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Chapter 16 of 18

दैवासुरसम्पद्विभागयोग Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yoga Two Natures

Chapter 16: Two Natures

24 verses

Two dispositions are set against each other, and the chapter is interested in the difference rather than in the judgement.

Chapter 16 sets two dispositions against each other. The first gets twenty-six qualities across three verses and begins with fearlessness — which, in a book that opened with a man too frightened to act, is not an accident of ordering.

The second gets six words of definition and then twelve verses of portrait, and the portrait is the most unsparing writing in the Gita. Halfway through it the text stops describing and lets the disposition speak for itself: this I have gained today; that enemy I have killed; who is there like me? Arjuna, who is about to kill, is made to hear it as a boast.

Then the way out, in two verses and almost no words: desire, anger and greed are three gates, and gates can be seen on approach. The chapter closes by handing over an external measure — which chapter 17 will immediately complicate.

16.1The list begins with fearlessnessKrishna speaks1 of 24

अभयं सत्त्वसंशुद्धिः ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थितिः
दानं दमश्च यज्ञश्च स्वाध्यायस्तप आर्जवम्

abhayaṁ sattva-sanśhuddhir jñāna-yoga-vyavasthitiḥ
dānaṁ damaśh cha yajñaśh cha svādhyāyas tapa ārjavam

Fearlessness, purity of being, steadiness in knowledge and practice, giving, restraint, offering, study, austerity, straightness;

The divine nature is described as a list, and the first item is fearlessness.

abhayam comes before purity, before knowledge, before giving. In a book that opened with a man too frightened to act, putting it first is not alphabetical.

What follows is twenty-six qualities across three verses, and no argument for any of them. The chapter is describing a disposition rather than making a case for one.

Word by wordśhrī-bhagavān uvācha — the Supreme Divine Personality said · abhayam — fearlessness · sattva-sanśhuddhiḥ — purity of mind · jñāna — knowledge · yoga — spiritual · vyavasthitiḥ — steadfastness · dānam — charity · damaḥ — control of the senses · cha — and · yajñaḥ — performance of sacrifice · cha — and · svādhyāyaḥ — study of sacred books · tapaḥ — austerity · ārjavam — straightforwardness

Chapter 16 · Two Natures · ← → to move, d for depth

All 24 verses

  1. 16.1 अभयं सत्त्वसंशुद्धिः ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थितिः The list begins with fearlessness
  2. 16.2 अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम् Twelve more, mostly negative
  3. 16.3 तेजः क्षमा धृतिः शौचमद्रोहो नातिमानिता Born to the divine nature
  4. 16.4 दम्भो दर्पोऽभिमानश्च क्रोधः पारुष्यमेव च Six words for the other
  5. 16.5 दैवी सम्पद्विमोक्षाय निबन्धायासुरी मता You are born to the divine
  6. 16.6 द्वौ भूतसर्गौ लोकेऽस्मिन् दैव आसुर एव च Now hear the other
  7. 16.7 प्रवृत्तिं च निवृत्तिं च जना न विदुरासुराः Not knowing what to do
  8. 16.8 असत्यमप्रतिष्ठं ते जगदाहुरनीश्वरम् The view being described
  9. 16.9 एतां दृष्टिमवष्टभ्य नष्टात्मानोऽल्पबुद्धयः Working for the ruin of the world
  10. 16.10 काममाश्रित्य दुष्पूरं दम्भमानमदान्विताः Insatiable, and acting on it
  11. 16.11 चिन्तामपरिमेयां च प्रलयान्तामुपाश्रिताः Anxiety that ends at death
  12. 16.12 आशापाशशतैर्बद्धाः कामक्रोधपरायणाः A hundred cords
  13. 16.13 इदमद्य मया लब्धमिमं प्राप्स्ये मनोरथम् This I have gained today
  14. 16.14 असौ मया हतः शत्रुर्हनिष्ये चापरानपि That enemy I have killed
  15. 16.15 आढ्योऽभिजनवानस्मि कोऽन्योऽस्ति सदृशो मया Who is there like me?
  16. 16.16 अनेकचित्तविभ्रान्ता मोहजालसमावृताः Caught in a net
  17. 16.17 आत्मसम्भाविताः स्तब्धा धनमानमदान्विताः Offerings in name only
  18. 16.18 अहङ्कारं बलं दर्पं कामं क्रोधं च संश्रिताः Despising what is in their own body
  19. 16.19 तानहं द्विषतः क्रूरान्संसारेषु नराधमान् Cast again into the same wombs
  20. 16.20 असुरीं योनिमापन्ना मूढा जन्मनि जन्मनि Down to the lowest state
  21. 16.21 त्रिविधं नरकस्येदं द्वारं नाशनमात्मनः Three gates
  22. 16.22 एतैर्विमुक्तः कौन्तेय तमोद्वारैस्त्रिभिर्नरः Freed from the three
  23. 16.23 यः शास्त्रविधिमुत्सृज्य वर्तते कामकारतः Acting on impulse instead
  24. 16.24 तस्माच्छास्त्रं प्रमाणं ते कार्याकार्यव्यवस्थितौ Let the scriptures be the measure

