Chapter 10 · Verse 5·Spoken by Krishna
अहिंसा समता तुष्टिस्तपो दानं यशोऽयशः। भवन्ति भावा भूतानां मत्त एव पृथग्विधाः
ahiṁsā samatā tuṣṭis tapo dānaṁ yaśo 'yaśaḥ bhavanti bhāvā bhūtānāṁ matta eva pṛthag-vidhāḥ
Nonviolence, equanimity, contentment, austerity, charity, fame, and infamy: these varied dispositions of beings arise from me alone.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse continues a long list Krishna began in the previous verse, naming a fresh set of inner states and dispositions that arise in living beings. The Sanskrit words here are ahimsa (non-violence, the refusal to harm or inflict pain on living beings), samata (equanimity, an even and balanced mind), tushti (contentment, the sense that what one has is enough), tapas (austerity, a chastening or drying-up of the body and senses), dana (giving, the sharing of one's wealth), yasha (fame, the good repute that comes from righteous conduct), and ayasha (ill fame, the disrepute that comes from unrighteous conduct). The commentators read these not as a random catalogue but as a continuation of the list of bhavas (states, conditions, or temperaments) that the verse will trace back to a single source.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Vallabhācārya
The commentators carefully unpack each term in much the same way. Ahimsa is the cessation of any harm or pain to others, which several extend to thought, word, and deed. Samata is freedom from raga (attraction, liking) and dvesha (aversion, dislike), so that friend and foe, and pleasant and unpleasant objects, are met with the same steady mind, without exhilaration at gain or depression at loss. Tushti is the judgment 'this much is enough' regarding the things one enjoys, a contentment with what providence or one's past action brings. Tapas is bodily austerity preceded and accompanied by restraint of the senses, often by the scriptural path of measured fasting. Dana is the giving of righteously earned wealth to a worthy recipient, in the right place and time, according to one's means. Yasha and ayasha are renown and disrepute, the world's praise occasioned by dharma (righteous conduct) and the world's blame occasioned by adharma (unrighteous conduct).
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
The pivotal teaching of the verse is its closing claim: all these manifold states of all beings arise from Krishna alone, the supreme Lord, and from nothing else. The phrase 'from Me alone' (matta eva) is emphatic. These states come in many kinds (prithag-vidhah, of various sorts) precisely because they are distributed to each creature according to its own past action or karma. So the Lord is the single causal ground, while the differences among beings are explained by the differences in their deeds and the means at work.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several commentators draw the practical conclusion that follows from the Lord being this single source. If every good and even every dark disposition flows from Him, then He is the proper refuge for all beings, for both worldly enjoyment and final liberation. Some read the whole sweep of qualities as something to receive with reverence: every good quality, in oneself or in another, is to be welcomed as a fresh sighting of the Lord's own portion. The reasoning is consistent: because nothing has any existence apart from the Self, all these states must trace back to Him.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vallabhācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse as straightforward ontology grounded in non-difference. The states arise from the Lord alone because, as one source puts it, they have in no way any existence apart from the Self; this is why 'from Me alone' is said. The variety among beings is explained entirely by each creature's own past action. From this they draw a devotional conclusion that the Lord, as the great Lord of all the worlds and the single ground of every disposition, is therefore the refuge to be taken for the highest gain, for both enjoyment and liberation. The catalogue is treated as a complete list (one source counts twenty states) whose every item, bright or otherwise, has a single source.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Bhakti
This reading stresses a point about the dark qualities. Hearing the second half of the catalogue as completing the first, this commentator notes that the Lord owns not only the bright qualities but, as their causal ground, the dark ones too, including ill fame and the contrary dispositions. The reasoning given is that the very ground of the loka (the world) cannot be partial; if the Lord is the cause of all, He must be the cause of the whole range, not merely the pleasant half.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators read 10.4 and 10.5 together as one unfolding of the twenty bhavas, and they color every term with explicit reference to the Lord. One re-reads each quality as Krishna-directed: ahimsa as mercy, samata as the same disposition toward the Lord on every side, tushti as the contentment that abides ever in His being, tapas as the bearing of pain for His sake, dana as the giving of His own teaching, yasha as the good repute that comes from being His servant. The same source adds a striking distinction: for those marked by the Lord's grace, who know Him, these states all become the bright buddhi-and-the-rest qualities; for the others, only the fourfold dark sort, including ill fame and sorrow, comes about. The devotional point drawn is that every good quality is a permission to see and worship the Lord's own portion afresh, not a bare psychological fact arising of itself.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Dvaita
These commentators comment very narrowly here, glossing only the single word tushti (contentment) as 'the sense of having enough,' supported by lexical authority. One notes that the broader meaning has already been covered under the word for happiness in the preceding verse, so only contentment needs fresh explanation. They offer no separate treatment of the verse's larger claim about the Lord as source, treating it as continuous with what came before.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Modern
These commentators add interpretive frames of their own. One reads the bhavas through Samkhya philosophy, where the conditions of Reason (an evolute of Prakriti, primordial nature) lodged in the subtle body account for the various births a soul takes, while noting that Vedanta finally traces the whole visible universe, embodied in Maya, back to the mental states of the Parabrahman, the one permanent Principle beyond Matter and Spirit; austerity and charity here are to be understood as states of mind, frames of faith. Another dwells at length on contentment as the true wealth that annihilates greed, observing that greed makes even a rich man a beggar while contentment brings peace of mind. A third, commenting on the list more generally, stresses that the discriminating knowledge named in the sequence has been received by every human being from the Lord.
Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
A Seeker Asks
If even my non-violence, my contentment, and my good repute all come from the Lord, then what is left for me to do, and how can I be responsible for any of it?
The verse does not erase your agency; it explains why beings differ. The states arise from the Lord as their single source, but they come in their various kinds according to each creature's own past action. So your responsibility lives precisely in that variety: the deeds you do shape which dispositions arise in you, even as the Lord remains their ultimate ground.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda
What changes is the spirit in which you act. If every good quality is finally His portion, the right response is not passivity but reverence and refuge. Receive each good disposition in yourself or in others as a fresh sighting of the Lord's own gift, and take Him as your refuge for both daily life and final freedom. The doing remains yours; the gratitude reorients it.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Contemplation
Take the quality of contentment to heart as the verse's most usable gift. Tushti is being satisfied with whatever comes to you through your own past action, content with your present acquisitions rather than always reaching for more. The teaching here is that contentment is itself a kind of wealth. It annihilates greed, and greed is what keeps even a rich person restless and poor in spirit, a beggar among beggars. When you settle into 'this much is enough,' the grasping quiets and the mind finds peace. So practice noticing what you already have and resting in its sufficiency; that simple turn frees you from the restlessness that no amount of getting can cure.
Sit with this · Swami Sivananda
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.