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Bhagavad-gītā 2.15

యం హి న వ్యథయన్త్యేతే పురుషం పురుషర్షభ । సమదుఃఖసుఖం ధీరం సోఽమృతత్వాయ కల్పతే ॥ ౧౫ ॥
yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete
[yam hi na vyathayanty ete]
puruṣaṁ puruṣarṣabha
[purusham purusharshabha]
sama-duḥkha-sukhaṁ dhīraṁ
[sama-duhkha-sukham dheeram]
so ’mṛtatvāya kalpate
[so ’mritatvaaya kalpate]
Word-for-word
yam — one to whom hi — certainly na — never vyathayanti — are distressing ete — all these puruṣam — to a person puruṣa - ṛṣabha — O best among men sama — unaltered duḥkha — in distress sukham — and happiness dhīram — patient saḥ — he amṛtatvāya — for liberation kalpate — is considered eligible .
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
yaṁ hi na vyathayanty ete
yam
one to whom
hi
certainly
na
never
vyathayanti
are distressing
ete
all these
puruṣaṁ puruṣarṣabha
puruṣam
to a person
puruṣa - ṛṣabha
O best among men
sama
unaltered
sama-duḥkha-sukhaṁ dhīraṁ
duḥkha
in distress
sukham
and happiness
dhīram
patient
saḥ
he
amṛtatvāya
for liberation
so ’mṛtatvāya kalpate
kalpate
is considered eligible .
Important Words
  • puruṣa - ṛṣabha — best among men
    Ṛṣabha — bull, chief. Kṛṣṇa addresses Arjuna with a kṣatriya honorific exactly while teaching renunciation of pleasure-pain reactions. The qualification of the path is not weakness but the deepest masculine strength.
  • vyathayanti — disturb
    From √vyath — to tremble, to shake. The senses' alternations cause vyathā — shudder — in the ordinary heart. The dhīra's heart does not shudder; the seas hit a different shore.
  • sama — equal
    The chapter's central word for equanimity. Sama-darśana, sama-bhāva, samatvam — the Gītā returns to sama again and again. Here it modifies duḥkha-sukha: the gap between pain and pleasure has been closed.
  • dhīram — the sober one
    Repeated from 2.13 — but now with a new attribute: not only unbewildered by the body's transitions but unmoved by sense contact's alternations. The character is deepening.
  • amṛtatvāya — for immortality
    Dative — *for the purpose of* immortality. The verse promises a definite outcome: equanimity is not its own reward; it is the qualification for amṛta. The Gauḍīya line reads amṛtatva as bhakti-sambandha, eternal life with the Lord.
O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation.
Purport

Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. In the varṇāśrama institution, the fourth stage of life, namely the renounced order ( sannyāsa ), is a painstaking situation. But one who is serious about making his life perfect surely adopts the sannyāsa order of life in spite of all difficulties. The difficulties usually arise from having to sever family relationships, to give up the connection of wife and children. But if anyone is able to tolerate such difficulties, surely his path to spiritual realization is complete. Similarly, in Arjuna’s discharge of duties as a kṣatriya, he is advised to persevere, even if it is difficult to fight with his family members or similarly beloved persons. Lord Caitanya took sannyāsa at the age of twenty-four, and His dependents, young wife as well as old mother, had no one else to look after them. Yet for a higher cause He took sannyāsa and was steady in the discharge of higher duties. That is the way of achieving liberation from material bondage.

— A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Gauḍīya Ācāryas
Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura Gauḍīya
Translation
15. O best of men, the intelligent person, equal in happiness and distress, who is not pained by these sense objects, attains liberation.
Commentary

Practicing tolerance with this discernment, the experience of the sense objects will, with passage of time, not give distress at all. When a person reaches this state where there is no distress from the objects of the senses, liberation of the ātmā is close at hand; he is qualified for liberation (amṛtatvāya).

Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa Gauḍīya
Translation
15. O best of men, the person who applies his intelligence to dharma, whom the experience of the sense objects by the senses does not disturb, being equal in happiness and distress, is fit for liberation.
Commentary

In this verse the Lord shows that by practicing tolerance of suffering for the sake of dharma, a person gains happiness. The word dhīra indicates a person who makes (irayati) his intelligence (dhī) active in these matters of dharma. The experiences of the sense objects, regarded as either favorable or unfavorable for oneself (mātrā sparśā), do not throw the person fixed in dharma (dhīraḥ) into the delusion of happiness and suffering (na vyathayanti). That person is fit for liberation, whereas those persons disturbed by happiness and distress are not fit for liberation. To make the meaning clearer the Lord further described the person. The person performing his duties of dharma is equal towards suffering due to the difficulties in attaining the goal of the duties and happiness which ultimately results, being without sad or happy face.

