Sanskrit
दम्भो दर्पोऽभिमानश्च क्रोधः पारुष्यमेव च । अज्ञानं चाभिजातस्य पार्थ सम्पदमासुरीम् ॥
dambho darpo 'bhimānaś ca krodhaḥ pāruṣyam eva ca ajñānaṃ cābhijātasya pārtha sampadam āsurīm
Translation
Hypocrisy, arrogance and conceit, wrath and also harshness and unwisdom are his who is born, O Pârtha, with demoniacal properties.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
After three verses and roughly two dozen distinct divine qualities, the demonic list arrives in a single verse with only six items: hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit, wrath, harshness, and ajñāna (unwisdom, the opposite of the jñāna this chapter opened with). The asymmetry is rhetorically pointed — virtue gets elaborated in fine-grained detail, vice is treated as one undifferentiated bundle of inflated ego and ignorance, as if there’s less to say about it because it’s fundamentally simpler, a deficiency rather than a rich alternative structure. Krishna addresses Arjuna here as Pārtha (son of Pṛthā), a patronymic the text reaches for when it wants to remind him of his lineage and therefore his stakes in the choice being described. The demonic list is short — six words — because its root is one thing: ajñāna, not-knowing, which the rest (hypocrisy, arrogance, harshness) are symptoms of. Verses 7–20 then draw out what that not-knowing believes and does.
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Word by word
- dambho darpo 'bhimānaś caदंभो दर्पो ऽभिमानश् च
- hypocrisy, arrogance, conceit (dambhaḥ + darpaḥ + abhimānaḥ + ca)
- krodhaḥ pāruṣyam eva caक्रोधः पारुष्यं एव च
- anger, and harshness (krodhaḥ + pāruṣyam + eva + ca)
- ajñānaṃ cābhijātasya pārthaअज्ञानं चाभिजातस्य पार्थ
- and ignorance — of one born [to it], O Pārtha (ajñānam + ca + abhijātasya + pārtha)
- sampadam āsurīmसंपदं आसुरीं
- the demonic endowment (sampadam + āsurīm)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Where the preceding divine catalogue reads like a flat, simultaneous list — a person could plausibly hold all twenty-plus qualities at once with no inherent order — this six-item demonic list reads more like a plausible cascade: hypocrisy feeding arrogance, arrogance curdling into conceit, conceit erupting as wrath, wrath hardening into habitual harshness, all of it resting on ajñāna. Virtue here is a coexisting cluster; vice is a chain reaction, each link plausibly triggering the next.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When you notice one small item on this verse's list in yourself — a flash of arrogance, a moment of harshness — treat it as a possible first link in a chain rather than an isolated lapse. Interrupting the chain early is easier than stopping it once it has become habitual.
Professional
- If you see a colleague's minor arrogance going unchecked, address it early — this verse's six vices read as a plausible cascade, not a flat list, where small conceit can compound into habitual harshness toward the team. The earlier you intervene, the less it costs to correct.
Family & Social
- A small unchecked bit of pride or self-importance in a relationship rarely stays small — this verse suggests it tends to cascade toward harsher, more frequent conflict. Naming the early sign gently is easier than addressing the pattern once it has hardened.
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