Chapter 16 · Verse 2·Spoken by Krishna
अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम्।दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम्
ahinsā satyam akrodhas tyāgaḥ śhāntir apaiśhunam dayā bhūteṣhv aloluptvaṁ mārdavaṁ hrīr achāpalam
Non-injury, truthfulness, freedom from anger, renunciation, peacefulness, and freedom from fault-finding. Compassion for all beings, non-covetousness, gentleness, modesty, and freedom from restlessness.
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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 Krishna's catalogue of the daivi sampad, the divine endowment, the set of qualities native to a person whose nature is turning toward the good. It is not an argument but a list, eleven traits named one after another. Most commentators simply gloss each word in turn, treating them as one connected description of a single kind of person rather than as separate, unrelated rules. The point of the list is recognition: these are the marks by which such a nature shows itself in mind, speech, and action.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar
The first traits govern how one treats other living beings. Ahimsa (non-violence) is the not-harming of any creature, the avoidance of causing them pain. Satya (truth) is speaking of a thing exactly as it is, free of falsehood and free of words that wound; it is truth fitted to the welfare of beings, not truth used as a weapon. Akrodha (freedom from anger) is the quieting of anger at the very moment it arises, even when one is reviled or struck. Daya (compassion) is pity for suffering beings, an inability to bear another's pain. Apaishuna (freedom from slander) is the refusal to expose another's faults, especially behind his back. Together these form the outward, relational face of the divine nature: it does no harm, speaks no harm, holds no harm.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vedānta Deśika · Sant Jñāneśvar
The remaining traits describe the inner stance such conduct rests on. Tyaga (relinquishment) is renunciation; several note that since giving was already mentioned in the prior verse, the word here must mean a further letting-go rather than charity again. Shanti (peace) is the calming or settled state of the inner instrument, the mind itself grown quiet. Aloluptva (freedom from greed) is the steadiness of the senses even when their objects are present, so that the senses are not pulled or altered by what they meet. Mardava (gentleness) is softness, the absence of harshness or cruelty. Hri (modesty) is the wholesome shame that holds one back from doing what should not be done. Achapala (freedom from fickleness) is not setting speech, hand, and foot in motion without purpose, a freedom from pointless, restless activity. These name the quiet interior from which the outward gentleness flows.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrī Ānandagiri
Several commentators stress that these are not twenty-six (or eleven) separate disciplines to be acquired one by one, but a single inner condition showing many faces. They are the unified expression of one stance, and a true grip on any one of them tends to draw the rest along in time. The list describes one person, one nature, viewed from many angles.
Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Puruṣottama
Divergence
Dvaita
This school reads apaishuna (freedom from slander) narrowly and carefully, leaning on lexical authority. Slander (paishuna) is specifically the telling of another's harmful faults to a king or other authority, speech aimed at injuring that person; it is not simply any mention of a fault. This precision matters: reporting a pupil's faults for the sake of his instruction is not slander at all, since it serves the attainment of truth, so the prohibition cannot mean blanket silence about every flaw. The defining mark is the intent to harm, and a related vice, arrogance, is glossed as the failure, through pride, to perceive one's proper fear of a king and the like. Greed (laulya) is glossed as attachment, and steadiness (acapala) as firmness, each on lexical grounds, with the source taking care to distinguish non-greed from non-fickleness rather than collapsing them.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
This school refigures each virtue as a face of one bhagavad-bhava, devotion to the Lord. The whole passage is read as a single continuous account of the daivi sampad, marking the daiva-jiva whose nature consents to the Lord's word. Compassion here is not broad ethical benevolence but the devotee's grief for jivas as bhagavad-viyukta, beings separated from the Lord, and it is expressed precisely as imparting the Lord's name and instruction to them. Freedom from slander rests on the buddhi that sees the Lord's own self present in every being, so one cannot speak ill of any. Modesty includes shame at living apart from the Lord without rendering service, and freedom from fickleness means no hasty rushing in the Lord's own works born of attachment to worldly action. The virtues are thus turned inward and Godward rather than left as general ethics.
