CHAPTER 110 — बल-मर्यादा | Moderation of Force

मनुष्यैः शासने समस्याः समाधातुं शत्रुं वा जेतुं बलम् उपयोक्तुं महामार्गः न। प्रयुक्तं बलं प्रतिबलम् आह्वयति॥१॥

manuṣyaiḥ śāsane samasyāḥ samādhātuṃ śatruṃ vā jetuṃ balam upayoktuṃ mahāmārgaḥ na। prayuktaṃ balaṃ pratibalam āhvayati॥1॥

In governing humans, it is not theWAY to resort to force to resolve issues or defeat an enemy. Every force applied calls forth a counter-force.

बल-प्रदर्शनं भूमेः विनाशं करोति, अधर्म-तृणानि द्वेष-कण्टकाश्च अङ्कुरयति। सु-उद्देश्य-हिंसा अपि अपरिकल्पित-हानिं कर्तुं प्रत्यावर्तते॥२॥

bala-pradarśanaṃ bhūmeḥ vināśaṃ karoti, adharma-tṛṇāni dveṣa-kaṇṭakāśca aṅkurayati। su-uddeśya-hiṃsā api aparikalpita-hāniṃ kartuṃ pratyāvartate॥2॥

A show of force causes destruction of the land and causes immoral weeds and thorns of hatred to sprout. Even well-intentioned violence rebounds to cause unintended harm.

महामार्गी स्व-कार्यं सम्पाद्य विरमति। स जानाति यद् विश्व-शक्ति-प्रवाहे अव्यवस्था अन्तर्निविष्टा, किन्तु महामार्गे सुरचिता। स न गृह्णाति, बलं च न उपयुङ्क्ते — एतत् प्रवाह-विरुद्धम्। आक्रमणाद् अनुकूलनं श्रेयः; कर्षणात् पथ-प्रदर्शनम् — एषः महामार्गः॥३॥

mahāmārgī sva-kāryaṃ sampādya viramati। sa jānāti yad viśva-śakti-pravāhe avyavasthā antarniviṣṭā, kintu mahāmārge suracitā। sa na gṛhṇāti, balaṃ ca na upayuṅkte — etat pravāha-viruddham। ākramaṇād anukūlanaṃ śreyaḥ; karṣaṇāt patha-pradarśanam — eṣaḥ mahāmārgaḥ॥3॥

The Wayist performs their task and then stops. They understand that within the flow of cosmic energy, disorder is inherent, yet structured within theWAY. They do not grasp or resort to force — that is against the current. Facilitating over storming; guiding over pushing — this is theWAY.

दृढ-मार्दवेन स कार्यं करोति — नियन्त्रयितुं नहि, अपितु सेवितुम्। एतेन सन्तुष्टः स अन्येषाम् अनुमोदनम् अनपेक्षते। स स्व-कर्तव्य-रूपेण कार्यं सम्पादयति। स धर्मेण फलम् आप्नोति, न बलेन॥४॥

dṛḍha-mārdavena sa kāryaṃ karoti — niyantraṇāya nahi, apitu sevitum। etena santuṣṭaḥ sa anyeṣām anumadanam anapekṣate। sa sva-kartavya-rūpeṇa kāryaṃ sampādayati। sa dharmeṇa phalam āpnoti, na balena॥4॥

With tenacious gentleness, they act — not to control but to serve. Content with this, they have no need for the approval of others. They perform their task as duty. They achieve results through duty, not through force.

आयुधानि हिंसायाः उपकरणानि; सर्वे सत्-जनाः तानि घृणयन्ति, अत्यावश्यकताम् अतिरिच्य च वर्जयन्ति। तेषाम् उपयोगे ते तानि अत्यन्त-संयमेन उपयुञ्जते॥५॥

āyudhāni hiṃsāyāḥ upakaraṇāni; sarve sat-janāḥ tāni ghṛṇayanti, atyāvaśyatām atiricya ca varjayanti। teṣām upayoge te tāni atyanta-saṃyamena upayuñjate॥5॥

Weapons are instruments of violence; all good people detest them and avoid them except in utmost necessity. When employing them, they use them with the utmost restraint.

