BG 16.2 — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhagavad Gītā 16.2Chapter 16 · Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga · Krishna → Arjuna · anuṣṭubh

अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस् त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम् ।

दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम् ॥

ahiṃsā satyam akrodhas tyāgaḥ śāntir apaiśunam

dayā bhūteṣv aloluptvaṃ mārdavaṃ hrīr acāpalam

spokensingle-voice recital; rendered via IndicF5 conditioned on a Sanskrit reference clip

meaning

Non-harm, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, peace, no slander of others, compassion for all beings, freedom from greed, gentleness, modesty, and steadiness.

ekras · bhāṣya

Ahimsa — non-harm; satya — truth; akrodha — freedom from anger; tyaga — relinquishment; shanti — peace; apaishunam — no slander; daya bhuteshu — compassion for all beings; aloluptvam — no greedy grasping; mardavam — gentleness; hrih — modesty; achapalam — steadiness. Eleven more qualities. The middle cluster of daivi sampad.

Krishna fills out the portrait of divine birth with the precise relational virtues: how the bhakta moves among other beings.

Shankara reads ahimsa as abstaining from causing pain to any living being whatsoever. Satya — speech that reflects things as they actually are, free from both unpleasantness and falsehood. Akrodha — quelling of anger that arises when one is abused or struck. Tyaga here means samnyasa, since dana was already listed. Shanti — composure of the inner organ. Apaishunam — refraining from speaking of others' faults. Daya — compassion toward those who suffer. Aloluptvam — non-attachment of senses to their objects. Mardavam — softness of disposition. Hri — modesty before doing what is improper. Achapalam — non-fluctuation of body and mind under provocation. Eleven precise virtues, each named in its operational form.

Madhusudana follows Shankara's distinctions closely with characteristic precision. Himsa is the severing of the life-continuity of beings; ahimsa is being no cause of that. Satya is speech that reflects things as they truly are and carries no harmful consequence. Akrodha is the immediate quelling of anger; tyaga is samnyasa; shanti is composure. The bhakta-jnani holds all eleven as the natural shape of his daily living.

Ramanuja reads ahimsa as avoiding harm to others; satya as speech that conveys things as actually seen and is beneficial to beings. Akrodha is freedom from mental disturbance arising as fruit of causing harm to others — one remains unshaken even when wronged. Tyaga is relinquishment of possessions inimical to one's own spiritual welfare. Shanti is the trained restraint of the senses. Apaishunam, daya, aloluptvam, mardavam, hri, achapalam — eleven Bhagavata-virtues that constitute the bhakta's relational mode.

Madhva singles out paishunam — the specific focus of his bhashya — as reporting of faults that are grounds for harm to another, particularly to a king or authority figure, out of pride or fear rather than genuine witness. Apaishunam is the refraining from this. Laulya is passion or obsessive attachment, equivalent to raga. Achapalam is sthairya — steadiness, the opposite of chanchalata. The bheda-frame: each quality is the jiva's correct paratantra-mode in relation to other paratantra-jivas under svatantra Hari's ordering.

Vallabha reads 16.1-3 as a unified triplet elaborating who is the asammudha bhakta who knows Krishna as Purushottama. The twenty-six qualities are not ethical imperatives but the natural efflorescence in a jiva born into divine destiny through Krishna's pushti — grace-current. The bhakta does not strain to acquire these; they bloom in him as Krishna's prasada operates.

Shridhara reads ahimsa as abstention from harming others; satya as speaking things as they are; akrodha as the non-arising of disturbance even when struck. Tyaga is generosity, audarya. Shanti is the composure of the chitta — chitta-uparati. Paishunam is the revealing of another's faults behind their back; apaishunam is freedom from that. Daya is compassion toward those who suffer. Aloluptvam, mardavam, hri, achapalam — five further refinements naming the bhakta's interior shape.

Context

where

Chapter 16 · Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga · meter anuṣṭubh

who speaks

Krishna → Arjuna

preceded by — BG 16.1

Fearlessness, purity of heart, steadiness in knowledge and practice, charity, self-restraint, sacrifice, Vedic study, austerity, and honesty: these are the endowments of one born into divine nature.

What's going on

Non-harm, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, peace, no slander of others, compassion for all beings, freedom from greed, gentleness, modesty, and steadiness.

Sūtras through this verse (25)

MadhusūdanaclassicalC

Action purifies before knowing can landbetween

16.1The dispositions decide who can even begin.───→here16.2───→18.55Even hearing and reflecting need purity.

