Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Bhagavadgita  Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

Next Krishna describes consequences of this to such demoniac people.

Bg 16.19

tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān
saṁsāreṣu narādhamān
kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān
āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu

Synonyms: 

tān — those; aham — I; dviṣataḥ — envious; krūrān — mischievous; saṁsāreṣu — into the ocean of material existence; nara–adhamān — the lowest of mankind; kṣipāmi — I put; ajasram — forever; aśubhān — inauspicious; āsurīṣu — demoniac; eva — certainly; yoniṣu — into the wombs.

Translation: 

Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into the ocean of material existence, into various demoniac species of life.

Tān ahaṁ, those people, ahaṁ, I, 

dviṣataḥ krūrān, the enemies and krūrān, the mischievous 

saṁsāreṣu narādhamān, narādhamān, worst among mankind.  

kṣipāmy ajasram aśubhān,  kṣipāmy, throw them.

ajasram aśubhān, ajasram, for a long time, aśubhān, inauspicious 

āsurīṣv eva yoniṣu, in the demoniac species.

We have discussed that demoniac is not just a species it mentality.

E.g. Durhodhana has a human body but he is having demonic mentality. 

But there are species also which are demoniac, e.g. Rakshashas, Yaksha, datyas in the sense that it is normal in that body to have demoniac mentality. 

Krishna mentioned in Vibhuti chapter that among Datyas I am Prahlad, so Prahlad, Vritrashur they are godly but they are exceptions. 

tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān, Krishna says that I throw them.

How to understand this? In Christian and other religion there is eternal damnation that is if you don’t accept God in this life then you are thrown in hell forever.

So is this verse supporting eternal damnation? 

Here we have to understand everything from its context.

If we divorce a statement from its context it will be misleading. 

tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān

krūrān, the word Kruran often means cruel but Srila Prabhupada has translated Kruran as mischievous, so Krishna is like father and from father’s perspective how much terrible activates children do father’s point of view they are mischievous, they are not grown up, they are small kids right now they are doing mischievous activities, now if child wanted to do some mischievous activities then parent says if you do this you will never be allowed to come to my house. The emphasis of this statement is not that you get out of my house and never come back the point is don’t do it. Similarly when Krishna is speaking like this emphasis is not that He will throw them to hell forever emphasis is don’t do this. So that from Krishna’s point of view is mischievous. So when Prabhupada translated like this it is Bhava Anuvad means emotion and intention are conveyed. Artha Anuvad is literal meaning means semantic accuracy is preserved.

So semantics and aesthetics needs to be combined to gain a proper understanding. If only semantics is given that doesn’t lead to proper understanding.

There are different theories of meanings, some people have ideas that words are like pipelines which means the words are simply the carriers of the meanings and we invest meaning in the words.

Other idea is words always have the meaning and the meaning of the words are preserved in the dictionary so we draw those words out from the dictionary and we use them according to their meaning. 

So words are carriers of the meaning and words contains meaning in themselves. Means meaning are inserted into them and other idea is words are containers of the meaning. So as words contains the meaning so we chose the words and accordingly we speak. 

So actually it is combination of both. Certainly we cannot use any word and invest any meaning in it, it won’t work in that way, but at the same time words are not just the containers of the meaning they are also carriers, the way something is spoken, so for example if someone does something for us and we are not at all happy we didn’t want the person to do that and we say thank you with a bad facial expression that thank you is actually not at all thank you, that is an expression of annoyance. 

If a child is angry and tells mother you never love me and mother says shouting I love you so although it is said but it is not really expression of love, it is more an expression of anger, so if I love you is just a container of meaning, then however I love you is spoken it won’t make much difference but if I love you is just a conveyer of meaning then can I say I hate you and say actually I use the word I hate you but I love you, no that will also not work, that is why when we talk meanings, meanings has to be talk about in very careful ways, so we have to understand that there is literal aspect of it but there is also contextual aspect of it, and both have to be combined together, so semantics and aesthetics, so as it is said machine translation of the phrase spirit is willing but flesh is weak is translated as Vodka is strong but the meat is rotten (this might not have really happened but gives a good example for understanding).  So what was a philosophical statement has become food on the table, so such way meaning can get completely lost. So when a translation is to be done it has to be done by not only those who are expert in language but also those who are expert in context. As there is content and there is context. So words are both the containers and the carriers of the meaning. So in English there is denotation and connotation denotation means what does the word mean and connotation means what does the word apply. 

So if we look at these word literally then it may appear that Krishna is casting a person into hell but we will see several other places into BG where Krishna said how the lowest of all people can get elevated, 

Krishna said Api Chet Su Duracharo no matter how sinful they are they can be elevated, so 9.30, 9.31 is there, 

Similarly in 4.36

api ced asi pāpebhyaḥ
sarvebhyaḥ pāpa-kṛt-tamaḥ
sarvaṁ jñāna-plavenaiva
vṛjinaṁ santariṣyasi

Synonyms: 

api — even; cet — if; asi — you are; pāpebhyaḥ — of sinners; sarvebhyaḥ — of all; pāpa–kṛt–tamaḥ — the greatest sinner; sarvam — all such sinful reactions; jñāna–plavena — by the boat of transcendental knowledge; eva— certainly; vṛjinam — the ocean of miseries; santariṣyasi — you will cross completely.

Translation: 

Even if you are considered to be the most sinful of all sinners, when you are situated in the boat of transcendental knowledge you will be able to cross over the ocean of miseries. Gita 16.19 explained

 Then in 18.56 

sarva-karmāṇy api sadā

kurvāṇo mad-vyapāśrayaḥ

Whatever Karma one might be doing if one actually surrenders to Him, takes shelter of Him that person can attain perfection.

So the point is we have to look at other places in Bhagvad Gita also to clearly understand what the verses are saying, what are the flow, and context. 

So here it is more of expression of Krishna’s displeasure and annoyance and loving anger, so loving anger, Krishna’s expression of tough love, sometimes Parents have to express tough love so that the children learn the lesson that is intended. 

So here tān ahaṁ dviṣataḥ krūrān, mischievous, so here Krishna is saying why are these children mischievous they should grow up they should act maturely by not acting maturely they are ruining their lives.

Purport: Such demoniac species of men are held to be always full of lust, always violent and hateful and always unclean. The many kinds of hunters in the jungle are considered to belong to the demoniac species of life.

So basically those who live insensitively causing hurt to others they are said to be demoniac so here Srila Prabhupada is talking about two things demoniac species in physical form and he said even hunters biologically they will be human form, even though they are in human form they have demoniac mentality, so Srila Prabhupada is suing the word species over here, not in terms of Biology he is using in terms of consciousness, that is how we understand the word species, not in biological sense or as used in normal conversation.

End of transcription.