The Divine and Demoniac Natures

In the sixteenth chapter, the deva and demon qualities as well as the results of these two conditions will be described.

Remembering that the fruits of the aśvattha tree of saṁsāra had not been described in the last chapter after mentioning them, the Lord in this chapter describes the fruits of the tree which are of two varieties: those which cause liberation and those which cause bondage. First, he describes those giving liberation in three verses.

Abhayam means freedom from the fear of “How will I live, being alone in the forest without wife and children?”

Sattva-saṁsuddhiḥ means purity of consciousness.

Jñāna-yoga vyavasthitaḥ means being completely familiar with the methods of attaining jñāna, for example lack of pride, mentioned in chapter thirteen.

Dāna means to distribute food or other items of one’s enjoyment to others

Dama means controlling the external senses.

Yajña means worship of the Lord.

Svadhyāya means studying or reciting the Vedas.

The other items after this are clear.

Tyāga means to give up possessiveness of wife, children and other things.

Aloluptam means absence of greed.

These twenty six items belong to the person born at a moment indicating sattvic nature.

The Lord now speaks of the fruits which cause bondage.

Dambha means to announce oneself as religious even though one has a sinful nature.

Darpa means pride due to wealth, knowledge and the like.

Abhimāna means to desire respect from others or attachment to wife, sons and other things.

Krodha means anger.

Pāruṣya means cruelty.

Ajñāna means lack of discrimination.

These are the qualities of the asura, which indicate other types of beings, such as Rākṣasas as well. These qualities belong to the person born at a moment indicating attainment of rajasic or tamasic qualities.

The Lord shows the effects of these two attainments in this verse.

“It appears that I have the asuric traits which will lead to bondage in saṁsāra, since I desire to kill enemies by shooting arrows and am thus filled with cruelty and anger.”

To comfort Arjuna who was thus worried, the Lord speaks. “Do not worry. You are born with the daiva qualities. O Pāṇòava! For one born in a kṣatriya family, anger and cruelty during war are prescribed by the scriptures. To do otherwise would make you of the asuric nature, possessing violence and other bad qualities.”

Now Kṛṣṇa begins to explain about the asuric qualities to the despondent Arjuna. I have spoken about the divine persons in detail already, in verse 1-3.

Pravṛttim means dharma and nivṛttim means adharma.

This verse describes the thinking process of the asuras. They say that the world is an illusory conception, based on falsity (asatyam); that it is without shelter (apratiṣṭha), not having even the basis of a flower in the sky; that it is without creatorship of a controller since it is false (anīśvaram). Because it has arisen from nowhere like entities from perspiration, it has not arisen from a cause (aparaspara-saṁbhūtam). What else can be said (kim anyat)? Its cause is just according to the desire of those who propound theories about it (kāma haitukam). If they can imagine that the world arises only by illusion, then that becomes the cause.

Others explain the verse thus: It has no proof, no confirmation from the Vedas, Purāṇas or other sources of knowledge (asatyam). It is said:

trayo vedasya kartāro bhaṇòa-dhūrta-niśācarā

The makers of the three Vedas are jackals imitating wise men.

It has no state of dharma or adharma (apratiṣṭham). The ideas of dharma and adharma are both mistaken conceptions. The Lord also is conceived on the basis of mistake or bhrama (anīśvaram).

“It is observed that the world arises only from the mutual interactions of men and women.” This is not a fact. The world does not arise from their interaction (aparaspara-saṁbhūtam). Though it is said that the child arises from the mother and father, it is a mistaken idea, like false knowledge that the pot has arisen from the potter. What should be said? The cause of the world is simply a speculation of one’s whim (kāma-haitukam). By logic, whatever different persons speak about atoms, māyā or God, they talk of that as the cause.

Some of these asuras who speak in this way are lost souls (naṣṭātmaṇaḥ), some have little intelligence, some are violent, doing whatever they want, living hellish existence. This is described in eleven verses. Avaṣṭabhya means taking shelter of this conception.

They engage in false doctrines (asad grāhān). They perform vrata without pure conduct (aśuci vratāḥ).

Until death (pralayāntām) they take shelter of unlimited thoughts. They are convinced that the only purport of scripture (etāvan iti niścitāḥ) is to let the senses enjoy sense objects, and why worry about it?

Attached to the enjoyment of their desired objects, they fall to unclean hell, into such places as Vaitaraṇī (filled with blood and pus).

Ātma-sambhāvitā means those who have attained worshipable status, but are not respected by any well bred people. Therefore they are unsubmissive (stabdhā). They perform worship by actions which are sacrifice in name only (nāma-yajñaiḥ yajante).

They disrespect Me (pradviṣantaḥ), the Paramātmā, who am situated in their own and others bodies (ātma-para-deheṣu). Or they hate Me who am situated in the bodies of the devotees who are surrendered to Paramātmā (ātma-para-deheṣu mām). They hate Me, since they hate the devotees who have surrendered to Me. And they find fault in the qualities of the devotees (abhyasūyakāḥ).

Not attaining Me, the asuras attain low births. However, those asuras in the form of Kaṁsa and others attained Me, Kṛṣṇa, who appeared at the end of Dvāpara-yuga in the twenty eighth cycle of Vaivasvata Manu’s reign. Though hating Me, they attained Me in the form of liberation. Because I am an ocean of mercy, I give even such sinful asuras liberation, which is only attained by the perfection of bhakti and jñāna. The Personified Vedas say:

nibhṛta-marun-mano’kṣa dṛòha-yoga-yujo hṛdi yan

munaya upāsate tad-arayo’pi yayuḥ smaraṇāt

Simply by constantly thinking of Him, the enemies of the Lord attained the same Supreme Truth whom sages fixed in yoga worship by controlling their breath, mind and senses. SB 10.87.23

This widens the scope of My supreme attractive position which I mentioned previously.

But as the Bhagavatāmṛta Kārikā says:

māṁ kṛṣṇa-rūpiṇaṁ yāvan nāpnuvanti mama dviṣaḥ

tāvad evādhamaṁ yoniṁ prāpnuvantīti hi sphuṭam

In as much as those who hate Me do not attain Me in My form as Kṛṣṇa, it is clear that they attain the lowest births.

Thus the Lord has described the nature of the asura in detail. The Lord has also correctly said, “Do not worry, O Arjuna, you are born of the divine nature.” (BG 16.5) to confirm that this is true, He then says that there are indeed three inborn tendencies of the asuras in this verse.

In this verse the Lord expresses that it is beneficial for a person to follow the scriptures. He speaks of the person who does not follow scripture, and does whatever he wants (kāma-kārataḥ).

This chapter has described how those who follow the scripture attain the supreme goal and those who do not follow scripture go to hell.

Thus the commentaries on the sixteenth chapter of the Gītā have been completed for the pleasure of the devotees’ hearts, by the mercy of the ācāryas.