विजये सौन्दर्यं नास्ति। यः संहारे सौन्दर्यं पश्यति सः महामार्ग-विरुद्धः, तस्य विजयश्च नास्ति। देहान् पोषयितुं जीवितानां हिंसात्मक-विनाशे वयम् एव भागिनः — तद् एव भार-वहनाय पर्याप्तम्॥६॥

vijaye saundaryaṃ nāsti। yaḥ saṃhāre saundaryaṃ paśyati saḥ mahāmārga-viruddhaḥ, tasya vijayaśca nāsti। dehān poṣayituṃ jīvitānāṃ hiṃsātmaka-vināśe vayam eva bhāginaḥ — tad eva bhāra-vahanāya paryāptam॥6॥

There is no beauty in victory. One who sees beauty in carnage is contrary to theWAY and has no true victory. We already partake in the violent destruction of living beings to nourish our bodies — that alone is burden enough to bear.

सत्-योद्धा गाम्भीर्येण युद्धं प्रविशति — शोकेन करुणया च, हिंसायाः परिणामं सम्यग् जानन्। विजयान् अन्त्य-कर्मणा उत्सव्यत, प्रतिद्वन्द्विनम् आदरयत, जीवित-जनान् सेवत, संघर्षाद् सन्धिम् अन्विष्टुं च प्रतिज्ञायत॥७॥

sat-yoddhā gāmbhīryeṇa yuddhaṃ praviśati — śokena karuṇayā ca, hiṃsāyāḥ pariṇāmaṃ samyag jānan। vijayān antya-karmaṇā utsavyata, pratidvandvinam ādarayata, jīvita-janān sevata, saṃgharṣād sandhim anviṣṭuṃ ca pratijñāyata॥7॥

The good fighter enters battle gravely, with sorrow and compassion, knowing well what the outcome of violence will be. Celebrate victories with funeral rites, honor the rival, care for the survivors, and vow to seek reconciliation over conflict.

दृढानि क्षिप्रं दुर्बलानि भवन्ति। हानिकर-हिंसा महामार्ग-विरुद्धा॥८॥

dṛḍhāni kṣipraṃ durbalāni bhavanti। hānikara-hiṃsā mahāmārga-viruddhā॥8॥

Strong things soon grow weak. Harmful violence is contrary to theWAY.

यत् महामार्ग-विरुद्धं तद् विनाशम् उपनयति॥९॥

yat mahāmārga-viruddhaṃ tad vināśam upanayati॥9॥

That which is contrary to theWAY leads to destruction.

व्याकरण टिप्पणियां | Grammatical Notes

Chapter Title and the Governance Thread:

• बल-मर्यादा (bala-maryādā) — “the proper limit of force, moderation of force” — bala (force, power, physical-energy-as-compulsion — distinct from śakti which is capacity, and dharma which is legitimate authority) + maryādā (boundary, proper limit, the line that defines what is appropriate — from maryā boundary/limit; maryādā in classical usage names both physical boundaries and ethical ones, the limit within which conduct is proper); the title names force (bala) as something with a maryādā (proper limit) — it is not prohibited entirely but bounded; this is precisely the chapter’s nuanced position: weapons may be used in utmost necessity (atyāvaśyatā) but with utmost restraint (atyanta-saṃyama); the chapter is not absolute pacifism but principled restraint
• Chapter 110 sits within the corpus’s governance thread: Chapter 89 (Government Leaders — the pālaka steward-model), Chapter 94 (Flow of theWAY — the redistributive critique of force-as-power-maintenance), Chapter 99 (the Wayist citizen holding leaders to account), and Chapter 107 (Yielding is Powerful — the water-teaching on force’s paradox); Chapter 110 addresses the most direct application of that thread — when and how force may be used at all; the answer is: reluctantly, minimally, sorrowfully, and always with the weight of dharma (not bala) as the legitimate source of authority

Verse 1 — The Physics of Force:

• प्रयुक्तं बलं प्रतिबलम् आह्वयति (prayuktaṃ balaṃ pratibalam āhvayati) — “force applied calls forth a counter-force” — prayukta (applied, set-in-motion — past passive participle of pra-yuj, to yoke-forward, to put-to-use) + balam (force) + pratibala (counter-force, opposite-force — prati against/counter + bala) + āhvayati (calls forth, summons, invites — from ā-hvā to call-toward); the verse states a structural law, not merely a practical observation: force does not resolve situations, it generates the conditions for its own opposition; pratibala (counter-force) is not merely an unfortunate possible consequence but the āhvāna (summons, invitation) embedded in the force’s own application; this is the Daodejing 30 teaching (wù zhuàng zé lǎo — things that have been forced soon wither/grow old) carried into Sanskrit: force-applied is force-inviting-its-inversion; the governance implication is precise — leaders who maintain authority through bala generate pratibala (resistance-force) as a structural necessity, not merely as a contingent reaction

