Sanskrit
अभयं सत्त्वसंशुद्धिर्ज्ञानयोगव्यवस्थितिः । दानं दमश्च यज्ञश्च स्वाध्यायस्तप आर्जवम् ॥
abhayaṃ sattvasaṃśuddhir jñānayogavyavasthitiḥ dānaṃ damaś ca yajñaś ca svādhyāyas tapa ārjavam
Translation
Fearlessness, cleanness of life, steadfastness in the Yoga of wisdom, almsgiving, self-restraint and sacrifice and study of the Scriptures, austerity and straightforwardness,
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
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.