Sanskrit
समदुःखसुखः स्वस्थः समलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चनः । तुल्यप्रियाप्रियो धीरस्तुल्यनिन्दात्मसंस्तुतिः ॥
samaduḥkhasukhaḥ svasthaḥ samaloṣṭāśmakāñcanaḥ tulyapriyāpriyo dhīras tulyanindātmasaṃstutiḥ
Translation
Balanced in pleasure and pain, self-reliant, to whom a lump of earth, a rock and gold are alike, the same to loved and unloved, firm, the same in censure and in praise,
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The equanimity of verses 22-23 is now cashed out in concrete pairs of opposites: pain and pleasure, dirt and gold, the loved and the unloved, censure and praise, all treated alike. The list format and the specific pairs (pleasure/pain, praise/blame) are nearly identical to the sthitaprajna’s marks at 2.56-57, confirming this is the same equanimity chapter 2 described, restated here in the vocabulary of standing beyond the gunas rather than steady wisdom. Sama-loṣṭa-aśma-kāñcana — “the same toward clod, stone, and gold” — is BG 6.8 verbatim. This verse and the next are the chapter’s fullest overlap with the sthitaprajña: the guṇātīta and the person of steady wisdom are the same figure.
Study deeper
Word by word
- samaduḥkhasukhaḥ svasthaḥसमदुःखसुखः स्वस्थः
- the same in pain and pleasure, self-abiding (sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ + sva-sthaḥ)
- samaloṣṭāśmakāñcanaḥसमलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चनः
- equal toward a clod, a stone, and gold (sama-loṣṭa-aśma-kāñcanaḥ)
- tulyapriyāpriyo dhīrasतुल्यप्रियाप्रियो धीरस्
- the same toward the pleasant and unpleasant, steady (tulya-priya-apriyaḥ + dhīraḥ)
- tulyanindātmasaṃstutiḥतुल्यनिन्दात्मसंस्तुतिः
- the same in blame and praise of himself (tulya-nindā-ātma-saṃstutiḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Dirt and rock are easy to treat alike — nobody’s attached to either. Gold is the harder member of that triplet, and its deliberate inclusion turns a throwaway example into a genuine test: can you value scarce, universally-desired things exactly as you value what nobody wants? The list moves through three domains of the same discipline — felt sensation, material desirability, social judgment — as if to prove the equanimity holds across every kind of pull.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Test your own equanimity against its hardest version, not its easiest — it's simple to feel indifferent about things you never wanted, harder to feel that same indifference about something genuinely desirable; that harder test is the real measure of where you stand.
Professional
- Test your objectivity against the hardest case — can you evaluate a high-status, high-reward opportunity as dispassionately as you'd evaluate one nobody wants — since even-handedness that only shows up on low-stakes decisions isn't proven yet.
Family & Social
- Test your fairness within the family against its hardest case — treating the child or relative everyone favors exactly as evenly as the one nobody does — since fairness that only holds up in easy, low-stakes moments hasn't really been tested.
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