The vocabulary · गुण
Guna
The three strands — sattva, rajas and tamas — that nature is woven from.
What are the three gunas in the Bhagavad Gita?
Sattva, rajas and tamas — clarity, drive and heaviness. The Gita calls them strands that arise out of nature, and says each one binds a person in its own way. Sattva binds too, through attachment to being happy and to knowing. All three are in everyone: no being on earth or among the gods, the text says, is free of them. Which one is uppermost changes, and the Gita says how — each rises by pressing the other two down. That is a description of weather, not of types of people.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · 30 verses use गुण
In the text
गुण
guṇa
A verse is counted when its Sanskrit contains the word, compounds included. That is a checkable fact and a floor, not a total — the Gita teaches the idea in verses that never say it.
Chapter fourteen introduces them and gives each one a mechanism. Sattva is clear and gives light, and binds through attachment to happiness and to knowledge. Rajas is of the nature of thirst and attachment, and binds through attachment to action. Tamas is born of ignorance, confuses everyone who has a body, and binds through carelessness, laziness and sleep. The word binds is used of all three. This is the correction most readers need first: sattva is not the destination in this chapter. The destination is past all three.
Then 14.10 says the thing that ought to keep anyone from sorting people permanently. Sattva rises by overcoming rajas and tamas; rajas rises by overcoming sattva and tamas; tamas rises by overcoming sattva and rajas. Each is always present and each takes its turn. The Gita even describes the marks of a given strand being uppermost at a given time — light at every gate of the body when sattva has grown, greed and restless starting of new things when rajas has, an absence of light and effort when tamas has. These are readings of a moment.
Chapters seventeen and eighteen then sort almost everything by the three: faith, food, austerity, gifts, knowledge, action, the doer, understanding, firmness and happiness. Read as a quiz this looks like a caste of personalities. Read as it is written, it is a way of examining a particular act. 18.26 to 18.28 describe three ways of doing a job, and a person may recognise all three from the same week. The Gita’s own test for having gone beyond them is not about which one you score. It is 14.22: not disliking light, activity or confusion when they arrive, and not longing for them when they go.
What it does not mean
The gunas are three personality types, and the point is to work out which one you are.
18.40 says there is no being on earth, nor among the gods, free of these three — which rules out anybody having only one. 14.10 says each rises by overcoming the other two, so what is uppermost is a state that shifts, not a category you belong to. Chapters seventeen and eighteen sort faith, food, gifts, austerity, knowledge, action and the way a person works. They sort conduct. They do not issue anybody a type.
In the Gita’s own words
The verses this rests on.
The Sanskrit and both translations are the text. The note under each verse is the Trust’s reason for pointing at it — you may disagree with the note and still trust the verse.
Bhagavad Gita 14.5Shri Bhagavan
सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसम्भवाः ।
निबध्नन्ति महाबाहो देहे देहिनमव्ययम् ॥Sattva, rajas and tamas — these are the gunas that arise out of prakriti. Mahabaho, they are what bind the unchanging dweller within to the body.
The three named, and their origin: they arise out of prakriti and they bind the unchanging dweller to the body. Binding is what all three have in common.
Bhagavad Gita 14.6–14.8Shri Bhagavan
तत्र सत्त्वं निर्मलत्वात्प्रकाशकमनामयम् ।
सुखसङ्गेन बध्नाति ज्ञानसङ्गेन चानघ ॥रजो रागात्मकं विद्धि तृष्णासङ्गसमुद्भवम् ।
तन्निबध्नाति कौन्तेय कर्मसङ्गेन देहिनम् ॥तमस्त्वज्ञानजं विद्धि मोहनं सर्वदेहिनाम् ।
प्रमादालस्यनिद्राभिस्तन्निबध्नाति भारत ॥Among them sattva, being clear, gives light and is free of disturbance. Anagha, it binds a person through attachment to happiness and through attachment to knowledge. Know rajas to be of the nature of passion, arising out of thirst and attachment. Kaunteya, it binds the dweller in the body through attachment to action. Know tamas to be born of ignorance; it confuses everyone who lives in a body. Bharata, it binds a person through carelessness, laziness and sleep.
One mechanism each. Sattva binds through attachment to happiness and to knowing; rajas through attachment to action; tamas through carelessness, laziness and sleep. Note that sattva binds.
Bhagavad Gita 14.10Shri Bhagavan
रजस्तमश्चाभिभूय सत्त्वं भवति भारत ।
रजः सत्त्वं तमश्चैव तमः सत्त्वं रजस्तथा ॥Sattva rises, Bharata, by overcoming rajas and tamas; rajas rises by overcoming sattva and tamas; and tamas rises by overcoming sattva and rajas.
The verse that rules out permanent sorting. Each of the three rises by pressing the other two down. What is uppermost is a state with a turn, not an identity.
