Cluster 0046 — BG-2.15 — *yam hi na vyathayanty ete puruṣam puruṣarṣabha — sama-duḥkha-sukham dhīram so'mṛtatvāya kalpate*
BG-2.15
Sanskrit
यं हि न व्यथयन्त्येते पुरुषं पुरुषर्षभ । समदुःखसुखं धीरं सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते ॥१५॥
Translation
That person, O bull among men, whom these (sense-contacts) do not disturb — who is equal in pain and pleasure, the steady one — he becomes fit for immortality.
This is the consequence-verse of the sense-contact teaching. In BG-2.14 Kṛṣṇa told Arjuna that cold and heat, pleasure and pain, are transient touches of the senses, come-and-go, to be endured (titikṣasva). Here in 2.15 he names the reward of that endurance: the one whom these touches cannot disturb, who holds pain and pleasure as the same weight — the dhīra, the steady one — that very person becomes fit for deathlessness. Equanimity is not offered as a virtue to admire; it is named as the qualification (kalpate, "is fit for") for amṛtatva. Jñāneśvar compresses the whole verse into two ovis — first by negation (what does not touch the sage), then by recognition (what he eternally is).
Ovi 2.123
Original (Marathi): हे विषय जयातें नाकळिती । तया सुखदुःखें दोनी न पवती । आणि गर्भवासुसंगती । नाहीं तया ॥१२३॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (continuous Kṛṣṇa-instruction; the यं...तं subject-description that the explicit पार्था of 2.124 will address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| हे विषय जयातें नाकळिती | these sense-objects (viṣaya) do not catch / seize the one (whom) |
| तया सुखदुःखें दोनी न पवती | to him the two — pleasure and pain — do not reach (न पवती) |
| आणि गर्भवासुसंगती | and the association with womb-dwelling (garbha-vāsa-sangati) — i.e. rebirth |
| नाहीं तया | there is none, for him |
Literal translation
English: The one whom these sense-objects cannot seize, to whom the two — pleasure and pain — do not reach, and for whom there is no association with the womb-dwelling (no rebirth).
मराठी (आधुनिक): ज्याला हे विषय पकडू शकत नाहीत, ज्याच्यापर्यंत सुख आणि दुःख ही दोन्ही पोहोचतच नाहीत, आणि ज्याला पुन्हा गर्भवासाची — जन्माची — संगती उरत नाही.
Sanskrit-root note
garbha-vāsa = garbha (womb) + vāsa (dwelling) — "womb-dwelling," the standard idiom for taking birth; na vyathayanti of the śloka ("do not disturb," causative of √vyath, "to waver") is rendered by the gentler न पवती ("do not reach") — the disturbance cannot even arrive, let alone shake him.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. It is a triple-negation (sense-objects don't seize, pleasure-pain don't reach, no womb-dwelling), stated plainly rather than imaged.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. गर्भवास names rebirth-cosmology (the chain of births the sage is freed from), not yogic gestation or a subtle-body process; reading kuṇḍalinī/suṣumnā into a Sānkhya-equanimity verse would be fabrication.
Cross-references
- Internal: Negative-companion to 2.124 — the इंद्रियार्था-नागवेचि ("not robbed by the sense-objects") of 2.124 ring-completes the विषय-नाकळिती ("sense-objects don't seize") here; together the negation and the recognition frame the same dhīra.
- Tukaram parallel: Abhang 47 — गेले मानामान । सुखदुःखाचें खंडन ("honor-and-dishonor gone, joy-and-sorrow cancelled") issuing in आतां कोण भय धरी । पुढें मरणाचें हरी ("now what fear of the death ahead?"). The same structure 2.123 glosses: the सुखदुःखें-दोनी-न-पवती equanimity becomes Tukaram's सुखदुःखाचें खंडन, and the गर्भवासुसंगती-नाहीं freedom-from-rebirth becomes his loss of the fear of death.
- Source citations: Bhagavad Gītā 2.15 (direct paraphrase — the whole pāda-set folded into the triple-negation); Bhagavad Gītā 2.14 (the sense-contact teaching this answers); Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.1.2 (the dhīra who, knowing amṛtatva, does not crave transient sense-objects — the same "sense-objects don't seize him" structure).
