Sanskrit
कट्वम्ललवणात्युष्णतीक्ष्णरूक्षविदाहिनः । आहारा राजसस्येष्टा दुःखशोकामयप्रदाः ॥
kaṭvamlalavaṇātyuṣṇatīkṣṇarūkṣavidāhinaḥ āhārā rājasasyeṣṭā duḥkhaśokāmayapradāḥ
Translation
The passionate desire foods that are bitter, sour, saline, over-hot, pungent, dry and burning and which produce pain, grief and sickness.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Rajasic food is defined entirely by intensity of sensation — bitter, sour, salty, scorching, pungent — which lines up with rajas’s general character established in Chapter 14 as restless, stimulating, and agitating rather than calming. The Gita is explicit that this comes at a cost (pain, grief, sickness), which is worth reading less as literal nutritional science and more as the chapter’s recurring claim that what excites in the moment and what actually sustains are frequently different things. Rājasic food is intense — the extremes of every taste — and its effect is duḥkha-śoka-āmaya, pain, grief, and sickness. The rājasic palate craves stimulation; the aftermath is the tell.
Study deeper
Word by word
- kaṭvamlalavaṇātyuṣṇatīkṣṇarūkṣavidāhinaḥकट्वंललवणात्युष्णतीक्ष्णरूक्षविदाहिनः
- bitter, sour, salty, very hot, pungent, harsh, burning (kaṭu-amla-lavaṇa-ati-uṣṇa-tīkṣṇa-rūkṣa-vidāhinaḥ)
- āhārā rājasasyeṣṭāआहारा राजसस्येष्टा
- foods desired by the rājasic (āhārāḥ + rājasasya + iṣṭāḥ)
- duḥkhaśokāmayapradāḥदुःखशोकामयप्रदाः
- giving pain, grief, and disease (duḥkha-śoka-āmaya-pradāḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Line this verse up against verse 8 and it’s an almost exact photographic negative: where sattvic food increases vitality, joy, and steadiness, rajasic food produces pain, grief, and sickness — not a different axis of judgment, the same one, run in reverse. The two verses were clearly composed as a matched pair, not independent descriptions.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're tempted by something intensely stimulating, check whether it's actually the mirror-image of something calmer you already know is good for you — the same axis, opposite direction — rather than a genuinely new option worth weighing on its own terms.
Professional
- When a flashy, high-intensity approach is pitched against a steadier alternative, check whether the pitch's promised upside is really just the inverse of the steadier option's known downside — sometimes the choice is one axis, not two independent ones.
Family & Social
- When a family disagreement seems to have two totally separate options on the table, check whether they're actually opposite ends of the same underlying tradeoff — naming the single shared axis can turn an argument into a conversation about where on it you both want to land.
Ask yourself
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