Bhagavad Gita 14.9
Spoken by Krishna · Verse 9 of 27
सत्त्वं सुखे सञ्जयति रजः कर्मणि भारत । ज्ञानम् आवृत्य तु तमः प्रमादे सञ्जयति उत ॥
sattvaṃ sukhe sañjayati rajaḥ karmaṇi bhārata | jñānam āvṛtya tu tamaḥ pramāde sañjayati uta ||
Sattva binds to happiness; rajas to action; tamas veils wisdom and chains to heedlessness.
Word by word (3)
- sattvaṃ sukhe sañjayati
- — sattva chains/attaches (sañjayati = ties, fastens) to happiness (sukha) — the golden rope
- rajaḥ karmaṇi sañjayati bhārata
- — rajas chains to action (karma) — the red rope of passionate activity, O Bharata
- jñānam āvṛtya tamaḥ pramāde sañjayati
- — tamas, veiling/shrouding wisdom (jñānam āvṛtya), chains to heedlessness (pramāda) — the dark rope of obscured awareness
Sattva attaches (chains) the self to happiness. Rajas attaches it to action. But tamas, veiling wisdom, attaches it to heedlessness, O Bharata.
A modern analogy
Three roads leading back to prison: the silk road (sattva's happiness), the highway of ambition (rajas's activity), and the foggy dead-end (tamas's ignorance). All three end at the same place — saṃsāra — until the traveler finds the guṇātīta path that goes beyond all three.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
Sattva attaches to happiness, Rajas to action, O Bharata, while Tamas, enshrouding wisdom, attaches, on the contrary, to heedlessness. [1]
Sattva attaches to happiness, and Rajas to action, O descendant of Bharata; while Tamas, verily, shrouding discrimination, attaches to miscomprehension. [4]
Goodness makes one attached to happiness, passion to action; but darkness, veiling knowledge, attaches to heedlessness. [9]
Goodness unites the soul with pleasure; Passion, O Bharata, unites with work; but darkness, veiling knowledge, unites with error. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
The tattva-vit sees gunas moving among gunas and does not become attached. Knowledge itself produces liberation.
Krishna reopens with the supreme jñāna above all knowledge — knowing which every muni has reached parāṃ siddhim.
Those who resort to this knowledge attain My own nature — neither reborn at creation nor disturbed at dissolution.
Sattva — luminous and stainless — yet binds the jīva through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.
Rajas — passion, thirst, attachment — binds the embodied one specifically through attachment to action.
Dying in rajas, one is born among the action-attached; dying in tamas, one is born in irrational wombs.
Verse 9 of 27 · back to Chapter 14