Sanskrit
प्रवृत्तिं च निवृत्तिं च जना न विदुरासुराः । न शौचं नापि चाचारो न सत्यं तेषु विद्यते ॥
pravṛttiṃ ca nivṛttiṃ ca janā na vidur āsurāḥ na śaucaṃ nāpi cācāro na satyaṃ teṣu vidyate
Translation
Demoniacal men know neither right energy nor right abstinence; nor purity, nor even propriety, nor truth is in them.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Demonic people, Krishna says, understand neither pravṛtti nor nivṛtti — a technical pair in Indian ethical thought denoting engaged worldly action performed rightly and disciplined renunciation, the two recognized paths of a dharmic life. Lacking both isn’t the same as choosing one over the other; it describes people outside the entire framework, without purity, proper conduct, or even truthfulness as functioning categories. This sets up the next several verses, which read like an attempt to reconstruct what a worldview looks like from the inside when that whole scaffolding is simply absent.