Modern application
- When a craving rises and you watch it fail to take hold of you. You have set 20 minutes to sit; an urge to check your phone arrives — and for once it does not seize (नाकळिती), it just passes through the visual field of the mind and leaves. The verse names exactly that non-capture as the mark of the steady one, not the absence of the urge.
- When good news and bad news stop swinging you as far as they used to. The promotion lands, the rejection lands — and you notice the two no longer reach (न पवती) all the way down to where you actually live. The verse insists this is fitness, not flatness.
- When you stop arranging your life around avoiding the next "birth" of an old pattern. The गर्भवास here is literal rebirth; transposed, it is the endless re-entry into the same compulsion — the same argument, the same craving, reborn. The sage is the one for whom that loop has no more sangati, no more hold.
Sādhanā
In the next 24 hours, when one clear sense-pull arrives (a smell, a notification, a craving), give it exactly 60 seconds of watching without acting. Say silently: it is reaching toward me; it is not seizing me. End at 60 seconds whether or not the pull is gone — you are practising the नाकळिती, not the disappearance.
Arc
2.123 draws the steady one by what does not touch him; 2.124 turns to the positive recognition — recognize him entirely, O Pārtha, as the eternal-form whom the senses cannot rob.
Ovi 2.124
Original (Marathi): तो नित्यरूप पार्था । वोळखावा सर्वथा । जो या इंद्रियार्था । नागवेचि ॥१२४॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the explicit पार्था vocative anchors the direct address to Arjuna — Kṛṣṇa's पुरुषर्षभ rendered as पार्था)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तो नित्यरूप पार्था | he, the eternal-form (nitya-rūpa), O Pārtha |
| वोळखावा सर्वथा | should be recognized / known, entirely (sarvathā) |
| जो या इंद्रियार्था | the one whom these sense-object-meanings (indriya-artha) |
| नागवेचि | do not overcome / do not rob (नागवणे — to plunder, to leave naked) |
Literal translation
English: Recognize him entirely, O Pārtha, as the eternal-form — the one whom these sense-objects do not overcome, do not rob.
मराठी (आधुनिक): त्याला, हे पार्था, पूर्णपणे नित्यरूप म्हणून ओळख — जो या इंद्रियविषयांकडून लुटला जात नाही, हरला जात नाही.
Sanskrit-root note
nitya-rūpa = nitya (eternal, imperishable) + rūpa (form) — Jñāneśvar's rendering of the śloka's dhīra (steady one) as the imperishable-natured one, importing the chapter's central imperishability-doctrine. नागवणे (to be robbed/stripped) renders the amṛtatva-kalpate fitness negatively: the senses cannot strip him of what he is.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. नित्यरूप ("eternal-form") and नागवेचि ("not robbed") are doctrinal epithets, not a sustained image. (Tukaram's roasted-seed image for this same fitness is the abhang's — see cross-reference — not imported here as if Jñāneśvar wrote it.)
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. नित्यरूप names the imperishable Self in the Vedāntic register of adhyāya 2, not a Nātha subtle-body state.
Cross-references
- Internal: Positive-companion to 2.123 — the recognition (नित्यरूप — वोळखावा — इंद्रियार्था नागवेचि) completes the negation of 2.123; the इंद्रियार्था-नागवेचि ("not robbed by the sense-objects") ring-completes the विषय-नाकळिती ("sense-objects don't seize") of 2.123, both naming the sense-object's failure against the sage.
- Tukaram parallel: Abhang 4247 — साकरेचा नव्हे ऊंस । आम्हां कैंचा गर्भवास ("we are sugar, not of cane — what womb-dwelling is for us?") and बीज भाजुनि केली लाही । जन्ममरण आम्हांसि नाहीं ("the seed roasted into popped-grain — no birth-death is for us"). The roasted-seed-that-cannot-germinate is Tukaram's image for precisely the नित्यरूप-fitness this ovi names — the amṛtatva / freedom-from-the-womb that BG-2.15's सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते promises.
