Devanagari
न ह्यस्यास्ति प्रिय: कश्चिन्नाप्रिय: स्व: परोऽपि वा ।
एक: सर्वधियां द्रष्टा कर्तृणां गुणदोषयो: ॥ १० ॥
Verse text
na hy asyāsti priyaḥ kaścin
nāpriyaḥ svaḥ paro ’pi vā
ekaḥ sarva-dhiyāṁ draṣṭā
kartṝṇāṁ guṇa-doṣayoḥ
Synonyms
na
—
not
;
hi
—
indeed
;
asya
—
to the living entity
;
asti
—
there is
;
priyaḥ
—
dear
;
kaścit
—
someone
;
na
—
not
;
apriyaḥ
—
not dear
;
svaḥ
—
own
;
paraḥ
—
other
;
api
—
also
;
vā
—
or
;
ekaḥ
—
the one
;
sarva
—
dhiyām — of the varieties of intelligence
;
draṣṭā
—
the seer
;
kartṝṇām
—
of the performers
;
guṇa
—
doṣayoḥ — of right and wrong activities .
Translation
For this living entity, no one is dear, nor is anyone unfavorable. He makes no distinction between that which is his own and that which belongs to anyone else. He is one without a second; in other words, he is not affected by friends and enemies, well-wishers or mischief-mongers. He is only an observer, a witness, of the different qualities of men.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The Lord does not favor or disfavor anyone. He does not think that one person is his relative and another is not. He is one entity, the witness of all the jīvas with various types of intelligence, who act in terms of friend and enemy in relation to others.
The Lord does not have relationships due to ignorance, such as relatives through marriage, relatives on the father’s side, enemies, and enemies disguised as friends. That is explained in this verse. The Lord does not like or hate anyone. However, the devotee is very dear to the Lord, considers the devotee to be himself. He shows anger to those who hate the devotees, and considered them enemies and different from himself. Thus the Gītā says:
samo 'haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu na me dveṣyo 'sti na priyaḥ |
ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣu cāpy aham ||29||
I am equal to all living beings. I do not hate anyone nor do I favor anyone. To whatever extent a person worships me with devotion, I am attached to him in a similar way. BG 9.29
tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān saṁsāreṣu narādhamān |
kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu ||19||
I cast those hateful, cruel, and lowest of humans, constantly doing evil, into repeated birth and death in the wombs of demons. BG 16.19
These are ornaments, not faults, in the Lord, who is affectionate to his devotees. The jīvas are many and the Lord is one. The Lord is the witness of all the jīvas with various types of intelligence, who then act as friend or enemy for the benefit or misfortune (gunā-doṣayoḥ) of someone else.
Purport
As explained in the previous verse, the living entity has the same qualities as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but he has them in minute quantities because he is a small particle (
sūkṣma
) whereas the Supreme Lord is all-pervading and great. For the Supreme Lord there are no friends, enemies or relatives, for He is completely free from all the disqualifications of ignorance that characterize the conditioned souls. On the other hand, He is extremely kind and favorable to His devotees, and He is not at all satisfied with persons who are envious of His devotees. As the Lord Himself confirms in
Bhagavad-gītā
(9.29)
:
samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣu
na me dveṣyo ’sti na priyaḥ
ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā
mayi te teṣu cāpy aham
“I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend to him.” The Supreme Lord has no enemy or friend, but He is inclined toward a devotee who always engages in His devotional service. Similarly, elsewhere in the
Gītā
(16.19)
the Lord says:
tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān
saṁsāreṣu narādhamān
kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān
āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu
“Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, are cast by Me into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life.” The Lord is extremely antagonistic toward those who are envious of His devotees. To protect His devotees, the Lord sometimes has to kill their enemies. For example, to protect Prahlāda Mahārāja, the Lord had to kill his enemy Hiraṇyakaśipu, although Hiraṇyakaśipu attained salvation because of being killed by the Lord. Since the Lord is the witness of everyone’s activities, He witnesses the actions of the enemies of His devotees, and He is inclined to punish them. In other cases, however, He simply witnesses what the living entities do and gives the results of one’s sinful or pious actions.