Chapter 16 · Verse 5·Spoken by Krishna
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 to liberation, the demonic to bondage. Do not grieve, Arjuna. You are born for the divine nature.
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 states the result that the two endowments lead to. After listing the divine qualities (daivī sampad, the godly inner wealth) and the demonic ones (āsurī sampad, the demonic inner makeup) in the verses before, the Lord now fixes their fruit. The divine endowment is for liberation (vimokṣha), meaning release from bondage, the freedom that ends the round of birth and death. The demonic endowment is held to be for bondage (nibandha), keeping a person tied to repeated birth. Several commentators add that the word 'held' or 'considered' points to scriptural authority: this is not a private opinion but what the scriptures and those who follow them declare. So the practical lesson is plain: the seeker of the good should take up the divine and reject the demonic.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Having stated this stark division of human nature into two destinies, the Lord turns at once to Arjuna and reassures him with the words 'mā śhuchaḥ', do not grieve. Almost every commentator reads this as a direct, personal consolation. The reason for the grief differs slightly between readings, but the structure is the same: hearing that one endowment leads to bondage, Arjuna is shaken about his own standing, and the Lord immediately lifts the worry by name. This makes the verse a small but decisive hinge in the chapter. The bald analysis of two human types is interrupted so the teacher can certify his troubled student before the long demonic catalogue of the following verses begins.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The Lord's reassurance is grounded in a fact, not mere comfort: 'you are born to the divine endowment.' Arjuna already belongs to the godly side, so he has no cause to fear the demonic catalogue. Many commentators draw weight from the address 'Pāṇḍava', son of Pandu. As Pandu's son Arjuna inherits a noble, righteous, divinely tending nature; he is foremost among the righteous, of great prowess and good fortune, and therefore simply unfit to belong to the demonic, grief-bound type. The very name with which the Lord calls him is itself part of the consolation, a pointer to his lineage and inborn worth.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several devotional and modern commentators add that the divine endowment is not a finished possession to be congratulated on, but a tendency already present that must be brought forward and lived. One who carries the divine marks is by that very fact qualified (adhikārin) for the liberating knowledge of truth the Lord has been teaching. The work of the path is to let that godly nature come to the front as one turns toward the Lord and away from worldly clinging, until the divine wealth surfaces fully and works for release. So the verse is not only a verdict on two types of people; it is an encouragement that the side that liberates is already a seeker's own by nature and only needs to be drawn out.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Sant Jñāneśvar · Vallabhācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read 'born to the divine endowment' (abhijāta) as 'born aiming at' or 'marked for' the divine endowment, taking the prefix as expressing direction or purpose. They also widen the two endowments into a complete account of action. The divine endowment is whatever sattvic action, free of any craving for results, enjoined for one's class and stage of life; carried as far as purity of being, devotion to the Lord, and the steady standing in knowledge and yoga, it leads to release and isolation. The demonic endowment is whatever rajasic or tamasic action, forbidden by scripture, driven by desire for results and done with ego; the demonic and the brutish (rākṣasa) types are folded together here as the side that binds. So the verse certifies Arjuna as one born oriented toward the liberating side.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Dvaita
These commentators reject the reading of 'abhijāta' as 'born aiming at' the divine endowment and gloss it instead as 'of excellent birth' or 'born with reference to' it. Their reasoning is precise: the verbal root here is not transitive, so an accusative case ('to the endowment') is hard to explain, and the 'aiming at' reading creates a contradiction, since Arjuna is himself already divine and so cannot be merely born aiming at a divinity he already has. The solution offered is grammatical: the 'abhi' is not a verbal prefix but a karmapravacanīya particle meaning 'with reference to, as the mark of,' which by Pāṇini's rule licenses the accusative. Just as in 'toward the tree it shines' the tree is the target of the shining, so Arjuna is the mark of one born to the divine endowment. The same construction is applied back to the demonic-endowment phrasing of the previous verse.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators refuse to let 'the divine endowment is for liberation' stand as a generic teaching of moksha. They read vimokṣha as a special, higher release distinguished into two pusti-mārga branches, pusti (the fruit-state of grace and devotion, in which one is non-different from the Lord's own measure or maryādā) and maryādā, both held within the Lord's own view and approval. The consolation of Arjuna is read as a disclosure of grace: the divine endowment has been given to him by the Lord's own wish (icchā), and to grieve at the anger rising in him would be to mistake the configuration in which the Lord has placed him. They also name the demonic fruit with full weight, not as a mild opposite but as the round of samsara ending in entry into blinding darkness (andham tamas), so that the two-fold analysis is not softened into a mere moral parallel.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
