The vocabulary · दया
Daya
Compassion, and the non-injury that goes with it.
What does the Bhagavad Gita say about compassion?
The word daya appears once in the Gita, at 16.2, where kindness to living beings is listed among the marks of a divine nature. Karuna appears once, at 12.13, where the devotee dear to Krishna is called friendly and compassionate. Ahimsa, not harming, is the text’s more usual term and turns up in several lists of qualities. The quality itself runs much wider than the vocabulary — equal vision, the welfare of all beings, measuring another’s pain against your own — but it runs there under other words.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · 3 verses use दया
In the text
दया
dayā
A verse is counted when its Sanskrit contains the word, compounds included. That is a checkable fact and a floor, not a total — the Gita teaches the idea in verses that never say it.
It is easy to write that the Gita is a book about compassion, and harder to show it from the words. Searching the Sanskrit, daya occurs in one verse, 16.2, inside a list. Karuna occurs in one verse, 12.13, inside another list. Ahimsa is commoner — 10.5, 13.7, 16.2, 17.14 — and appears each time as a virtue rather than as a subject. No chapter is given over to compassion the way chapter 12 is given to devotion or chapter 6 to the mind. That is a fact about the text, and it is worth stating before anything is built on top of it.
What the Gita does instead is place the quality inside other things. 12.4 describes those who worship the unmanifest as holding their senses in check, even-minded towards everything, and taking joy in the welfare of all beings. 6.32 calls the highest yogi the one who measures everything by himself and sees the pleasure and pain of others as he sees his own. 5.18 has the wise looking with an equal eye on a learned brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a man who cooks dogs. None of those verses uses a word for compassion. All of them describe where it would come from.
There is a difficulty at the start of the book that is better not skipped. Sanjaya’s word for the state Arjuna has fallen into is kripa, pity: he is overcome by it, his eyes full of tears, and he is despairing. Krishna’s first reply calls that state a small faintness of heart and tells him to shake it off and stand up. The Gita does not stop to explain the difference between the pity that collapses a man and the kindness it later lists among divine qualities. A reader should notice that it does not, rather than be handed a tidy reconciliation that the text has not earned.
What can be said is what the verses do say. At 12.13 the first named traits of the devotee are joined in one breath: he bears no ill will towards any living being, and he is friendly and kind to all. The absence of ill will is named before the kindness. And at 13.7 ahimsa stands between freedom from pretence and patience, among cleanliness, steadiness and service to a teacher — that is, among habits. Wherever compassion appears in this text, it appears as something a person has become, rather than as something a person is moved by.
What it does not mean
The Gita is against compassion: Arjuna feels pity for his kinsmen and Krishna tells him to get over it and fight.
What 2.1 describes is a man overcome, his eyes brimming, his limbs giving way, and what Krishna names at 2.3 is that collapse. The same speaker lists kindness to all beings among the marks of a divine nature at 16.2, and makes freedom from ill will the very first thing said about the devotee at 12.13. What chapter 2 questions is a grief that has stopped a man from acting at all. Where exactly the text would draw the line between the two, it does not say.
In the Gita’s own words
The verses this rests on.
The Sanskrit and both translations are the text. The note under each verse is the Trust’s reason for pointing at it — you may disagree with the note and still trust the verse.
Bhagavad Gita 16.2Shri Bhagavan
अहिंसा सत्यमक्रोधस्त्यागः शान्तिरपैशुनम् ।
दया भूतेष्वलोलुप्त्वं मार्दवं ह्रीरचापलम् ॥Not harming, truthfulness, freedom from anger, letting go, calm, refusing to speak against people, kindness to living beings, no craving for what one sees, gentleness, modesty, and no restlessness.
The one verse in which the word daya appears. Kindness to living beings is listed among the marks of a divine nature, between refusing to speak against people and freedom from craving.
Bhagavad Gita 12.13Shri Bhagavan
अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च ।
निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी ॥He bears no ill will towards any living being, is friendly and kind to all, free of the sense of mine and of pride, the same in pain and pleasure, and forgiving.
The one verse in which karuna appears. The devotee bears no ill will towards any being and is friendly and kind to all — and the absence of ill will is named first.
