CHAPTER 114 — अ-शत्रु-करणम् | Not Making Enemies
शत्रवः यदा संधिताः, तदापि किञ्चिद् वैरं शेषते॥१॥
śatravaḥ yadā sandhitāḥ, tadāpi kiñcid vairaṃ śeṣate॥1॥
When enemies are reconciled, some resentment remains.
महामार्गिणी संव्यवहारे स्व-भागं पूरयति, अन्येभ्यश्च किमपि नापेक्षते॥२॥
mahāmārgiṇī saṃvyavahāre sva-bhāgaṃ pūrayati, anyebhyaśca kimapi nāpekṣate॥2॥
The Wayist makes good on her part of the agreement and expects nothing from others.
महामार्गिणी स्व-प्रतिज्ञां धरति। ये सद्-गुण-हीनाः ते प्रतिज्ञां धारयितुं न शक्नुवन्ति॥३॥
mahāmārgiṇī sva-pratijñāṃ dharati। ye sad-guṇa-hīnāḥ te pratijñāṃ dhārayituṃ na śaknuvanti॥3॥
The Wayist keeps her promise. Those who are deficient in goodness cannot keep a promise.
महामार्गः पक्षं न गृह्णाति; स सदा सतां सहितः॥४॥
mahāmārgaḥ pakṣaṃ na gṛhṇāti; sa sadā satāṃ sahitaḥ॥4॥
theWAY does not choose sides; it is always with the good.
एतत् कारणं यद् आचार्यः कथयति — “स्व-शत्रून् प्रीयस्व; यदा तव पीडा क्रियते तदा सह; येषां ते द्वेषः तेषां कल्याणं कुरु; ये त्वां शपन्ति तान् आशीर्वचनेन स्तुहि — इदानीं परीक्षाकालः, अतः स्व-जीवं पालय।"॥५॥
etat kāraṇaṃ yad ācāryaḥ kathayati — “sva-śatrūn prīyasva; yadā tava pīḍā kriyate tadā saha; yeṣāṃ te dveṣaḥ teṣāṃ kalyāṇaṃ kuru; ye tvāṃ śapanti tān āśīr-vacanena stuhi — idānīṃ parīkṣā-kālaḥ, ataḥ sva-jīvaṃ pālaya।"॥5॥
That is why the Teacher says: “Love your enemies; endure when you are persecuted; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you — now is the time of trial, so take care of your soul.”
यदा बलवन्तः दुर्बलान् पीडयन्ति, निराश्रयान् दुर्व्यवहरन्ति, निर्-वाचेषु च क्रौर्यम् आचरन्ति — तदा तव शत्रुः विद्यते। मैत्र्या विनम्रतया च वर्तस्व; स्व-शत्रुं न लघूकुरु, न च अवमान्य; शत्रुम् अन्तर्-विगलनम् उपनयस्व॥६॥
yadā balavantaḥ durbalān pīḍayanti, nirāśrayān durvyavaharanti, nir-vāceṣu ca krauryam ācaranti — tadā tava śatruḥ vidyate। maitryā vinamratayā ca vartasva; sva-śatruṃ na laghūkuru, na ca avamānya; śatrum antar-vigalanam upanayasva॥6॥
When the powerful oppress the weak, abuse the defenseless, and inflict cruelty on the voiceless — then you have an enemy. Act with loving-kindness and humility; do not belittle your enemy, do not underestimate it; lead your enemy toward its own inner dissolution.
धर्मे अल्प-स्वरः कियद् बलं करोति इति त्वां आश्चर्यचकितं करिष्यति। जगति महामार्गो भव, निर्-वाचानां भंगुराणां च सेवायै स्व-जीवनं समर्पयितुम् अनिर्भीतः॥७॥
dharme alpa-svaraḥ kiyad balaṃ karoti iti tvāṃ āścaryacakitaṃ kariṣyati। jagati mahāmārgo bhava, nir-vācānāṃ bhaṅgurāṇāṃ ca sevāyai sva-jīvanaṃ samarpayitum anirbhītaḥ॥7॥
You will be surprised what a small voice can accomplish in righteousness. Be theWAY in the world, unafraid to dedicate your life to serving the voiceless and vulnerable.
महामार्गी जानाति यत् शत्रूणां निर्माणम् आध्यात्मिक-मार्गे बाधाः सृजति॥८॥
mahāmārgī jānāti yat śatrūṇāṃ nirmāṇam ādhyātmika-mārge bādhāḥ sṛjati॥8॥
The Wayist understands that making enemies creates obstacles on the spiritual path.
