Chapter 13 · Verse 10·Spoken by Arjuna
असक्ितरनभिष्वङ्गः पुत्रदारगृहादिषु।नित्यं च समचित्तत्वमिष्टानिष्टोपपत्तिषु
asaktir anabhiṣhvaṅgaḥ putra-dāra-gṛihādiṣhu nityaṁ cha sama-chittatvam iṣhṭāniṣhṭopapattiṣhu
Non-attachment, no clinging to children, spouse, home, and the rest. A steady evenness of mind, whether what comes is welcome or unwelcome.
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 the long list of qualities that the Gita is calling 'knowledge' (jnana), and it draws a careful distinction between two grades of attachment that both have to be let go. The first is asakti, ordinary attachment: simple fondness or a sense of 'this is mine' directed at things and people. Its absence, non-attachment, is the first quality named. The second is a deeper and more dangerous form, anabhishvanga, the absence of clinging-identification. Several commentators describe this clinging in almost the same words: it is the inner collapse of the line between yourself and another, so that you feel 'I myself am happy when he is happy, I myself suffer when he suffers; when he lives I live, when he dies I die.' The verse asks us to release both the lighter fondness and this fused over-identification.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Madhvācārya
These qualities are to be practiced exactly where they are hardest, in the closest circle of life: toward son, wife, home, and the rest. The word 'and the rest' (adi) is read by the commentators as deliberately wide. It reaches out to all other dear ones too: servants, dependents, cattle, near relatives, and everything held very dear. The point is that the verse is not asking for detachment from strangers, which is easy, but from precisely those bonds where the heart is most tightly knotted. One commentator gives a homely image: the wise person treats his own home like a public inn beside the road, a place he passes through without gripping.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama · Vedānta Deśika
The third quality is nityam samacittatvam, constant evenness of mind, and it is defined precisely. It is steadiness of mind in the arrival of both the wished-for (ishta) and the unwished-for (anishta): not rejoicing or being elated when the desirable comes, and not being angered or cast down when the undesirable comes. The commentators stress the word 'constant' (nityam): this is not a mood that holds for an hour and then drops, but an even keel that is meant to be the abiding posture of life, the same at home as anywhere.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vedānta Deśika
Why are non-attachment, non-clinging, and evenness called 'knowledge' at all, when they look like emotional dispositions rather than insight? The answer the commentators give is that these qualities are the means by which knowledge of the Self is reached and held. They are 'for the sake of knowledge,' so the verse names them knowledge by naming the cause for the effect. A still, unattached, even mind is the ground in which Self-knowledge can take root and steady itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Swami Sivananda
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the verse strictly as the text stands, glossing its three terms with great precision. They define anabhishvanga, the clinging that must go, through the superimposition (adhyasa) by which one mistakes another's body and fortunes for one's own, thinking 'I alone am happy, I alone suffer; when he lives I live, I shall die when he dies.' Letting go of this is letting go of a false identification. Evenness of mind toward gain of the wished-for and unwished-for is, on this reading, the quieting of joy and grief that clears the way for knowing the Self that is untouched by either.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri
Bhakti
This reading keeps to the plain words of the verse, glossing non-attachment as the laying aside of fondness toward son and the other dear objects, and non-clinging as the absence of the superimposition by which one thinks 'I myself am happy or unhappy when they are.' It treats evenness of mind as perpetual, all-time steadiness in whatever desired or undesired thing comes about, staying close to the surface sense of the line.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Bhakti
By a different division of the verse, this voice does not read these lines as non-attachment to family at all, but as describing unswerving devotion to the Lord, retreat to secluded holy places, and dislike of crowded human haunts. The devotee's body, speech, and mind are settled in the firm conviction that nothing in the world is higher than the Supreme, and the heart so merges in the Lord that, like the waters of the Ganges joining the sea, it becomes one with His essence. Such a one loves riverbanks, clean forests, and mountain caves, and avoids villages and towns; this person, it says, is knowledge itself in human form.