Bhūrijana Dāsa Gauḍīya
Commentary

That means that if one acts but steadily, not disturbed by happiness or distress, based on jnana, the result is‑ liberation.

Study Notes — Gauranga Priya Dāsa
Gauranga Priya Dāsa Study
Bhakti-śāstrī Notes, ISKCON Chowpatty (2009)
Theme

Focus on the higher goal of liberation and overcome dualities of happiness and distress

Focus of Learning

(a) Eligibility for liberation from material bondage

Steady in prescribed duties – Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realisation
Tolerates – One who can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness

(b) Examples of Tolerance for the purpose of a higher goal

First example: Renounced order of life – Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu renounces wife and mother, at an early age for the preaching mission
Sannyasa is a painstaking situation but one who is serious, surely adopts this order in spite of all difficulties (difficulties usually arise from having to sever family relations)
Second example: Arjuna is also advised to persevere his duties even at the cost of fighting with ‘family members’

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF TEXT 2.15

Krishna now mentions for the first time a spiritual goal, liberation. By performing our prescribed

duties (Karma), we obtain knowledge, jnana which is a prerequisite for liberation

(a) Importance of ‘Kaunteya’ and ‘Bharata’ – Great heritage brings great responsibility in the matter

of proper discharge of duties

‘Kaunteya’ (Son of mother Kunti) signifies blood relation from mother’s side
‘Bharata’ (Decendent of King Bharata) signifies blood relation from father’s side

(b) Basis of Tolerating Dualities

Knowledge of ‘illusion’ – They know that dualities arise only from sense perception
Higher goal – Focus on path of liberation

(c) Examples of tolerating dualties

Early morning bath in Month of Magh (winter season)
Women cooking in May/June
To fight as a religion – even with relatives if needed
Renounced order of life which is full of austerities – Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu renouncing wife and mother (2.15)

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF TEXT 2.14

Prescribed duties are essential for spiritual advancement
They fulfill material desires in a regulated means, and thus gradually detach one from the bodily concept of life, and allow him to rise to the platform of knowledge
Classical Ācāryas
Śrī Śaṅkarācārya Classical
Translation
2.15 What will happen to one who bears cold and heat? Listen: Verily, the person৷৷.,'etc. (O Arjuna) hi, verily; yam purusam, the person whom; ete, these, cold and heat mentioned above; na, do not; vyathayanti, torment, do not perturb; dhiram, the wise man; sama-duhkha-sukham, to whom sorrow and happiness are the same, who is free from happiness and sorrow when subjected to pleasure and pain, because of his realization of the enternal Self; sah, he, who is established in the realization of the enternal Self, who forbears the opposites; kalpate, becomes fit; amrtattvaya, for Immortality, for the state of Immortality, i.e. for Liberation.
Śrī Rāmānujācārya Classical
Translation
2.15 That person endowed with courage, who considers pain as inevitable as pleasure, and who performs war and such other acts suited to his station in life without attachment to the results and only as a means of attaining immortality - one whom the impact of weapons in war etc., which involve soft or harsh contacts, do not trouble, that person only attains immortality, not a person like you, who cannnot bear grief. As the selves are immortal, what is to be done here, is this much only. This is the meaning. Because of the immortality of the selves and the natural destructibility of the bodies, there is no cause for grief. It was told (previously): 'The wise grieve neither for the dead nor for the living' (2. 11). Now the Lord elucidates the same view.
Śrī Abhinavagupta Classical
Translation
2.15 But, because all these different situations are of the nature of coming and going, on that account itself are they not to be lamented on ? It is not so. As for instance : What is this which is termed 'coming' ? If it is 'birth', what is that 'birth' itself ? It is wrong to say that is the same as gaining the self by what is non-existent. For, to be of the nature of non-existence, is indeed to be devoid of every inherent nature and to be devoid of the very self. If a thing is devoid of the self and devoid of every nature, how is it possible to convert it into what has an intrinsic nature ? Surely, it is impossible to convert the non-blue into blue. For, it is faulty and undesirable to covert the non-blue into blue. For, it is faulty and undesirable to conclude that a thing with certain in nature changes to be of a different nature. Hence the scritpure goes - 'The intrinsic nature of beings would not cease to exist, e.g., the heat of the sun'. On the other hand, if the 'birth' signifies the gaining of self just by what [really] exists, even then, why the lamentability on its coming ? For, what has gained a self, could never be non-existent and conseently it would be eternal. Likewise, is the act of 'going' also meant for the existent or the non-existent ? What is non-existent is just non-existent [for ever.] How can there be a non-existence-nature even in the case of that which is of the existence-nature ? If it is said that it is of the non-existence-nature in the second moment; [since its birth], then it should be so even in the first moment; and so nothing would be existent. For, the intrinsic nature [ever] remains unabandoned. But is it not that the destruction of it (i.e., of a given thing, like a pot) is brought about by the stroke of a hammer etc.? Yet, if that destruction is altogether different [from the existent one i.e. the pot], then what does it matter for what is existent ? But, it is not be seen [at that time] ? Yet, what is actually existent (pot) may not be seen just as when it is covered with a cloth; but it has not turned to be altogether different. In fact, it has been said [in the scriptures] that this is not different [from the existent]. Summarising all these, [the Lord] says -
Swami Sivananda Classical
Translation
2.15 That firm man whom, surely, these afflict not, O chief among men, to whom pleasure and pain are the same, is fit for attaining immortality.
Commentary