Bhagavad Gita 12.4Shri Bhagavan
संनियम्येन्द्रियग्रामं सर्वत्र समबुद्धयः ।
ते प्राप्नुवन्ति मामेव सर्वभूतहिते रताः ॥Holding the whole range of their senses in check, even-minded towards everything alike, and taking joy in the welfare of all beings, they too come to me.
Compassion without the word. Those who worship the unmanifest are described as taking joy in the welfare of all beings, and the Gita says they reach it too.
Bhagavad Gita 13.7Shri Bhagavan
अमानित्वमदम्भित्वमहिंसा क्षान्तिरार्जवम् ।
आचार्योपासनं शौचं स्थैर्यमात्मविनिग्रहः ॥Freedom from pride, freedom from pretence, non-violence, patience, straightness of mind; service to one's teacher, cleanliness of body and habit, steadiness, and control of oneself;
Ahimsa listed among habits rather than feelings: between freedom from pretence and patience, next to cleanliness, steadiness and service to a teacher.
Bhagavad Gita 2.1Sanjaya
तं तथा कृपयाविष्टमश्रुपूर्णाकुलेक्षणम् ।
विषीदन्तमिदं वाक्यमुवाच मधुसूदनः ॥To him, overcome by pity, his eyes brimming and troubled with tears, despairing, Madhusudana spoke these words.
Sanjaya says Arjuna is overcome by pity, his eyes brimming and troubled with tears. The crisis the whole book answers is set going by a feeling most readers would praise.
Bhagavad Gita 2.3Shri Bhagavan
क्लैब्यं मा स्म गमः पार्थ नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते ।
क्षुद्रं हृदयदौर्बल्यं त्यक्त्वोत्तिष्ठ परन्तप ॥Do not give in to weakness, Partha. It does not suit you. Shake off this small faintness of heart and stand up, scorcher of foes.
Krishna’s first answer calls the state Arjuna is in a small faintness of heart and tells him to shake it off. The text does not explain how this is to be squared with 16.2.
In practice
What it looks like when someone does it.
6.32 is the usable test, and it does not require any feeling to be summoned first. Before speaking to the person on the other side of the counter — the clerk, the patient, the student who has not done the work — ask what this looks like from where they are standing. The yogi that verse calls highest is not described as tender. He is described as someone who measures correctly.
12.13 begins with the absence of ill will, and that order is worth taking seriously in a joint family or an office. Freedom from resentment towards one particular person is slower work than a general feeling of goodwill, and it is much harder to fake. Somebody who has stopped keeping the account of what a brother-in-law said in 2019 has done the thing the verse names first.
16.2 puts kindness to living beings in a list that also contains refusing to speak against people. The two sit close together, and in ordinary life they are nearly the same skill. A nurse who will not repeat what she heard in the next bed, a shopkeeper who will not pass on what he knows about a customer’s debts — the verse counts that as part of the same quality.
Words that travel with it
Common questions
About daya.
How many times does the word daya appear in the Bhagavad Gita?
Once, at 16.2, in the list of qualities belonging to a divine nature, where it means compassion or kindness towards living beings. Karuna also appears once, at 12.13. Ahimsa, non-injury, is more frequent and is found at 10.5, 13.7, 16.2 and 17.14. Counting words is a limited exercise, but it is checkable, and it keeps the claim honest.
Is ahimsa the same as compassion?
Not quite. Ahimsa is stated as a restraint: not harming. Compassion in 16.2 and 12.13 is stated as a disposition towards others. 16.2 lists them separately, which suggests the text did not take them for one thing — ahimsa opens that verse and daya comes some way down it. In practice the restraint is the part that can be held on a bad day.
Does the Gita ask for compassion towards animals?
The phrase at 16.2 is kindness towards beings, bhuteshu, not towards people, and the word covers living things generally. 5.18 makes the point more sharply: the wise look with an equal eye on a brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a man who cooks dogs. That verse is about seeing rather than about treatment, but the ground it lays is not restricted to human beings.
Was Arjuna wrong to feel sorry for his relatives?
The Gita does not put it that way. It describes him as overcome, with his eyes brimming (2.1), and has Krishna name the resulting state as a faintness of heart (2.3). Neither verse says the feeling was wrong to have; what is treated as the problem is that it had stopped him. Anyone reading this passage while grieving should be careful with it. It is addressed to one man at one moment.