तान् अहं द्विषतः क्रूरान् संसारेषु नराधमान् । क्षिपाम्य् अजस्रम् अशुभान् आसुरीष्व् एव योनिषु ॥
tān ahaṃ dviṣataḥ krūrān saṃsāreṣu narādhamān | kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu ||
Those who hate Me — cruel, vilest among humans — I continually cast into āsurī wombs, the inauspicious.
Word by word (3)
- tān ahaṃ dviṣataḥ krūrān saṃsāreṣu narādhamān
- — those (tān) who hate (dviṣataḥ) Me (aham), cruel (krūrān), vilest among humans (narādhamān) in the worlds of saṃsāra — the three-fold characterization
- kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān
- — I cast/hurl (kṣipāmi) them, inauspicious ones (aśubhān), continuously/incessantly (ajasram) — divine response is continuous, matching the continuity of their hatred
- āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu
- — into āsurī wombs (āsurīṣu yoniṣu) only (eva) — the specificity: they are placed in conditions that perpetuate and deepen their āsurī nature
These people who hate Me, cruel and the lowest of humans in the worlds of saṃsāra — these inauspicious ones I continuously hurl into demoniac wombs.
A modern analogy
A spinning top — the direction it spins determines where it ends up. The āsurī who has been spinning in the direction of ego, hatred, and cruelty is, by the logic of their own momentum, cast into a birth where that spinning continues. It's not punishment from outside; it's the continuation of the trajectory.
V19-20 form the cosmic consequence pair: V19 = the divine casting into āsurī wombs; V20 = the cumulative downward spiral of those rebirths. This closes the āsurī portrait (V7-20) with the ultimate theological consequence. God is not indifferent to cruelty — but the 'hurling' is not arbitrary punishment; it is the continuation of the trajectory the āsurī themselves chose.
Kṣipāmi ajasram (I continuously hurl) raises the question of divine justice vs. determinism. The Advaita reading: this is not God punishing but the law of karma operating through God's will as Paramātmā, the inner controller. The āsurī's deepening āsurī nature causes increasingly āsurī births — which is to say, they are cast into the conditions most consonant with their own nature.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
MISSING — SH Ch.16 V19 not indexed; Ganguli and Telang used as primary. [1]
MISSING — V19 not indexed; Ganguli and Telang used as primary. [4]
These enemies, ferocious, meanest of men, and unholy, I continually hurl down to these worlds only into demoniac wombs. [9]
These haters of Me, cruel, the vilest among men, and unholy, I hurl continually down into demoniac wombs. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Sattva-abiders go upward; rajasic dwell in the middle; tamas-abiders sink downward — the cosmic gradient.
Immeasurable anxieties till death, sense-pleasure as the highest value, firmly certain that 'this is all there is.'
In āsurī wombs, deluded birth after birth — never reaching Me — they go to still lower destinations.
Arjuna sees his own people ready to die — and his body breaks before his mind can argue.
Whenever dharma declines and adharma rises — I project Myself forth. The divine responds to every crisis.
I am Time, the world-destroyer — even without you, none of these warriors shall survive; they are already slain!