- Source citations: Bhagavad Gītā 2.15 (direct paraphrase — dhīram so'mṛtatvāya kalpate + the puruṣarṣabha vocative as पार्था); Bhagavad Gītā 2.56 (the sthitaprajña unagitated in sorrows, free of craving in joys — the same dhīra developed); Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.7 (atha martyo'mṛto bhavaty atra — the mortal becomes immortal here, in this body — the amṛtatva-in-the-body doctrine नित्यरूप-वोळखावा draws on).
Modern application
- When you can be wholly steady at the exact point you control nothing. The surgeon whose hands stay even while the outcome is genuinely uncertain; the negotiator unmoved by the room's pressure. The verse asks you to recognize (वोळखावा) that steadiness not as a trick but as a glimpse of the नित्यरूप — what in you the situation cannot rob.
- When you stop being "robbed" by the thing you used to lose yourself to. The drink, the scroll, the approval — these are the इंद्रियार्थ that नागवती, that strip a person bare. The day one of them stops leaving you depleted is the day the ovi describes: you were not robbed this time.
- When you choose to see another person by their imperishable core, not their worst hour. वोळखावा सर्वथा — recognize him entirely — can be turned outward: meeting someone (or yourself) as the नित्यरूप that the bad day did not actually destroy.
Sādhanā
Today, write down one thing you currently treat as able to "rob" you — one इंद्रियार्थ that leaves you stripped (a craving, a need for praise, a fear). Beneath it, write one sentence in Tukaram's register: this seed is already roasted; it cannot germinate in me today. Read it once, aloud, and let that be the whole practice.
Arc
2.124 completes the cluster's portrait of the dhīra fit for immortality; the next śloka (BG-2.16, नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः) supplies the metaphysics underneath it — pleasure and pain need not disturb the sage because they belong to the transient asat, while his नित्यरूप belongs to the imperishable sat.
Cluster summary
Core teaching: BG-2.15 names the reward of the endurance taught in 2.14: the person whom cold-heat-pleasure-pain do not disturb — equal in pain and pleasure, the dhīra — becomes fit for immortality. Jñāneśvar renders it in two compact ovis. First by negation (2.123): the sense-objects cannot seize him (नाकळिती), pleasure and pain do not even reach him (न पवती), and there is no more womb-dwelling — no rebirth — for him (गर्भवासुसंगती नाहीं). Then by recognition (2.124): recognize him entirely, O Pārtha, as the eternal-form (नित्यरूप), the one whom the sense-objects cannot rob (नागवेचि). Equanimity is not decoration here; it is the qualification for deathlessness.
Chapter arc position: This sits in the Sānkhya-plus-karma-yoga-opening of adhyāya 2, in the stretch (BG-2.11-30) where Kṛṣṇa argues from the imperishability of the self. 2.14 names the transient sense-contacts to be endured; 2.15 turns that endurance into a soteriological promise — equanimity is the entry-fee for amṛtatva. The cluster carries the same dhīra + amṛtatva + non-craving triad as Kaṭha 2.1.2, and the amṛtatva-in-this-very-body of Bṛhadāraṇyaka 4.4.7.
Connects to BG-2.16: नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः — "of the unreal there is no being, of the real no non-being." This grounds 2.15's equanimity in metaphysics: the reason pleasure and pain cannot disturb the dhīra is that they belong to the transient asat he need not cling to, while his नित्यरूप eternal-form belongs to the imperishable sat — the very sat/asat distinction the next verse states outright.
Tukaram resonance: Two abhangs land on this cluster's two ovis. Abhang 47 (गेले मानामान । सुखदुःखाचें खंडन → आतां कोण भय... मरणाचें) maps the equanimity-issuing-in-deathlessness of 2.123; abhang 4247 (साकरेचा नव्हे ऊंस । आम्हां कैंचा गर्भवास; बीज भाजुनि केली लाही । जन्ममरण आम्हांसि नाहीं) maps the freedom-from-rebirth of 2.123 and the नित्यरूप-fitness of 2.124 — the roasted seed that cannot germinate being Tukaram's image for the very amṛtatva BG-2.15 promises.