in the isha upanishad commitment to ritual duties (called "worship of ignorance") is said to be better than devotion to rote knowledge (called "worship of knowledge" to provide a deliberate contradiction where knowledge is more damning than ignorance) because karma is a great teacher and leads to less ignorant rebirths while partial knowledge or knowledge for its own sake (that doesnt lead to dharma or moksha) is a form of ignorance. but taken together, performance of duties and rote learning, or karma with devotion to studies, shows knowledge and its application, or true knowledge, and one can cross over the ocean of samsara by this. this is obviously meant to be analogous to vedic sacrifices (karma kanda) combined with learning the upanishads (jnana kanda).