अन्यान् शत्रु-रूपेण न पश्यन्ती महामार्गिणी आन्तरिक-शान्तिं प्रसादं च रक्षति॥९॥
anyān śatru-rūpeṇa na paśyantī mahāmārgiṇī āntarika-śāntiṃ prasādaṃ ca rakṣati॥9॥
By refusing to see others as enemies, the Wayist preserves inner peace and clarity.
संघर्षे ऽपि महामार्गी विजयाद् अनुरञ्जनं सन्धिं च अन्विष्यति॥१०॥
saṃgharṣe ‘pi mahāmārgī vijayād anuñjanaṃ sandhiṃ ca anviṣyati॥10॥
Even in conflict, the Wayist seeks understanding and reconciliation rather than victory.
अशत्रुता-अभ्यासः सर्व-भूतेषु विस्तरति, न केवलं मनुष्येषु॥११॥
aśatrutā-abhyāsaḥ sarva-bhūteṣu vistarati, na kevalaṃ manuṣyeṣu॥11॥
The practice of non-enmity extends to all beings, not to humans alone.
शत्रूणाम् अकरणे महामार्गिणी महामार्गस्य विश्व-प्रवाहेण सामञ्जस्यं प्राप्नोति॥१२॥
śatrūṇām akaraṇe mahāmārgiṇī mahāmārgasya viśva-pravāheṇa sāmañjasyaṃ prāpnoti॥12॥
In not making enemies, the Wayist achieves harmony with the universal flow of theWAY.
एतद् उपागमनं अन्यायस्य समक्षे निष्क्रियताम् अर्थयते इति न, अपितु तस्य संबोधनस्य भिन्नं मार्गम्॥१३॥
etad upāgamanaṃ anyāyasya samakṣe niṣkriyatām arthayate iti na, apitu tasya saṃbodhanasya bhinnaṃ mārgam॥13॥
This approach does not mean passivity in the face of injustice, but rather a different way of addressing it.
महामार्गी जानाति यत् कल्पित-शत्रवः प्रायशः प्रच्छन्न-शिक्षकाः सन्ति — वृद्धि-आत्म-अवलोकनयोः अवसरान् ददन्तः॥१४॥
mahāmārgī jānāti yat kalpita-śatravaḥ prāyaśaḥ pracchanna-śikṣakāḥ santi — vṛddhi-ātma-avalokanayoḥ avasarān dadantaḥ॥14॥
The Wayist recognizes that perceived enemies are often teachers in disguise, offering opportunities for growth and self-reflection.
वैर-द्वेष-रहितं मनः संवर्धयन्ती, अशत्रुतायां स्थिरीभूय महामार्गिणी आध्यात्मिक-प्रगतेः मार्गं प्रशस्तयति॥१५॥
vaira-dveṣa-rahitaṃ manaḥ saṃvardhayantī, aśatrutāyāṃ sthirībhūya mahāmārgiṇī ādhyātmika-pragateḥ mārgaṃ praśastayati॥15॥
By cultivating a mind free from grudge and hatred, steadfastly established in non-enmity, the Wayist paves the way for spiritual progress.
〜
आचार्या यिन् वदति — “मया एका स्त्री ज्ञाता या प्रभुम् इत्थं प्रीयते यत् सा सर्वैः स्व-देह-मनोभिः सर्वैश्च जीव-मनोभिः शैतानं द्वेष्टुम् उद्घोषितवती।”
Master Yin said, “I once knew a woman who loved the Lord so much she declared to hate the devil with all her body-minds and soul-minds.”
आचार्यो याङ् वदति — “आम महोदये, अहं जानामि; सा सप्त-शत-वर्षाणि द्वारेभ्यः बाह्यतः शैतानं शपन्ती तिष्ठति। शैतानः मां अद्य क्रय-विक्रय-भवने अकथयत् यत् सा द्वेषेण इत्थं परिपूर्णा यत् तस्या द्वेष-पाटवं तस्य स्व-कार्य-कालावेक्षकेभ्यो ऽप्यधिकम्।”
Master Yang said, “Yes Madam, I am aware; she has been outside the gates screaming abuse at the devil for seven hundred years. The devil told me the other day in the mall that she is so filled with hate, she is more skilled at it than his shift supervisors.”
