Bhagavad Gita 5.22
Spoken by Krishna · Verse 22 of 29
ये हि संस्पर्शजा भोगा दुःखयोनय एव ते। आद्यन्तवन्तः कौन्तेय न तेषु रमते बुधः॥५-२२॥
ye hi saṃsparśa-jā bhogā duḥkha-yonaya eva te | ādy-antavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ || 5.22 ||
Sense-born pleasures are wombs of sorrow — they have a beginning and end; the wise takes no delight in them.
Word by word (8)
- ye hi
- — those indeed / for those which
- saṃsparśa-jāḥ
- — born of sense-contact / arising from contact between senses and objects
- bhogāḥ
- — pleasures / enjoyments / sense gratifications
- duḥkha-yonayaḥ
- — wombs of sorrow / sources/origins of suffering (yoni = womb, origin)
- eva te
- — indeed those / verily they are
- ādy-antavantaḥ
- — having beginning and end / time-bound / not eternal
- kaunteya
- — O son of Kunti (Arjuna's address — intimate)
- na teṣu ramate budhaḥ
- — the wise one does not delight in them / the discerning person takes no pleasure there
The pleasures born of sense-contact are nothing but wombs of sorrow, for they have a beginning and an end, O son of Kuntī; the wise take no delight in them.
A modern analogy
A person who has eaten a favourite meal a hundred times eventually notices: the first bite brings the most pleasure, the last brings almost none, and within an hour the memory fades — replaced by hunger again. The pleasure was real but self-exhausting. The wiser person notices this cycle and stops chasing the peak, not because pleasure is bad, but because the chase itself produces restlessness (the 'womb of sorrow' this verse names). The hedonic treadmill — running faster to stay in the same place — is duḥkha-yonayaḥ in modern language.
What it does NOT mean
This verse is not a blanket condemnation of pleasure or sensory experience. Krishna does not say pleasures are evil — He says they are duḥkha-yonayaḥ (sources of sorrow) because of their inherent impermanence. The wise person is not ascetic by force — he simply sees clearly what saṃsparśa-born pleasure actually produces in the long run. Seeing clearly, the delight naturally shifts away from them.
Take with you
- Duḥkha-yonayaḥ — 'womb of sorrow' is not moral language; it is causal language. The problem is not that pleasure is sinful — it is that sense-born pleasure structurally produces sorrow because it is ādy-antavantaḥ (time-bound).
- Ādy-antavantaḥ: any experience that has a beginning will have an end. The ending of pleasure is experienced as loss or craving. This is the mechanism by which sense-pleasure generates suffering — not in the pleasure itself but in the inevitable contraction when it ends.
- Na teṣu ramate budhaḥ: the budha (wise one) does not suppress delight by willpower — he simply sees the full cycle (pleasure → ending → loss → craving again) and finds that clear seeing itself releases the grip of the pleasure-pursuit.
Public-domain translations (6) compare all →
"Those enjoyments that are born of sense-contacts are indeed wombs of sorrow — they have a beginning and an end, O Kaunteya. The wise one does not delight in them." [1]
"The enjoyments that are born of contacts are only sources of pain, for they have a beginning and an end, O Kaunteya. The wise man does not rejoice in them." [4]
"The enjoyments that are contact-born are only wombs of pain, having beginning and ending, O Kaunteya; not in these does the wise man rejoice." [5]
"Since those enjoyments which are contact-born are only wombs of pain — having beginning and end — the wise man, O Kaunteya, finds no happiness in them." [6]
"For, lo! the pleasures that are born of sense-contacts are but sources of sorrow, they have beginning and end, Kaunteya — the wise man takes no joy in them." [7]
"For the enjoyments produced from contact with objects of sense are only sources of pain — they have a beginning and an end. The wise man, O son of Kunti, does not delight in them." [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Unattached to outer touches, finding joy within — joined to Brahman-yoga, the soul enjoys inexhaustible bliss.
Heat and cold, pleasure and pain — they come and go. Learn to endure them without being swept away.
Rājasic sukha: arises from sense-object contact — nectar-like at first, poison-like at the end.
Rāga and dveṣa lie in every sense-object. Do not come under their power — they are enemies on the path.
Arjuna sees his own people ready to die — and his body breaks before his mind can argue.
Bow down, arrows scattered, warrior collapsed — this is where the Gita begins.
Verse 22 of 29 · back to Chapter 5