Skip to content

Bhagavad Gita 16.9

एतां दृष्टिमवष्टभ्य नष्टात्मानोऽल्पबुद्धयः।प्रभवन्त्युग्रकर्माणः क्षयाय जगतोऽहिताः॥

etāṃ dṛṣṭimavaṣṭabhya naṣṭātmāno'lpabuddhayaḥ |prabhavantyugrakarmāṇaḥ kṣayāya jagato'hitāḥ ||

Holding this view, these ruined souls of small intellect and fierce deeds come forth as enemies of the world, intent on its destruction.

Translation by Swami Sivananda · Public domain in India (translator d. 1963)

Thinking thus, these degraded souls, these enemies of mankind—whose intelligence is negligible and whose deeds are monstrous—come into the world only to destroy.

Translation by Shri Purohit Swami · Public domain in India (translator d. 1941)

Our plain-language meaning of this verse is waiting for scholar review.

Edition: Common 700-verse recension. Arjuna's opening question in chapter 13, absent from that recension, is kept as 13.0.

Transliteration in IAST, generated from the Devanagari text.

Source: Sanskrit text via gita/gita (Unlicense), from the Gita Supersite, IIT Kanpur. Sanskrit text public domain.