आचार्या यिन् पृच्छति — “तद् अस्ति शैतानः?”
Master Yin asked, “So there is a devil, then?”
आचार्यो याङ् उत्तरयति — “तद् क्रय-विक्रय-भवने अस्ति इति मे मतिः।”
Master Yang answered, “Well, I think at the mall there is.”
व्याकरण टिप्पणियां | Grammatical Notes
Chapter Title and the Daodejing 79 Foundation:
- अ-शत्रु-करणम् (a-śatru-karaṇam) — “the not-making-of-enemies” — a (privative prefix — not, without) + śatru (enemy, one who hates — from śat to harm; śatru specifically names one who has been placed in a stance of hostility, distinct from a merely unfriendly person) + karaṇa (making, doing, the act-of-creating — from kṛ to do/make); the title names a practice (karaṇa is the act), not a passive state — the Wayist actively does not make enemies, rather than merely avoiding conflict; this is the distinction between ahiṃsā (non-harming) and aśatru-karaṇa (non-enemy-making): the former names the practitioner’s conduct, the latter names the practitioner’s relational construction of the world
- Chapter 114 draws from Daodejing 79 (hé dà yuàn bì yǒu yú yuàn — when great resentments are reconciled, resentment inevitably remains) — the same insight that opens the chapter at verse 1; the Daodejing’s teaching is that reconciliation is structurally incomplete: vaira (the grudge-residue) persists; the Wayist inference is that the goal cannot be better reconciliation-methods but non-enmity-creation in the first place; “not making enemies” is the upstream intervention that prevents the need for the downstream reconciliation-that-leaves-residue
Verse 1 — Vaira: The Structural Residue:
- वैरम् (vairam) — “resentment, the enduring grudge” — from vir (to be hostile); vaira names specifically the persistent adversarial state that survives surface reconciliation, distinct from dveṣa (active hatred — the hot emotion) and krodha (anger — the reactive impulse); vaira is the cold, structural, lingering grudge that colors a relationship long after the formal agreement that ended the conflict; the verse’s claim — vairaṃ śeṣate (resentment remains) — names a structural feature of the reconciliation process, not a failure of individuals; even sincere reconciliation (sandhi, established in Chapter 110 verse 7) leaves vaira in the field between the former enemies; this is why the chapter’s teaching aims upstream of reconciliation
Verse 2 — Sva-Bhāgaṃ Pūrayati:
- सव-भागं पूरयति (sva-bhāgaṃ pūrayati) — “fulfills her own portion/part” — sva-bhāga (own portion, one’s own share — sva own + bhāga portion, share, the part that belongs to one) + pūrayati (fills, fulfills, completes — from pṛ to fill); the verse names the Wayist’s commitment to unconditional fulfillment of agreements: her contribution to the agreement (sva-bhāga) is completed (pūrayati) regardless of whether others reciprocate; this is the ahastakṣepa (non-interference) principle applied to the domain of agreements — the Wayist does not condition her commitment on others’ fulfillment; the na apekṣate (does not expect) from others is not passivity but the deliberate refusal to allow others’ failures to become a reason for her own; this directly guards against the most common mechanism by which enemies are made: “I would have kept my part, but they didn’t keep theirs”
Verse 3 — Promise and Goodness:
- सद्-गुण-हीनाः (sad-guṇa-hīnāḥ) — “those deficient in goodness” — sat (truth/goodness/the real — the corpus-established term for genuine goodness throughout) + guṇa (quality, virtue) + hīna (lacking, deficient, below-the-mark — from hā to abandon; hīna names being-left-behind, falling-below-the-standard); the verse makes a diagnostic claim: the inability to keep promises is not a character flaw superimposed on an otherwise good nature, but a symptom of sad-guṇa-hīnatā (deficiency in goodness-qualities) — specifically, the soul-immaturity (aparipakvata from Chapter 108) that makes the small self’s convenience override the commitment made; the Wayist who understands this receives broken promises differently — not as personal betrayal but as diagnostic information about the promise-breaker’s karma-pāṭhyakrama stage
Verse 5 — The Teacher’s Words:
- आचार्यः कथयति (ācāryaḥ kathayati) — “the Teacher says” — ācārya (master, teacher — one who knows and lives the conduct) + kathayati (says/tells — from kath to recount/narrate); this is the corpus’s standard attribution formula for the great teachers; the words that follow are from Lord Iesous (bhagavān īsausaḥ) as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44) and Luke 6:27-28; the corpus uses ācārya (teacher/master) for his wisdom-teachings and bhagavān (the Blessed One/Lord) for his divine status — consistent with the distinction established in Chapter 113’s roll-call
