Chapter 16: Divine and Demonic Natures
दैवासुरसम्पद्विभागयोग
Krishna contrasts the qualities that lead to freedom, like fearlessness and compassion, with those that bind: pride, anger and greed.
Verse 16.1The Blessed Lord said: Fearlessness, cleanness of life, steadfastness in the Yoga of wisdom, almsgiving, self-restraint and sacrifice and study of the Scriptures,…Verse 16.2Harmlessness, truth, absence of wrath, renunciation, peacefulness, absence of crookedness, compassion to living beings, uncovetousness, mildness, modesty, absence…Verse 16.3Vigour, forgiveness, fortitude, purity, absence of envy and pride—these are his who is born with the divine properties, O Bhârata.Verse 16.4Hypocrisy, arrogance and conceit, wrath and also harshness and unwisdom are his who is born, O Pârtha, with demoniacal properties.Verse 16.5The divine properties are deemed to be for liberation, the demoniacal for bondage. Grieve not, thou art born with divine properties, O Pândava.Verse 16.6Twofold is the animal creation in this world, the divine and the demoniacal: the divine hath been described at length: hear from Me, O Pârtha, the demoniacal.Verse 16.7Demoniacal men know neither right energy nor right abstinence; nor purity, nor even propriety, nor truth is in them.Verse 16.8"The universe is without truth, without basis," they say, "without a God; brought about by mutual union, and caused by lust and nothing else."Verse 16.9Holding this view, these ruined selves of small understanding, of fierce deeds, come forth as enemies for the destruction of the world.Verse 16.10Surrendering themselves to insatiable desires, possessed with vanity, conceit and arrogance, holding evil ideas through delusion, they engage in action with impure…Verse 16.11Giving themselves over to unmeasured thought whose end is death, regarding the gratification of desires as the highest, feeling sure that this is all,Verse 16.12Held in bondage by a hundred ties of expectation, given over to lust and anger, they strive to obtain by unlawful means hoards of wealth for sensual enjoyments.Verse 16.13"This to-day by me hath been won, that purpose I shall gain; this wealth is mine already, and also this shall be mine in future.Verse 16.14"I have slain this enemy, and others also I shall slay. I am the Lord, I am the enjoyer, I am perfect, powerful, happy;Verse 16.15"I am wealthy, well-born; what other is there that is like unto me? I will sacrifice, I will give alms, I will rejoice." Thus deluded by unwisdom,Verse 16.16Bewildered by numerous thoughts, enmeshed in the web of delusion, addicted to the gratification of desire, they fall downwards into a foul hell.Verse 16.17Self-glorifying, stubborn, filled with the pride and intoxication of wealth, they perform lip-sacrifices for ostentation, contrary to scriptural ordinance.Verse 16.18Given over to egoism, power, insolence, lust and wrath, these malicious ones hate Me in the bodies of others and in their own.Verse 16.19These haters, evil, pitiless, vilest among men in the world, I ever throw down into demoniacal wombs.Verse 16.20Cast into demoniacal wombs, deluded birth after birth, attaining not to Me, O Kaunteya, they sink into the lowest depths.Verse 16.21Triple is the gate of this hell, destructive of the self—lust, wrath, and greed; therefore let man renounce these three.Verse 16.22A man liberated from these three gates of darkness, O son of Kunti, accomplisheth his own welfare, and thus reacheth the highest goal.Verse 16.23He who, having cast aside the ordinances of the Scriptures, followeth the promptings of desire, attaineth not to perfection, nor happiness, nor the highest goal.Verse 16.24Therefore let the Scriptures be thy authority, in determining what ought to be done, or what ought not to be done. Knowing what hath been declared by the ordinances…