Śrī Puruṣottama · Vallabhācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This school reads the traits as marks of one inner stance turned toward the Lord, defining several relationally. Truth is speech, bearing on a thing as it was seen, that is for the welfare of beings. Freedom from anger is the absence of the mental disorder whose fruit is pain to others. Relinquishment is letting go of possessions that are at odds with one's own good. Gentleness is read as more than softness: it is fitness for close fellowship with good people. The qualities are not separate disciplines but the unified expression of a single stance directed at the Lord.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Bhakti
This stream glosses the terms plainly while reading tyaga and the inner virtues generously. Tyaga is read as open-handedness, generosity (audarya), rather than formal renunciation. One source develops the whole verse in extended images: truthful speech should be sweet to the ear yet cut through doubt to lead one toward Brahman, like water that is soft to the eye yet pierces rock, and should never mislead though pleasant nor wound though true. Peace is described as the state where knower, knowledge, and the object of knowledge merge and the very state of being a knower ceases. Modesty is even glossed as a deep nausea at being trapped in the perishable body and its repeated births. Freedom from fickleness is tied to conquest of the mind and life-breath, by which the ten senses fall still.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
This non-sectarian devotional reading grounds the virtues in the sense that the Lord pervades every being. Non-violence is harmlessness in mind, speech, and body, since to harm any being is to harm the Lord who dwells in it. Compassion likewise springs from seeing the indwelling Lord in every creature, so the devotee cannot bear that any vessel of his Lord be tormented. Anger has no ground to rise because the devotee has handed every situation over to the Lord. Tyaga is read specifically as renouncing the fruit of action and the sense of doership, laying the fruit at the Lord's feet. The whole set is one divine endowment in many aspects, and earnest practice of any one trait unfolds the others over time.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
Advaita Vedānta
This school gives precise, sober definitions and notes that several of these traits, ending with freedom from fickleness, are the special dharmas of the brahmin. Freedom from greed is defined as the unalteredness of the senses in the presence of objects. Gentleness is the absence of harshness; one source extends it to remaining a patient instructor even toward disciples raising idle objections, without resorting to harsh speech. Modesty is the mental modification, occasioned by censure or by the prospect of an improper act, that causes one to cease from what should not be done. These are read as ethical-psychological facts about a refined nature, without being recast as devotion to a personal Lord.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Ānandagiri
A Seeker Asks
If truth means speaking a thing exactly as it is, but non-violence and freedom from slander forbid words that wound or expose another's faults, how do I tell the truth when the truth is unwelcome?
The verse itself already qualifies truth. Truth (satya) is not raw fact flung at another; it is speech that corresponds to what is, that is for the welfare of beings, and that is free of malice. It does not flatter for gain, and it does not wound for retribution. So truth and non-harm are meant to be held together, not traded off against each other.
Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śaṅkarācārya
Slander is defined narrowly, which leaves room for honest, needful speech. Apaishuna forbids exposing another's faults behind his back or in order to harm him. It does not forbid every mention of a fault. Reporting a pupil's faults for the sake of his instruction is not slander at all, because it serves the attainment of truth; the deciding factor is the intent to injure, not the mere fact that a fault is named.
Śrī Jayatīrtha · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
One source gives the practical measure: speech may be as hard as iron in cutting through error, yet it should still sound sweet to the ear; it should never mislead though pleasant, and never wound though true. It pictures the model as a mother who shows displeasure at a child's wrong act yet remains tender, more tender than a flower, in the correcting. Truth that heals rather than stabs is the aim.
Sant Jñāneśvar
Contemplation
Do not try to install all of these virtues at once, as if checking off twenty-six separate tasks. Take up just one as your own practice. Choose non-violence: resolve that in mind, speech, and body you will give pain to no being, because the Lord dwells in each one and to wound any being is to wound him. Or choose freedom from anger by handing each provoking situation over to the Lord, so that no ground is left for anger to stand on. The teaching here is that these are not unrelated traits but one divine endowment seen in many aspects, and a genuine grip on any single one of them will, in time, draw the others along with it.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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