Verse 2 — Weeds, Thorns, and the Rebound:

• अधर्म-तृणानि द्वेष-कण्टकाश्च अङ्कुरयति (adharma-tṛṇāni dveṣa-kaṇṭakāśca aṅkurayati) — “causes immoral weeds and thorns of hatred to sprout” — adharma (that which is against dharma, the immoral, the disorder-causing) + tṛṇa (grass, weed — a plant that grows without being planted, that colonizes damaged ground) + dveṣa (hatred, aversion, the opposite of compassion — established in the corpus as the pratipakṣa of karuṇā) + kaṇṭaka (thorn, spike — that which wounds the one who comes near it) + aṅkurayati (causes to sprout, to put-forth-shoots — causative of aṅkura sprout); the agricultural image is precise and Daoist: force-applied to a land produces the conditions in which adharma-tṛṇa (immoral weeds — resentment, injustice, the growth of grievance) and dveṣa-kaṇṭaka (hate-thorns — the hardened, sharpened aversion that wounds anyone who approaches) take root; bala-pradarśana (the show of force) is precisely a devastation of the social soil that allows these growths
• सु-उद्देश्य-हिंसा (su-uddeśya-hiṃsā) — “well-intentioned violence” — su (good, well) + uddeśya (purpose, intention, the aim) + hiṃsā (violence, harm — from hiṃs to injure); the compound names the specific case the verse addresses: not malicious violence but violence with good purposes — the humanitarian intervention, the defensive war, the protective use of force; the verse does not say such violence is prohibited (the chapter allows necessity) but that it too pratyāvartate (rebounds) to cause aparikalpita-hāni (unintended harm — a-pari-kalpita unplanned/undesigned + hāni harm/loss); the rebound-principle applies regardless of intent; this is a structural observation about the nature of hiṃsā, not a moral judgment about the actor’s character

Verse 3 — Chaos Structured in theWAY:

• विश्व-शक्ति-प्रवाहे अव्यवस्था अन्तर्निविष्टा, किन्तु महामार्गे सुरचिता (viśva-śakti-pravāhe avyavasthā antarniviṣṭā, kintu mahāmārge suracitā) — “within the flow of cosmic energy, disorder is inherent, yet structured within theWAY” — viśva-śakti (cosmic energy, the energy of the universe — viśva all/universe + śakti energy/power/capacity) + pravāha (flow — the corpus’s master-image for theWAY’s movement) + avyavasthā (disorder, lack-of-arrangement — a privative + vi-ava-sthā well-arranged-standing; avyavasthā names disorder as the absence of arrangement rather than mere chaos) + antarniviṣṭā (inherent, placed-within — antar within + niviṣṭā settled-into, from ni-viś to enter-into and settle); the verse contains one of the corpus’s subtler cosmological claims: the apparent chaos (avyavasthā) in the flow of cosmic energy is not outside theWAY but within it — it is suracitā (well-arranged, structured, composed — from su well + racitā arranged/composed) within the larger pattern of theWAY; the practitioner who understands this does not fight chaos as an enemy but recognizes it as antarniviṣṭā (structurally inherent) in the cosmic flow; force (bala) is typically a response to the perception of chaos as something to be controlled — the Wayist who has understood avyavasthā as suracitā (structured within theWAY) has no motive for that force
• प्रवाह-विरुद्धम् (pravāha-viruddham) — “against the current, contrary to the flow” — the pravāha (current/flow) appears here as it has throughout the corpus (Chapter 94, Chapter 103, Chapter 107) and now in its most literal application: bala (force) is pravāha-viruddha (against-the-current) in the most direct sense — it attempts to impose direction on what flows naturally; the Daoist wu wei principle (wei wu wei — acting through non-action) is here rendered through the corpus’s established pravāha vocabulary

Verse 4 — Dṛḍha-Mārdava: The Chapter’s Central Term:

