of these is better.
In plain words
Arjuna asks the same question for the third time.
He asked it at the start of Chapter 3. He got an answer. Chapter 4 ended without naming either side.
So he asks again, and this time he wants one word.
Where you've felt this · in study
You ask your tutor whether to work through past papers or go back over the theory. She says both matter. The next week you ask again and she says the same thing. You are not being slow. You have an exam in March and you need to know what to do on Saturday morning.
Going deeper
Asking three times is not stupidity, and Arjuna deserves crediting rather than sighing at.
The fork is between saṁnyāsa — setting down, renouncing — and karma-yoga, the practice of action. Chapter 3 opened on exactly this question and Chapter 4 closed without picking a side.
From a distance that refusal looks like depth. From inside a chariot, with an army waiting, it looks like being left without an instruction.
So the pressure in the question is honest. He is not testing Krishna. He is a man who has to do something today and has been handed two descriptions of a good life.
And the answer, when it comes in the next verse, is unusually direct. It is one of the few places in the book where Krishna simply ranks two things and moves on.