Sanskrit
अप्रकाशोऽप्रवृत्तिश्च प्रमादो मोह एव च । तमस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे कुरुनन्दन ॥
aprakāśo'pravṛttiś ca pramādo moha eva ca tamasy etāni jāyante vivṛddhe kurunandana
Translation
Darkness, stagnation and heedlessness and also delusion—these are born of the increase of Inertia, O joy of the Kurus.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The third diagnostic sign, completing the triad opened at verse 11: tamas increasing shows up as darkness, stagnation, heedlessness, delusion — the direct opposite of verse 11’s streaming light. With all three sets of symptoms now on the table, the chapter shifts register again at verse 14, from how to recognize a guna’s rise in daily life to what happens when a particular guna is dominant at the moment of death. The tamas signature is the negation of the other two: aprakāśa (no light — the opposite of sattva’s clarity), apravṛtti (no activity — the opposite of rajas’s drive), plus pramāda and moha. Dullness and fog. Its fruit is ajñāna itself.
Study deeper
Word by word
- aprakāśo'pravṛttiś caअप्रकाशोऽप्रवृत्तिश् च
- no light, and no activity (aprakāśaḥ + apravṛttiḥ + ca)
- pramādo moha eva caप्रमादो मोह एव च
- negligence, and delusion (pramādaḥ + mohaḥ + eva + ca)
- tamasy etāni jāyanteतमस्य् एतानि जायन्ते
- these arise when tamas (tamasi + etāni + jāyante)
- vivṛddhe kurunandanaविवृद्धे कुरुनन्दन
- has grown strong, O joy of the Kurus (vivṛddhe + kuru-nandana)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Verse 11 opened with light; this verse opens with its direct negation, no-light — and rajas’s symptoms sit literally between the two in verse 12. The three verses aren’t just a list, they’re built as a spectrum with sattva and tamas as the bracketing extremes and rajas as the restless middle, which mirrors the destinies verse 18 will later assign each: up, middle, down.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're trying to read your own state, think of it as a spectrum rather than three separate boxes — clarity at one end, stagnation at the other, restlessness in between — and locate yourself on that line rather than forcing a single label onto it.
Professional
- When assessing team health, resist a binary healthy/unhealthy label and instead place the team on a spectrum from clear-and-engaged to restless-and-scattered to stagnant-and-checked-out — knowing where on that line you sit tells you what kind of intervention actually applies.
Family & Social
- When gauging how a relationship is doing, think in terms of a spectrum — clear and connected, restlessly busy but distant, or quietly stagnant — rather than a single verdict of good or bad; each point on that line calls for a different response.
Ask yourself
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