Sanskrit
सुहृन्मित्रार्युदासीनमध्यस्थद्वेष्यबन्धुषु । साधुष्वपि च पापेषु समबुद्धिर्विशिष्यते ॥
suhṛnmitrāryudāsīnamadhyasthadveṣyabandhuṣu sādhuṣv api ca pāpeṣu samabuddhir viśiṣyate
Translation
He who regards impartially lovers, friends, and foes, strangers, neutrals, foreigners and relatives, also the righteous and unrighteous, he excelleth.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Verse 7’s equanimity across circumstance is now extended to people — the full social spectrum from ally to enemy, and even the moral spectrum of righteous and unrighteous. This is the quality the chapter returns to at verse 32 as the mark of the “highest” yogi, and it echoes 2.38’s counsel to treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, alike before entering battle. The seven-fold list of relations is deliberately exhaustive; adding sādhu and pāpa pushes even-mindedness past liking into moral judgment. BG 5.18’s brahmin-and-outcaste line makes the same demand.
Study deeper
Word by word
- suhṛnmitrāryudāsīnamadhyasthadveṣyabandhuṣuसुहृन्मित्रार्युदासीनमध्यस्थद्वेष्यबन्धुषु
- toward well-wisher, friend, foe, the neutral, the arbiter, the hateful, and kin (suhṛt-mitra-ari-udāsīna-madhyastha-dveṣya-bandhuṣu)
- sādhuṣv api ca pāpeṣuसाधुष्व् अपि च पापेषु
- and toward the righteous and the wicked (sādhuṣu + api + ca + pāpeṣu)
- samabuddhir viśiṣyateसमबुद्धिः विशिष्यते
- one of even mind excels (sama-buddhiḥ + viśiṣyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The list in this verse runs somewhere uncomfortable by the end — not just extending impartiality to strangers and foreigners, which is hard enough, but to the righteous and unrighteous alike, which sounds like it’s asking you to stop caring about right and wrong. Read alongside 2.38’s counsel before battle, the point isn’t moral indifference; it’s that your inner steadiness can’t be allowed to depend on other people behaving well.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Your inner calm shouldn't be hostage to whether the people around you are being reasonable or unreasonable — practice holding your own steadiness independent of their conduct, without that meaning you stop noticing or caring about the difference.
Professional
- Don't let your composure at work depend on whether colleagues or clients are acting fairly — you can still call out bad behavior clearly while refusing to let your own equilibrium be a hostage to whether they cooperate.
Family & Social
- You can love a difficult relative and still see their behavior clearly — impartial regard doesn't mean pretending everyone treats you the same, it means your own peace doesn't collapse based on who's being kind to you today.
Ask yourself
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