Sanskrit
परित्राणाय साधूनां विनाशाय च दुष्कृताम् । धर्मसंस्थापनार्थाय सम्भवामि युगे युगे ॥
paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṃ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtām dharma-saṃsthāpanārthāya sambhavāmi yuge yuge
Translation
For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, for the sake of firmly establishing righteousness, I am born from age to age.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Verse 8 completes the sentence verse 7 began, giving the stated purpose of that recurring descent: protecting the good, destroying evildoers, and re-establishing dharma, closing with the famous refrain “yuge yuge,” age after age. Together verses 7-8 are the single most quoted articulation of the avatâra doctrine in the text; later ideas, like the ten avatâras of Vishnu, build on this claim rather than the other way around. The three purposes are ordered from the beneficiary outward: protect, remove what threatens, restore the structure. And yuge yuge keeps it plural and cyclical — avatāra in the Gita is a standing pattern of history, not a one-off.
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Word by word
- paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṃपरित्राणाय साधूनां
- for the protection of the good (paritrāṇāya + sādhūnām)
- vināśāya ca duṣkṛtāmविनाशाय च दुष्कृतां
- and the destruction of evildoers (vināśāya + ca + duṣkṛtām)
- dharma-saṃsthāpanārthāyaधर्म-संस्थापनार्थाय
- to re-establish dharma (dharma-saṃsthāpana-arthāya)
- sambhavāmiसंभवामि
- I come into being
- yuge yugeयुगे युगे
- age after age (yuge + yuge)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The three stated purposes aren’t interchangeable, and their order isn’t arbitrary: protecting the good comes first, destroying evil second, establishing dharma third. Read as a sequence rather than a list, it’s a template for how correction actually has to proceed — you defend what still works before you remove what’s broken, and you remove what’s broken before you can build the new structure on stable ground.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When fixing a bad pattern in your own life, follow this verse's order: protect what's still working, remove what's clearly harmful, and only then establish new structure — skipping straight to rebuilding before you've stopped the damage rarely holds.
Professional
- A turnaround plan usually needs to protect the good, stop the bleeding, then reorganize, in that order — jumping straight to a new structure before the harmful parts have actually been removed is a common way turnarounds fail.
Family & Social
- When repairing a strained family situation, protect what's still working first, address what's actively causing harm next, and only then try to build new norms — attempting the new norms before the harm has stopped rarely sticks.
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