Bhagavad Gita 18.40Shri Bhagavan
न तदस्ति पृथिव्यां वा दिवि देवेषु वा पुनः ।
सत्त्वं प्रकृतिजैर्मुक्तं यदेभिः स्यात्त्रिभिर्गुणैः ॥There is no being on earth, nor again among the gods in heaven, that could be free from these three gunas born of prakriti.
There is no being on earth, nor among the gods in heaven, free of these three. Which is another way of saying that nobody is only one of them.
Bhagavad Gita 18.26–18.28Shri Bhagavan
मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः ।
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥रागी कर्मफलप्रेप्सुर्लुब्धो हिंसात्मकोऽशुचिः ।
हर्षशोकान्वितः कर्ता राजसः परिकीर्तितः ॥अयुक्तः प्राकृतः स्तब्धः शठो नैष्कृतिकोऽलसः ।
विषादी दीर्घसूत्री च कर्ता तामस उच्यते ॥Free of attachment, not speaking of himself, endowed with steadiness and zeal, unaltered in success and failure — such a doer is called one of goodness. Full of longing, eager for the fruit of action, greedy, given to injury, impure, swept by joy and grief — such a doer is declared to be of passion. Unsteady, coarse, unbending, deceitful, malicious, idle, despondent and forever putting things off — such a doer is called one of darkness.
Three ways of doing a piece of work, described in detail. They read as an examination of conduct on a given day, and most people will recognise more than one of them in themselves.
Bhagavad Gita 14.20Shri Bhagavan
गुणानेतानतीत्य त्रीन्देही देहसमुद्भवान् ।
जन्ममृत्युजरादुःखैर्विमुक्तोऽमृतमश्नुते ॥When the dweller in the body passes beyond these three gunas, which come into being along with the body, he is freed from birth, death, old age and pain, and reaches the deathless.
The goal stated: passing beyond all three, which come into being along with the body. Not becoming sattvic — going past sattva as well.
Bhagavad Gita 14.22–14.23Shri Bhagavan
प्रकाशं च प्रवृत्तिं च मोहमेव च पाण्डव ।
न द्वेष्टि सम्प्रवृत्तानि न निवृत्तानि काङ्क्षति ॥उदासीनवदासीनो गुणैर्यो न विचाल्यते ।
गुणा वर्तन्त इत्येवं योऽवतिष्ठति नेङ्गते ॥Pandava, he does not dislike light, activity or confusion when they come upon him, and he does not long for them when they fall away. He sits like someone who stands apart, and the gunas do not unsettle him. Knowing only that the gunas are doing their work, he stays as he is and does not waver.
The Gita’s own test, and it is about relation rather than content: neither disliking light, activity and confusion when they come, nor longing for them when they go.
In practice
What it looks like when someone does it.
There is no quiz here and there will not be one. The useful form of this teaching is a question asked in the present tense: which of the three is uppermost right now. A nurse at the end of a double shift, a student at eleven at night, a shopkeeper on the third slow day of a week — each can answer that honestly in a moment, and the answer will be different by morning. 14.10 is what licenses that question and forbids the other one.
Because it shifts, an afternoon of tamas is not a verdict. This is the practical value of the chapter and it is easy to lose. A person who has decided they are tamasic by nature has taken a weather report and made it a caste. The Gita says every strand is present in everyone and each takes its turn, which means the heavy afternoon is information about an afternoon.
The sorting in chapters seventeen and eighteen is best used on a single act. Was this donation given because it was the right moment and the right person, or to be seen giving it, or carelessly because someone was owed something. The question is answerable about one gift. It is not answerable about a life, and the Gita does not ask it that way. One caution: chapter seventeen also sorts food, and it does so in the vocabulary of its own time. Anything you are deciding about your own body belongs with a doctor, not with a scripture page.
Words that travel with it
Common questions
About guna.
Is sattva good and tamas bad?
The Gita ranks their results — 14.16 gives sattva a clean fruit, rajas pain and tamas ignorance, and 14.18 has them going upward, staying level and going downward. But 14.6 says sattva binds a person too, through attachment to happiness and to knowing. So sattva is better and still not the goal, which 14.20 places past all three.
Can I change my guna?
The question assumes you have one. 18.40 says nobody is without all three, and 14.10 describes them rising and falling against each other, so what changes is which is uppermost. Chapter fourteen does not give a technique for raising sattva directly. What it offers is 14.26: unwavering devotion, which it says carries a person right past the three.
What does gunatita mean?
One who has gone beyond the three. Arjuna asks for the marks at 14.21 and the answer is 14.22 to 14.25: such a person does not dislike light, activity or confusion when they come, nor long for them when they go; he is the same in pain and pleasure, in honour and dishonour, and he stops starting things for himself. It is described as a settled relation to the three, not as their absence.
Does the Gita prescribe a sattvic diet?
Chapter seventeen describes three kinds of food and which kind each sort of person is drawn to. It is description of preference more than instruction, and it uses the categories of its own time and place. The Trust publishes the verses and does not turn them into a diet. Decisions about your body should be made with a doctor.