• दृढ-मार्दव (dṛḍha-mārdava) — “tenacious gentleness, firm-softness” — dṛḍha (firm, solid, steadfast, unyielding-in-purpose — from dṛḍh to make-firm; dṛḍha is the quality of not-being-moved from one’s position) + mārdava (softness, gentleness, the quality of being mṛdu — from mṛdu soft/gentle + -va abstract-noun suffix); the compound holds what might appear to be opposites in genuine tension: not a compromise between firmness and gentleness but their co-presence — the practitioner who is dṛḍha (steadfast, not-moved) in their mārdava (gentleness), and mārdava (gentle) in their dṛḍha (steadfastness); this is precisely the quality the chapter calls for in governance: the Wayist does not yield from gentleness into harshness when pressed, nor does their gentleness dissolve into ineffectiveness — the dṛḍhatā (firmness) is what keeps the mārdava operative under pressure
• Mārdava appears here for the first time as a compound element in the corpus; it will recur as the central term of Chapter 115 (Shun Hardness), where mārdava (softness/gentleness) is the positive virtue being urged; the grammatical notes here establish it so that Chapter 115 can deploy it without needing to explain it from scratch
• धर्मेण फलम् आप्नोति, न बलेन (dharmeṇa phalam āpnoti, na balena) — “achieves results through dharma, not through force” — the instrumental dharmeṇa (by means of dharma, through right-ordering) versus balena (by means of force, through compulsion) is the chapter’s ethical centre; dharma here is not the abstract cosmic order but the practitioner’s concrete duty (kartavya — what-must-be-done), the right-action-in-one’s-position that makes authority legitimate; the Wayist governance-model derives its efficacy from dharma’s inherent attractiveness to the soul-in-school (the karma-pāṭhyakrama is voluntary in the deepest sense — souls are drawn toward what genuinely serves their development) versus bala’s coercive compulsion which generates pratibala

Verse 5 — Weapons and the Sat-Jana Standard:

• सत्-जनाः (sat-janāḥ) — “good people, people of sat (truth/being/goodness)” — sat (the present participle of as, to be; also truth, goodness, the real — the term that underlies satya truth) + jana (person, people); sat-jana (good/true people) is a characteristically Indian designation for those whose conduct aligns with truth and goodness; the corpus uses it here to mark the universality of the anti-weapon disposition: it is not specifically Wayist practitioners but all good people who naturally detest weapons; this is a claim about the moral structure of the developed soul, not a sectarian position
• अत्यावश्यकताम् अतिरिच्य (atyāvaśyatām atiricya) — “except in utmost necessity” — ati-āvaśyakatā (extreme-necessity, the-fact-of-being-absolutely-required — ati extreme/excessive + āvaśyakatā necessity, the-state-of-being-necessary) + atiricya (gerund of ati-ric to go-beyond, to exceed; here “going beyond” the necessity, i.e., setting it aside except when…; the gerundive construction creates the exception-clause: beyond/outside the extreme-necessity); the chapter does not eliminate the use of weapons but specifies the threshold (atyāvaśyatā — absolute necessity) and the manner (atyanta-saṃyama — extreme restraint)

Verse 6 — No Beauty in Victory; the Embodied Cross:

• संहारे सौन्दर्यम् (saṃhāre saundaryam) — “beauty in carnage” — saṃhāra (destruction, the bringing-together-of-all-into-dissolution — saṃ-hṛ to draw-together; used for large-scale destruction, massacre, the end-of-things) + saundarya (beauty, the quality of sundara — the beautiful, the aesthetically pleasing); the verse names the specific Wayist diagnostic for those who have gone contrary to theWAY in the domain of force: they find beauty (saundaryaṃ paśyati) in saṃhāra (carnage/mass-destruction); this is not the ordinary soldier who fights sorrowfully (verse 7 honors them) but the one who aestheticizes violence — the warrior-culture that makes carnage beautiful, the entertainment-complex that makes destruction spectacle
• भार-वहनाय पर्याप्तम् (bhāra-vahanāya paryāptam) — “enough of a burden to bear” — bhāra (weight, burden, what-presses-down) + vahana (carrying, bearing — from vah to carry) + paryāpta (sufficient, adequate, enough — from pari-āp to complete/suffice); the English “cross to bear” carries its Christian idiom; the Sanskrit renders the content of the idiom (bhāra-vahanāya — for bearing a burden) without importing the krūsa (cross) imagery, because this verse is not specifically invoking the Wayist cross symbol but the general human condition of having to cause harm to sustain life; the corpus’s krūsa appears when the Wayist cross is explicitly invoked (Chapter 105 verse 4); here it is a weight-bearing image, not a cross-image

Verse 7 — The Warrior’s Sorrow and the Sandhi:

• गाम्भीर्येण (gāmbhīryeṇa) — “gravely, with gravity/solemnity” — gāmbhīrya (depth, gravity, solemnity — the quality of being gambhīra, deep/profound/weighty; gambhīra itself comes from gambha depth, the deep place); the good fighter is gambhīra (deep/grave) in entering battle — the gravity is not theatrical but expressive of genuine understanding of what violence costs; this connects to Chapter 103’s gabhīra-sambandha (deep connection) and Chapter 99’s ānanda-pūrṇā, tathāpi jagato duḥkhānāṃ bhāraṃ vahanti (joyful yet carrying the weight of the world’s sorrows) — the Wayist warrior embodies the same paradox
• अन्त्य-कर्मणा उत्सव्यत (antya-karmaṇā utsavyata) — “celebrate with funeral rites” — antya-karman (final-rite, death-rite — antya final/last + karman action/rite; the antyeṣṭi or death-rites that honor the departed) + utsavyata (imperative plural — celebrate, honor with festivity); the juxtaposition of utsava (festival/celebration) and antya-karman (funeral rite) is intentional: the victory is not celebrated with triumphalism but with the sober acknowledgment of what violence has cost both sides; the dead on both sides are honored
• संघर्षाद् सन्धिम् (saṃgharṣād sandhim) — “reconciliation over conflict” — saṃgharṣa (conflict, friction, the rubbing-together-of-opposites — saṃ-gharṣ to rub-together/clash) + sandhi (reconciliation, peace-treaty, the joining/junction that resolves separation — from saṃ-dhā to place-together, to join; sandhi in political contexts is the peace-agreement, the junction that ends conflict; in grammatical contexts it is the coalescence of sounds at word-boundaries — both meanings point toward joining what was separate); the Wayist vows to seek sandhi (joining) rather than saṃgharṣa (separation-through-friction); this is the governance ethic in its most concrete form

Verses 8 and 9 — The Compression:

• दृढानि क्षिप्रं दुर्बलानि भवन्ति (dṛḍhāni kṣipraṃ durbalāni bhavanti) — “strong things soon grow weak” — the Daodejing 76 teaching (qiáng dà chǔ xià, róu ruò chǔ shàng — the strong and great are below, the soft and yielding are above) rendered in Sanskrit with the corpus’s established dṛḍha/mṛdu (firm/soft) vocabulary; kṣipram (quickly, soon, speedily — the temporal claim that hardness’s failure is not eventual but imminent) intensifies the teaching: the dṛḍha (firm, rigid, force-reliant) does not merely eventually grow weak but kṣipram (soon) — the very quality of hardness that appears as strength contains its own rapid undoing; this verse functions as the cosmological explanation for verses 1–7’s governance teaching: force fails not because of bad luck but because dṛḍhatā (rigidity) is structurally time-limited
• The final two verses are the chapter’s most compressed, and their compression is itself a teaching: after nine verses of nuanced engagement with force’s proper limits, the corpus closes with two bare declarative sentences — the longest and most complex chapter-close would be another form of āḍambara (display); these two sentences have sāra (the nourishing essence that hollow platitudes lack): dṛḍhāni kṣipraṃ durbalāni bhavanti (strong things soon grow weak) and yat mahāmārga-viruddhaṃ tad vināśam upanayati (that which is contrary to theWAY leads to destruction); the second is the most absolute statement in the chapter, and possibly among the most absolute in the corpus — not “may lead” or “tends toward” but upanayati (leads, conducts, brings-to): the relationship between opposition-to-theWAY and destruction is presented as structural and certain

The Four-Chapter Force Thread:

Chapter 110 connects backward to Chapter 89 (the pālaka steward-leader who does not use force to maintain authority), Chapter 94 (those who go against theWAY’s redistributive flow use force to protect their power — sva-śaktiṃ rakṣituṃ balam upayuñjate), and Chapter 107 (the water that overcomes the hard and rigid); and it connects forward to Chapter 115 (Shun Hardness — the positive elaboration of mārdava that the dṛḍha-mārdava compound of verse 4 has here introduced). Together these chapters form the corpus’s comprehensive account of force, power, and the alternative: not passivity (the corpus affirms sat-yoddhā, the good fighter, and the necessity-clause for weapons) but dharma-śakti (the power-of-right-ordering) as the legitimate source of governance-efficacy, and dṛḍha-mārdava (tenacious gentleness) as the practitioner’s disposition when operating within any governance role.

Colophon: This translation represents the collaborative restoration work of the Wayist collective Salvar Dàosenglu, based on the ancient mahāmārga teaching tradition, rendered into contemporary English and restored to classical Sanskrit for posterity.