Sant Jñāneśvar
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Following the same alternate verse division, this school reads the lines as naming steady, single-pointed devotion to the Lord of all by a discipline that turns to nothing else, together with dwelling in a place empty of people and the absence of any fondness for crowds. Where the text of family-detachment is glossed, the emphasis falls on inwardness: the non-attachment is the inner release and the evenness is the inner steadiness, both of which are tested and displayed precisely in the outer field of family and home, where they are hardest to keep.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Modern
On this reading too the verse is taken to mean unswerving, single-focused devotion to the Lord, and remaining in a 'vivikta' place, that is, a chosen or solitary spot, with no liking for the gathering-places of ordinary people. The stress is on devotion paired with a deliberately chosen solitude.
Lokmanya Tilak
Śuddhādvaita
Here non-attachment and non-clinging are explicitly not a stoic uprooting of relationship. They are the removal of clinging in the very midst of son, wife, and household, so that these are held in the spirit of service rather than possession. The evenness of mind is not the calm of someone who has muted his feelings; it is the steadiness of one who, in every arrival of pleasant or unpleasant, deliberates that its source is the Lord's own wish (bhagavad-iccha) and so receives both as the Lord's giving. The devotee's affections are not killed but gathered back under the Lord's will. One voice in this school adds that asakti is dispassion toward the world beyond and the enjoyments that come after.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya
Modern
This non-sectarian devotional reading distinguishes the two terms by their objects: asakti is freedom from attachment to the body and its objects, situations, and circumstances; anabhishvanga is freedom from the deeper, possessive bond that ties the heart to the family-unit (kutumba). The seeker still loves his family and does his duty by them, but does not hold them as independent, as substitutes for God, or as things that can complete him: his love (prema) is for God, while his dealings with family are duty (dharma). Evenness is not iciness but the steadiness of one who has begun to taste the underlying bliss; both the desired and the undesired come from God's wholly auspicious arrangement and are passing 'this,' not the 'I.'
Swami Ramsukhdas
Dvaita
This school's contribution is a precise lexical point about the two terms. Drawing on the dictionary, it explains that 'attachment' (sakti) is fondness, and that this very fondness, when fully ripened or matured, is what is called 'clinging' (abhishvanga). The two words are thus not synonyms but name a single fondness at two stages of intensity, the second being the first grown to its full pitch.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
A Seeker Asks
If I am to feel no special grief when my own child suffers and no special joy when good comes to my family, am I being asked to stop loving the people closest to me?
What the verse asks you to drop is not love but a particular knot inside love. The commentators are careful here. They distinguish ordinary fondness (asakti) from a deeper clinging-identification (anabhishvanga) in which the boundary between you and another collapses, so that you live and die in their fortunes: 'I myself am happy when he is happy, I myself suffer when he suffers.' It is this fusion, this loss of yourself into another's ups and downs, that is being released, not affection itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Read at its warmest, the verse explicitly refuses to make you stop loving. The point is to hold the same people in the spirit of service rather than possession, to keep loving son, wife, and home while no longer gripping them as things that can complete you or stand in for the Divine. Your love is meant to flow toward God, and your dealings with the family become the faithful doing of your duty. The affections are not killed; they are gathered back under a larger will and received as gift.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas
And the evenness of mind being asked of you is not coldness. It is constant steadiness in the arrival of both the welcome and the unwelcome, a refusal to be thrown into elation by one or crushed by the other. Far from numbness, it is described as the quiet steadiness of one who has begun to taste the bliss underneath, the very ground in which Self-knowledge can take root. So you are not asked to love less; you are asked to love from a place that cannot be shattered.
Śaṅkarācārya · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Carry one word with you from this verse: nityam, constantly. Evenness of mind is not a posture you put on for quiet hours and drop the moment you walk back into the house. It is meant to become the steady ground of your whole ordinary life, your dealings with the very people you love most. The practice is not to stop loving your family but to stop leaning on them as if they could complete you or stand in for God. Let your love (prema) flow toward the Divine, and let your relationship with the family be the faithful doing of your duty (dharma). When something desired arrives, do not let the mind leap up into elation; when something undesired arrives, do not let it sink into grief. Remember that both are passing, both are 'this' and not the 'I' you really are, and both come from a wholly auspicious arrangement larger than you can see. This evenness is not coldness or muted feeling. It is the quiet steadiness of someone who has begun to taste the bliss underneath, and from that taste can hold both the pleasant and the painful with an open, unshaken heart.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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.