JayatīrthaclassicalB

Pañcabheda — the five distinctions enforced verse by verseexit

15.17Three orders, each a distinct relatum.───→here16.2───→

MadhvaclassicalT3

Ranking is real — and it never collapsesexit

15.17Beyond all selves stands the Highest Person alone.───→here16.2───→

show all 25

Ekrasmodernforgiveness

Kṣamā namedstation · other · station 2/7

───→here16.2───→

Ekrasmodernanger_management

Anger Managementbetween · other

5.26Already-released sage───→here16.2───→16.21Triple gate of hell

RamsukhdasclassicalJ

Divine vs demonic patternsbetween

16.1Divine traits named: fearless, pure, steady.───→here16.2───→16.21Three gates of hell: desire, anger, greed.

Ramsukhdasclassical

Sādhaka Sañjīvanī commentary at this versebetween

───→here16.2───→

Ekrasmodernend_of_life

End of life — the threshold tourexit · v2

15.8Carrying the perfume───→here16.2───→

JayatīrthaclassicalE

Vishnu-sarvottamatva read into apparently neutral wordsexit

15.16Uttama-puruṣa is Viṣṇu, beyond both.───→here16.2───→

JayatīrthaclassicalG

Citation as proof — śruti, smṛti, MB, Aṣṭādhyāyī, Pañcarātraexit

15.16Aṣṭādhyāyī 5.2.127 controls bhūta.───→here16.2───→

JayatīrthaclassicalJ

Reading the silence — iti śeṣaḥ and iti bhāvaḥexit

15.1Tat-prasaṅge alaukikaṁ — iti śeṣaḥ.───→here16.2───→

RamsukhdasclassicalK

The body is not yoursexit

15.7Self drags the senses like wind drags scent.───→here16.2───→

Gauravmoderncivilizational_air_conditioning

Civilizational Air Conditioningbetween

6.5'Uddhared atmanatmanam natmanam avasadayet.' Lift yourself by yourself, do not l───→here16.2───→16.21'Tri-vidham narakasyedam dvaram nashanam atmanah, kamah krodhas tatha lobhah.' T

VedāntadeśikaclassicalA

The carama-śloka as retroactive bracketbetween

9.24The receiver of all rites is named one verse.───→here16.2───→16.5Mā śucaḥ already once before — same shape.

VedāntadeśikaclassicalH

Mā śucaḥ — the inclusio of evolving griefbetween

5.16Knowledge-darkness cleared — not yet refuge.───→here16.2───→16.5Daivī-asuric grief closed mid-text.

MadhusūdanaclassicalI

Liberation while alive — the body finishes its runbetween

16.1The divine wealth becomes stable knowing in life.───→here16.2───→18.55Knowing burns ignorance; body burns its arc.

MadhusūdanaclassicalJ

Two kinds of nature — divine and demonicbetween

16.1Anchor: gather the good, drop the unwholesome.───→here16.2───→17.1A third class: faith outside the texts.

Gauravmodernwitness_self_neti_neti

Witness Self Neti Netiexit

15.7'Mamaivamsho jiva-loke jiva-bhutah sanatanah.' A part of me, eternal, has become───→here16.2───→

MadhvaclassicalT4

Liberation is bliss in body — not absorptionexit

15.6The supreme abode does not return its dwellers.───→here16.2───→

MadhvaclassicalT10

The deluder is named — three goddesses, one Lordexit

15.4Cut the world-tree by knowing whose play it is.───→here16.2───→

ŚaṅkaraclassicalF

The Lord is born only as it wereexit

15.16Both the changing and changeless are below the supreme.───→here16.2───→

ĀnandagiriclassicalJ

Prakṛti is never autonomousexit

15.7Aṃśa pinned to the Lord, not free.───→here16.2───→

RāmānujaclassicalF

Two prakṛtis · jīva as eternal aṃśaexit

15.18Named Puruṣottama.───→here16.2───→

ŚrīdharaclassicalH

The grammar of single-pointednessexit

14.26Unswerving devotion crosses the modes.───→here16.2───→

VallabhaclassicalK

Aphorism, gloss, full commentaryexit

15.15The bhāṣya-author is named by the Lord himself.───→here16.2───→

Śabda · lemmas (13 unique · 13 occurrences)