These commentators read Arjuna's grief concretely: he sees in himself the very demonic traits just described, harshness and anger in his wish to strike down kinsmen and honored elders with a rain of arrows, and fears this demonic wealth will lead him to bondage or hell. The Lord's answer through the address 'Pāṇḍava' is a reframing by context. For one born in the kshatriya line, harshness, anger, and the discharge of weapons shown in battle are precisely what the codes of dharma enjoin; they are in that setting the divine endowment, not the demonic. The same conduct counts as demonic wealth only when it appears outside its proper, dharma-ordained place. So Arjuna is told not to grieve, because his warrior fierceness in this righteous battle is duty, not demonic nature.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva
Modern
This commentator turns the verse into an account of the inner mechanism by which the divine endowment liberates. The decisive thing is the firmness of one's aim: the clearer a seeker is that he must walk only toward the Lord, the more he turns toward the Lord and away from the world, and as that turning-away grows, the bad qualities of the demonic side thin out and the good qualities of the divine side come forward on their own. He stresses that fine qualities worn on top of an unchanged sense of 'I' (ahantā) do not deliver; like a seed placed in soil they only feed the same worldly tendencies and yield more samsara, whereas once the resolve that God alone is to be attained is firm, those tendencies dry up like a roasted seed that cannot sprout. He also reads the divine endowment as meant not for one's own private gain but for the welfare of all beings, to be offered up with the prayer that all may be liberated by the Lord's grace.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If liberation or bondage already follows from the endowment one is 'born to,' is the divine destiny simply a matter of birth and luck, or is there real work left for the seeker to do?
The reassurance 'you are born to the divine endowment' is not a finished certificate but a starting fact. Being born to the divine side means the godly tendency is already present in you; the address 'son of Pandu' points to an inborn worth and lineage of righteousness that you can rely on, not a result you have to earn from scratch.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Sivananda
But the work remains, and it is precisely to bring that latent divine nature forward. One who carries the divine marks is by that very fact qualified for the liberating knowledge the Lord teaches, yet the path is to let the godly side come to the front by turning toward the Lord and away from worldly clinging, so that the divine wealth surfaces fully and actually works for release.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya
And what looks like fixed luck is really configuration: the same fierce conduct can be divine or demonic depending on its setting and aim. The fierceness Arjuna feared as demonic is, for one born to his duty and acting in a righteous battle, exactly what dharma enjoins; the demonic only begins when such conduct is severed from its proper place. So your destiny turns on the firmness of your aim and the orientation of your acts, not on birth alone.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Take the heart of this verse as a working method, not just a verdict. The decisive thing is the firmness of your aim. The clearer it becomes in you that you mean to walk only in the Lord's direction, the more you turn toward him; and the more you turn toward him, the more your hold on the world loosens. As that loosening grows, the harsh and grasping qualities of the demonic side quietly thin out, and the good qualities of the divine side come forward on their own, until a real taste for the Lord's name and presence rises in you. Do not try to wear fine qualities on top of an unchanged sense of 'I am this body, this is mine,' because qualities laid over an unchanged ego only feed the old worldly tendencies, like seed dropped in soil that grows the same tree again. Let the resolve that God alone is to be attained become firm, and those tendencies dry out like a roasted seed that can no longer sprout. And do not keep the divine wealth for your own private benefit: whatever practice you do, offer it for the welfare of all beings, praying that all may be drawn to the Lord by his grace. Lived this way, the divine endowment is genuinely for liberation, and the verse's 'do not grieve' becomes your own settled ground.
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.