Sanskrit
बलं बलवतामस्मि कामरागविवर्जितम् । धर्माविरुद्धो भूतेषु कामोऽस्मि भरतर्षभ ॥ ११ ॥
balaṃ balavatām asmi kāmarāgavivarjitam dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu kāmo'smi bharatarṣabha
Translation
And I the strength of the strong, devoid of desire and passion. In beings I am desire not contrary to duty, O Lord of the Bharatas.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The list closes on desire, but with an explicit qualifier: not desire as such, but desire “not contrary to dharma” (dharmāviruddhaḥ). This is the one place in the verse-8-to-11 sequence where Krishna names a moral boundary rather than a neutral essence, and it matters for what follows — verse 20 will describe desire that ignores this boundary, going “forth to other gods,” as precisely the failure mode this qualifier rules out.
Concepts