Sanskrit
समः शत्रौ च मित्रे च तथा मानापमानयोः । शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः सङ्गविवर्जितः ॥
samaḥ śatrau ca mitre ca tathā mānāpamānayoḥ śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkheṣu samaḥ saṅgavivarjitaḥ
Translation
Alike to foe and friend, and also in fame and ignominy, alike in cold and heat, pleasures and pains, destitute of attachment,
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
This is the clearest overlap in the whole chapter with the sthitaprajna portrait — foe and friend, honor and dishonor, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, all named as pairs the devotee holds level. It’s essentially the same equanimity criterion 2.56-57 uses to define steady wisdom, here used to define devotion instead, which is the chapter’s implicit argument: bhakti and sthitaprajna converge on the same internal discipline even though they start from different practices. The clearest overlap with the sthitaprajña portrait — foe/friend, honour/dishonour, heat/cold, pleasure/pain, all held level. The chapter’s implicit argument: bhakti and sthitaprajña converge on the same inner discipline from different starting practices.
Study deeper
Word by word
- samaḥ śatrau ca mitre caसमः शत्रौ च मित्रे च
- the same to foe and to friend (samaḥ + śatrau + ca + mitre + ca)
- tathā mānāpamānayoḥतथा मानापमानयोः
- likewise in honour and dishonour (tathā + māna-apamānayoḥ)
- śītoṣṇasukhaduḥkheṣu samaḥशीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु समः
- the same in cold and heat, pleasure and pain (śīta-uṣṇa-sukha-duḥkheṣu + samaḥ)
- saṅgavivarjitaḥसङ्गविवर्जितः
- free of attachment (saṅga-vivarjitaḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
By this point the portrait of the devotee and the earlier portrait of the sthitaprajna are naming the same person in different vocabulary — foe and friend, honor and dishonor, heat and cold, all held level either way. Two paths that looked separate at the start of the chapter turn out, verse by verse, to converge on one identical internal discipline.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If a practice that feels completely different from one you've already tried seems to be asking for the same underlying steadiness, trust that — two different-looking disciplines can converge on one identical internal state.
Professional
- When two teams solve a shared problem in visibly different ways, check whether they've actually converged on the same underlying property — reliability, simplicity — before assuming one approach must be right and the other wrong.
Family & Social
- If you and someone close to you handle stress in very different-looking ways, look for whether you're both actually aiming at the same underlying calm — different practices can converge on the same real goal.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.