- स्व-शत्रून् प्रीयस्व (sva-śatrūn prīyasva) — “love your enemies” — sva-śatru (one’s own enemies) + prīyasva (love/cherish — middle voice imperative of prī to please/delight-in/love; the middle voice is important: prīyasva names a loving that is done for and by the self, not imposed; the practitioner chooses to be in a state of prīyamāna (loving/being-pleased-by) toward the one who is their enemy); this is not sentimental affection but the deliberate orientation of prema (love) toward those whose actions warrant antipathy; the middle voice captures what English “love” can sometimes miss — this is the practitioner’s own active orientation, not a commanded feeling
- सव-जीवं पालय (sva-jīvaṃ pālaya) — “take care of your soul” — sva-jīva (one’s own soul) + pālaya (guard, tend, protect — imperative of pāl to guard/tend); the teaching closes not with a demand for heroic love-of-enemies but with a reminder of the practitioner’s primary responsibility: sva-jīva-pālana (tending one’s own soul); the trial (parīkṣā-kāla) is the testing of whether the soul can maintain its orientation toward prema (love) and kalyāṇa (goodness) in the face of persecution; the soul is the site and the prize of this test
Verse 6 — The Paradox of Righteous Opposition:
- अन्तर्-विगलनम् उपनयस्व (antar-vigalanam upanayasva) — “lead toward its own inner dissolution” — antar (within, inner) + vigalana (flowing-apart, dissolution, the progressive-loosening of what was bound together — from vi-gal to drip-apart, to dissolve; vigalana names the process of something coming apart from within, like ice melting, like a knot loosening) + upanayasva (lead toward, bring-to — imperative of upa-nī to lead-to, to conduct-toward); this is the chapter’s most precise tactical instruction and requires careful reading: the Wayist does NOT attack the enemy, does NOT retaliate, does NOT attempt to destroy from outside; the Wayist acts with maitrī (loving-kindness) and vinaya (humility/courtesy), which creates the conditions in which the enemy’s own internal contradictions become visible and operative; oppressive power depends on the legitimacy that comes from the oppressed accepting the oppressor’s framing; maitrī and vinaya withdraw that legitimacy while exposing the oppressor’s sad-guṇa-hīnatā (deficiency in goodness) to public scrutiny; the antar-vigalana (inner-dissolution) is the structural result of the oppressor’s own contradictions operating without the suppression that force normally provides
- निर्-वाचेषु (nir-vāceṣu) — “among the voiceless” — nis (without) + vāc (speech, voice — the faculty of articulate self-expression; vāc is the Sanskrit goddess of speech, Vāgdevī); nir-vāca (without-voice) names those who have been structurally prevented from speaking in the public sphere — the politically powerless, the economically marginal, the culturally silenced; this connects to Chapter 81’s nirvāca-sevā (service to the voiceless) principle
Verse 9 — Prasāda in the Face of Enmity:
- आन्तरिक-शान्तिं प्रसादं च रक्षति (āntarika-śāntiṃ prasādaṃ ca rakṣati) — “preserves inner peace and clarity” — āntarika-śānti (inner peace — antar inner + śānti peace/stillness) + prasāda (settled clarity, grace, the luminous-settled-quality established in Chapter 109 verse 19 as the Wayist’s mode of navigating complexity with grace) + rakṣati (protects, guards, preserves — from rakṣ to guard); the verse names what non-enmity protects in the practitioner: not safety from others’ actions but the preservation of one’s own āntarika-śānti (inner peace) and prasāda (settled clarity); the practitioner who makes enemies imports their enemies’ agitation into their own interior space — the enemy-maker suffers the enemy’s presence even when the enemy is absent; the non-enemy-maker remains prasanna (settled and clear) because there is no enemy-presence to import
Verse 14 — Kalpita-Śatravaḥ:
- कल्पित-शत्रवः (kalpita-śatravaḥ) — “perceived/constructed enemies” — kalpita (constructed, arranged, imagined — past passive participle of kḷp to arrange/construct; kalpita names something that has been mentally constructed or projected rather than objectively perceived); the compound names the Wayist insight: “enemies” are in part kalpita — constructed by the practitioner’s own interpretive machinery, which reads hostility, threat, and opposition into the other’s behavior; this does not deny real hostility (verse 6 names real oppression) but names the practitioner’s contribution to the enemy-construction process; the kalpita-śatru (imagined-enemy) who turns out to be a pracchanna-śikṣaka (hidden-teacher) is the practitioner’s own interpretive categories being revised through the encounter
