16.5 You are born to the divine Krishna speaks
दैवी सम्पद्विमोक्षाय निबन्धायासुरी मता
मा शुचः सम्पदं दैवीमभिजातोऽसि पाण्डव
daivī sampad vimokṣhāya nibandhāyāsurī matā
mā śhuchaḥ sampadaṁ daivīm abhijāto ’si pāṇḍava
The divine nature leads toward release; the other binds. Do not grieve, son of Pandu: you are born to the divine.
Explanation
And then, before describing the second: do not grieve.
mā śucaḥ — do not grieve; you are born to the divine. Krishna interrupts his own taxonomy to reassure the man in front of him.
Which is characteristic and easy to miss. A list of two natures invites the question which am I, and the Gita answers it for Arjuna before he can ask, then continues.
Going further
Word by word
- daivī
- divine
- sampat
- qualities
- vimokṣhāya
- toward liberation
- nibandhāya
- to bondage
- āsurī
- demoniac qualities
- matā
- are considered
- mā
- do not
- śhuchaḥ
- grieve
- sampadam
- virtues
- daivīm
- saintly
- abhijātaḥ
- born
- asi
- you are
- pāṇḍava
- Arjun, the son of Pandu
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Mā śhuchaḥ sampadaṁ daivīm abhijāto 'si pāṇḍava — do not grieve; you are born to the divine.
Krishna has just listed the two natures and, before describing the second at length, stops to tell Arjuna which one he belongs to. The reassurance comes first. Twenty verses of hard description follow, and the reader has already been told they are not the subject of them.