2.15 यम् whom? हि surely? न व्यथयन्ति afflict not? एते these? पुरुषम् man? पुरुषर्षभ chief among men? समदुःखसुखम् same in pleasure and pain? धीरम् firm man? सः he? अमृतत्वाय for immortality? कल्पते is fit.Commentary -- Dehadhyasa or identification of the Self with the body is the cause of pleasure and pain. The more you are able to identify yourself with the immortal? allpervading Self? the less will you be affected by the pairs of opposites (Dvandvas? pleasure and pain? etc.)Titiksha or the power of endurance develops the willpower. Calm endurance in pleasure and pain? and heat and cold is one of the alifications of an aspirant on the path of Jnana Yoga. It is one of the Shatsampat or sixfold virtues. It is a condition of right knowledge. Titiksha by itself cannot give you Moksha or liberation? but still? when coupled with discrimination and dispassion? it becomes a means to the attainment of Immortality or knowledge of the Self. (Cf.XVII.53)

Swami Gambhīrānanda Classical
Translation
2.15 O (Arjuna, who are) foremost among men, verily, the person whom these do not torment, the wise man to whom sorrow and happhiness are the same he is fit for Immortality.
Shri Purohit Swami Classical
Translation
2.15 The hero whose soul is unmoved by circumstance, who accepts pleasure and pain with equanimity, only he is fit for immortality.
Related values & verses
Primary values
Dhairya (Composure / Courage)
Related values
Tyaga (Renunciation / Letting Go)Karuna (Kindness / Compassion)Ahimsa (Non-violence / Compassion)Arjava (Simplicity / Straightforwardness)Guru Bhakti (Reverence for Teacher)Atma Nigraha (Self-control)Daksya (Resourcefulness / Skill)Maitri (Friendship / Goodwill)
Related verses
BG 2.14 BG 12.13 BG 14.24 SB 1.8.27 SB 7.9.43 SB 11.19.36 CC Madhya 8.241 CC Madhya 19.213 CC Antya 20.47 Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.13BRS 1.4.15
Concepts
Dharma
Related lectures
Personal Guidance
The dhīra who is not disturbed by these dualities is fit for liberation — equanimity is the doorway to amṛta.
Practical Applications
  • Cultivate one moment of equanimity today in a situation where you usually react.
  • Re-read this verse when you find yourself 'shaken' by ordinary circumstances.
  • Pray to be made fit for liberation — not by removing duality but by becoming steady within it.
Reflection Questions
  • What does my disturbance reveal about what I am still attached to?
  • Am I willing to be made dhīra by Krishna, even through the very dualities I dislike?
Analogy

A rock at the seashore is struck equally by warm sun and cold spray, by rising tide and falling. The rock is not pleased by warmth nor pained by cold; its weight is its own. The puruṣa who has reached this evenness is eligible for amṛta — immortality.

Stories
Mīrā drinks the poison

When her brother-in-law sent poison disguised as caraṇāmṛta, Mīrā drank it singing Giridhārī's name. The poison did not kill her; some versions say it became nectar in her mouth.

The verse's sama-duḥkha-sukhaṁ dhīram is exact: pleasure and pain reduced to a single equal substance because the heart's reference point is fixed elsewhere. Mīrā was eligible for amṛtatva because amṛta had already entered her tongue through the name. Material poison could not touch what was already nectared.

📝 My note

Source: vedabase.io

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