Where this sits

Chapter 16 against the whole of it: who is speaking, verse by verse, and how much of the book this chapter is.

Who speaks across the whole Gita, with chapter 16 marked. Two Natures runs from verse 572 to 595 of 701. Chapter 1: Arjuna's Despair — 47 verses Chapter 2: The Eternal — 72 verses Chapter 3: Action — 43 verses Chapter 4: The Lineage of Knowing — 42 verses Chapter 5: The Unwetted Leaf — 29 verses Chapter 6: The Windless Place — 47 verses Chapter 7: The Thread — 30 verses Chapter 8: The Two Paths — 28 verses Chapter 9: The Simple Offering — 34 verses Chapter 10: The Glories — 42 verses Chapter 11: The Cosmic Form — 55 verses Chapter 12: Devotion — 20 verses Chapter 13: The Field and Its Knower — 35 verses Chapter 14: The Three Strands — 27 verses Chapter 15: The Inverted Tree — 20 verses Chapter 16: Two Natures — 24 verses Chapter 17: Three Kinds of Faith — 28 verses Chapter 18: Release — 78 verses

The argument so far

  1. Chapter 1 Arjuna's nerve fails on the field, and the question that opens the book is not a spiritual one but a practical one he cannot answer.
  2. Chapter 2 The first answer is that Arjuna is not the body he is afraid of losing, and that grief for what cannot die is grief misplaced.
  3. Chapter 3 Withdrawing from action is not available to anyone alive; what is available is acting without gripping the result.
  4. Chapter 4 Action, knowledge and Krishna himself all have a deeper structure than they appear to, and knowing it is what makes action free.
  5. Chapter 5 What has to be renounced is attachment rather than activity — the leaf in water, unwetted.
  6. Chapter 6 The mind is trained the way anything is trained, by returning to the practice on the days it does not work.
  7. Chapter 7 Behind both matter and awareness there is one reality, and everything else is a thread strung on it.
  8. Chapter 8 Everything that appears is temporary; the work of yoga is to train attention toward the one thing that is not.
  9. Chapter 9 The highest knowledge turns out to ask for the simplest thing: what is offered matters less than the attention it is offered with.
  10. Chapter 10 Wherever something is most fully itself, the Divine is most visible in it — a list of glories given because the whole cannot be listed.
  11. Chapter 11 Arjuna asks to see it and cannot bear what he sees, which is the book's reply to anyone who wants the vision rather than the practice.
  12. Chapter 12 Devotion is offered as the reachable path, and the chapter is careful to say that a lesser version of it, honestly done, still counts.
  13. Chapter 13 There is a field and there is what knows the field, and nearly every confusion in the book comes from mistaking one for the other.
  14. Chapter 14 Three strands run through everything — clarity, drive and inertia — and freedom starts with noticing which one is moving you.
  15. Chapter 15 The world is a tree rooted upward, and cutting it is not destruction but recognising what it was growing out of.