Fearlessness, cleanness of life, steadfastness in the Yoga of wisdom, almsgiving, self-restraint and sacrifice and study of the Scriptures, austerity and straightforwardness,

Chapter 16 opens with no framing question from Arjuna — it continues directly out of Chapter 15’s cosmology, with Krishna simply beginning to enumerate what a divine nature looks like. Notice that abhaya (fearlessness) leads the list, not humility or piety; the Gita treats fear as the root obstacle to right action from as early as Chapter 2, so its placement here isn’t accidental. The list itself is deliberately exhaustive rather than argued — sattva-saṃśuddhi (purity of being), steadfastness in jñāna-yoga, giving, self-control, sacrifice, scriptural study, austerity, and straightforwardness are simply catalogued side by side, the way Chapter 13 catalogues the “field” rather than building a syllogism. This cataloguing technique will run for two more verses before the demonic list gets a fraction of the space.

Study — Daivāsura Sampad Vibhāga Yoga