
Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 16, Verse 2
Verse 2
The Yoga of the Divine and Demonic Natures
Non-violence, truthfulness, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquillity, absence of fault-finding, compassion for all beings, freedom from greed, gentleness, modesty, and steadiness —
Context & Meaning
The catalog continues. Ahiṃsā (non-violence) and satya (truthfulness) — foundational to all ethical traditions — are placed together, as they are in many ways two faces of the same commitment: to not harm reality, whether through action or through distorted speech. Akrodha (freedom from anger) is the mastery of the reactive impulse that, when indulged, burns the one who harbours it more than any external target. Tyāga (renunciation) and śānti (tranquillity) point to an inner freedom from grasping and turbulence. Apaiśunam — absence of fault-finding and slander — is a quality rarely listed in ethical frameworks yet devastatingly important: the person who habitually seeks flaws in others is revealing their own inner disorder. Dayā (compassion), aloluptva (freedom from greed), mārdava (gentleness), hrī (modesty), and acāpala (steadiness of mind and body) complete the picture.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainRamanujacharya
VishishtadvaitaDayā bhūteṣu — compassion for all beings. Not for humans only, not for the deserving, but for all beings. This is the natural fruit of recognising the divine spark (the jīva as aṃśa of God) in every living creature. The divine person cannot look upon suffering without being moved, because in every suffering being they recognise a fragment of the Beloved. Compassion is not weakness; it is the signature of true spiritual seeing.