अहिंसा ahiṃsā — non-violence (a- + hiṃsā 'harming', from √hiṃs) · nominative feminine singular noun · also at 10.4, 10.5, 13.7, 17.14
त्यागः tyāga — abandonment, relinquishment (from √tyaj) · nominative masculine singular noun · also at 18.9
सत्यम् satya — true, real; truth (from √as 'be') · nominative neuter singular noun · also at 10.4, 10.5, 16.8
अपैशुनम् apaiśuna — non-slanderousness (a- + paiśuna) · nominative neuter singular noun
अचापलम् acāpala — non-fickleness, steadiness (a- + cāpala) · nominative neuter singular noun

show all 13

अक्रोधः akrodha — (a- + krodha: anger) · nominative masculine singular noun
शान्तिः śānti — peace, tranquillity (from √śam) · nominative feminine singular noun · also at 12.12
दया dayā — compassion, mercy · nominative feminine singular noun
भूतेषु bhūta — being, creature; element; past, gone · locative neuter plural noun
अ a — negation prefix (un-, non-, not)
लोलुप्त्वम् loluptva — covetousness (from desid. of √lup) · nominative neuter singular noun
मार्दवम् mārdava — gentleness, softness (from mṛdu) · nominative neuter singular noun
ह्रीः hrī — modesty, shame · nominative feminine singular noun

Praśna · so what (7)

01The verse lists ten virtues in rapid succession without hierarchy — does their sequence encode a pedagogical or psycho-spiritual order, or are they simply enumerated?
02Akrodha (freedom from anger) appears alongside ahimsa rather than under dama (restraint) — what does this placement reveal about how the tradition distinguishes emotional regulation from sensory restraint?

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03Apaishunam (non-slander) is specifically the absence of revealing others' faults behind their back — why does indirect speech receive explicit mention when direct violence is already covered by ahimsa?
04Hri (shame) is a social emotion dependent on the gaze of others — how do schools that emphasize internal liberation handle a virtue whose mechanism is external?
05Tyaga appears in this verse and is glossed differently across schools: as samnyasa (Shankara, Madhusudana), as generosity/audarya (Sridhara), and as relinquishment of spiritually harmful possessions (Ramanuja) — what is at stake in each reading?
06Mardavam (softness/gentleness) is a quality of the body-voice-manner rather than intention alone — to what extent do these daivi sampat virtues address outward comportment versus inner state?
07Aloluptvam (non-covetousness) is described as the non-agitation of the senses in the presence of their objects rather than mere avoidance of objects — what does this distinction reveal about the tradition's psychology of desire?

Vyavahāra · try it in your life

Advaita

Before speaking about a colleague's error to a third party, pause and ask: is this disclosure necessary for a genuine purpose, or am I doing it to establish my own position? Shankara's acapalam and apaishunam together demand that speech serve a real function — anything else is a leak of the inner organ's composure.

Dvaita

Madhva's commentary zeroes in on paishunam as reporting faults to authorities out of pride or fear. In a workplace, this means: if you raise a concern about someone to leadership, examine whether you are acting as a genuine witness in Hari's service, or whether pride, rivalry, or self-protection is the real motive.

show all 4

Bhakti

Sridhara glosses hri as loka-lajja — the shame of public opinion — not inner guilt. This is a realistic acknowledgment that social accountability is a genuine brake on misconduct. Practically: build into your life structures where your actions are visible to people whose judgment you respect.

Advaita-Bhakti

Madhusudana's gloss on mardavam adds a teaching dimension: gentleness is not avoiding difficult conversations but choosing the form of correction that actually transmits understanding rather than triggering defensiveness. The teacher who rebukes harshly may be technically truthful but is violating mardavam by prioritizing expression over transmission.

Adhiṣṭhāna · substrate signature

substratev2.6-frozen

parserByT5-Sanskrit-multitask (Nehrdich/Hellwig/Keutzer EMNLP 2024)

mūlaBelvalkar critical edition (BORI 1947), via Ambuda multi-witness

show all metadata

weightsa=1 · b=0.01 · e_v=0.005 · z=0.2 · h=0 · th=0.01

anchorfit on Ramsukhdas's Sādhak Sañjīvanī (1980), frozen across the eight-commentator panel; cross-validated R@4 = 71.6% on Śaṅkara

extracted2026-04-21

methodPaper 1, Section II.B

↓ view raw per-verse object (JSON)↗ per-verse-object schema ↗ substrate code (MIT) + data (CC-BY 4.0)

The schema generalizes to any bounded-polysemy corpus with discrete primary text units, attested witness traditions, identifiable schools, and formal substrate. Port the per-verse object; refit weights on a domain-appropriate Layer-3 anchor; ship.

Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 16, Verse 2: Krishna to Arjuna — Daivāsura-Sampad-Vibhāga-Yoga