- प्रच्छन्न-शिक्षकाः (pracchanna-śikṣakāḥ) — “teachers in disguise” — pracchanna (hidden, concealed — from pra-chad to cover-over, to conceal; pracchanna is specifically the covered/hidden thing, the teacher whose teaching-role is not apparent from their surface role) + śikṣaka (teacher, one who trains); the pracchanna-śikṣaka (hidden-teacher) principle connects to Chapter 111’s karma-as-teacher teaching (na daṇḍādhikāriṇaḥ, apitu śikṣakasya) — the universe’s corrective feedback operates through karma-pāṭhyakrama, and the person who acts as an enemy may be exactly the teacher the practitioner’s soul needs to encounter at this stage of development; the Wayist who receives this principle is freed from both victimhood (the enemy is doing something to me that should not happen) and naive passivity (everything is fine) — instead: this encounter is my curriculum
The Dialogue — Seven Hundred Years of Hate:
The dialogue is the chapter’s finest theological moment, demonstrating the teaching through a story of spectacular spiritual failure. The woman’s failure is named precisely in the Devanagari:
- सर्वैः स्व-देह-मनोभिः सर्वैश्च जीव-मनोभिः (sarvaiḥ sva-deha-manobhiḥ sarvaiśca jīva-manobhiḥ) — “with all her body-minds and all her soul-minds” — the three-domain anthropology appears in the dialogue’s description of the woman’s hatred; she has dedicated ALL her body-minds (the brain-mind, the organ-minds, the biome-mind) AND ALL her soul-minds (Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura) to the single project of hating the devil; in Wayist terms this is a complete inversion of the Butterfly Path: the body-minds and soul-minds are the instruments of jīva-vikāsa (soul-development), and she has deployed them entirely in dveṣa (hatred); the Wayist body-minds and soul-minds are to be oriented toward prajñā (wisdom), karuṇā (compassion), and kṣaṇa-pāvana (the sacrament of the moment) — she has oriented them toward vaira (enduring-grudge) and dveṣa (hatred)
- द्वेष-पाटवम् (dveṣa-pāṭavam) — “skill at hatred” — dveṣa (hatred, aversion) + pāṭava (skill, proficiency, mastery — from paṭu skilled/sharp); the woman has become so expert at dveṣa that her dveṣa-pāṭava (hatred-skill) exceeds that of the devil’s own kārya-kālāvekṣakāḥ (shift supervisors, those who oversee the scheduled-work-periods — kārya-kāla work-period + avekṣaka overseer); this is the chapter’s most precise comic inversion: she set out to oppose the devil and has become more skilled than the devil’s own professional practitioners of evil; hatred of evil, when pursued with the full commitment of all one’s faculties, produces a practitioner more expert in evil than the evil itself
- क्रय-विक्रय-भवने (kraya-vikraya-bhavane) — “in the buying-selling-building” — kraya (purchase) + vikraya (sale) + bhavana (building, dwelling-place — the place where transactions occur); the Sanskrit renders “the mall” as the place-of-commercial-exchange rather than transliterating; the choice is deliberate: the kraya-vikraya-bhavana (commercial building) is specifically the most ordinary, mundane, un-cosmic location possible — the devil is doing his shopping; the woman has been screaming at the gates of evil for seven hundred years while the devil has been living his ordinary life; the antar-vigalana (inner-dissolution) that the chapter urges is already occurring in the devil’s institutions (hence he needs shift supervisors, his operation apparently requiring managerial structure) — but the woman is not causing it; she is only harming herself
The chapter’s Sanskrit holds the Daodejing 79 insight (reconciliation leaves vaira) at its foundation while building the Wayist superstructure: non-enmity-creation as the upstream practice, the Teacher’s cross-traditional command to love enemies, the precise instruction on righteous opposition through maitri and vinaya that leads to antar-vigalana (inner-dissolution of oppressive power), and the dialogue that demonstrates what seven centuries of practitioner failure looks like — a woman more accomplished at hatred than the devil himself, at the mall, where the devil is shopping.
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.