Sanskrit
रजो रागात्मकं विद्धि तृष्णासङ्गसमुद्भवम् । तन्निबध्नाति कौन्तेय कर्मसङ्गेन देहिनम् ॥
rajo rāgātmakaṃ viddhi tṛṣṇāsaṅgasamudbhavam tan nibadhnāti kaunteya karmasaṅgena dehinam
Translation
Motion, the passion nature, know thou, is the source of attachment and thirst for life, O Kaunteya, that bindeth the dweller in the body by the attachment to action.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Rajas defined: passion-natured, the source of craving (trishna) and attachment, binding through compulsive attachment to action. This is essentially the engine behind the causal chain chapter 2 laid out at 2.62-63 — dwelling on objects to attachment to desire to anger to ruin — named here as a guna rather than traced step by step. Where sattva’s leash was happiness and knowledge, rajas’s is restless doing itself, action pursued not for its own sake but because craving keeps generating more of it. Rajas is rāga-ātmaka — made of wanting — and tṛṣṇā-saṅga-samudbhava, sprung from thirst and clinging. It binds by karma-saṅga, attachment to activity itself: the restless need to be doing something, which BG 14.12 lists as its symptom set. Its root is kāma.
Study deeper
Word by word
- rajo rāgātmakaṃ viddhiरजो रागात्मकं विद्धि
- know rajas as the nature of passion (rajaḥ + rāga-ātmakam + viddhi)
- tṛṣṇāsaṅgasamudbhavamतृष्णासङ्गसमुद्भवं
- born of craving and attachment (tṛṣṇā-saṅga-samudbhavam)
- tan nibadhnāti kaunteyaतन् निबध्नाति कौन्तेय
- it binds, O son of Kuntī (tat + nibadhnāti + kaunteya)
- karmasaṅgena dehinamकर्मसङ्गेन देहिनं
- by attachment to action, the embodied one (karma-saṅgena + dehinam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Notice what rajas is said to attach to: not the fruit of action, which would at least be a recognizable, containable target, but action itself — the compulsion to keep doing. That’s a subtler trap than craving a specific result, because it never runs out of a new task to reach for; there’s always another undertaking available to keep the craving fed.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If you notice you can't sit still without starting something new, question whether you're actually pursuing a goal or simply feeding a craving for activity itself — restlessness disguised as productivity never runs out of a next task to reach for.
Professional
- Watch for people who stay perpetually busy starting new initiatives without finishing them — that pattern often isn't ambition, it's attachment to the act of starting, which supplies its own reward independent of any actual outcome achieved.
Family & Social
- If you find yourself always doing something for the family and rarely sitting still with them, ask whether the constant doing has become its own compulsion — busyness can substitute for presence rather than actually express the care it's meant to.
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