Sanskrit
अहङ्कारं बलं दर्पं कामं क्रोधं च संश्रिताः । मामात्मपरदेहेषु प्रद्विषन्तोऽभ्यसूयकाः ॥
ahaṅkāraṃ balaṃ darpaṃ kāmaṃ krodhaṃ ca saṃśritāḥ mām ātmaparadeheṣu pradviṣanto 'bhyasūyakāḥ
Translation
Given over to egoism, power, insolence, lust and wrath, these malicious ones hate Me in the bodies of others and in their own.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
This verse makes an unusually direct theological claim: these malicious people, given over to egoism and wrath, “hate me in the bodies of others and in their own.” The implication is that the divine is genuinely present in every body — not metaphorically — so that malice toward any being, including oneself, registers as hostility toward that immanent presence, a claim consistent with the universal-self teaching running through Chapters 13 and 15. It reframes cruelty and self-hatred alike as, in this text’s own terms, a kind of category error about who is actually being harmed.