Sanskrit
अयुक्तः प्राकृतः स्तब्धः शठो नैष्कृतिकोऽलसः । विषादी दीर्घसूत्री च कर्ता तामस उच्यते ॥ २८ ॥
ayuktaḥ prākṛtaḥ stabdhaḥ śaṭho naiṣkṛtiko'lasaḥ viṣādī dīrghasūtrī ca kartā tāmasa ucyate
Translation
Discordant, vulgar, stubborn, cheating, malicious, indolent, despairful, procrastinating, that actor is called dark.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The tamasic actor is undisciplined, vulgar, obstinate, deceitful, malicious, lazy, prone to despair, and chronically procrastinating — the longest and most granular vice-list in the passage, which suggests tamas was regarded as needing the most explicit naming, perhaps because its symptoms are more easily mistaken for ordinary personal failing than for a spiritual category. Tāmasic agent: a nine-word portrait of the collapsed will — stabdha (unbending), śaṭha (crooked), alasa (idle), viṣādī (despondent — Arjuna’s own chapter-1 word), dīrgha-sūtrī (dragging every task out). The guṇa of inertia.
Study deeper
Word by word
- ayuktaḥ prākṛtaḥ stabdhaḥअयुक्तः प्राकृतः स्तब्धः
- undisciplined, vulgar, obstinate (ayuktaḥ + prākṛtaḥ + stabdhaḥ)
- śaṭho naiṣkṛtiko'lasaḥशठो नैष्कृतिकोऽलसः
- deceitful, malicious, lazy (śaṭhaḥ + naiṣkṛtikaḥ + alasaḥ)
- viṣādī dīrghasūtrī caविषादी दीर्घसूत्री च
- despondent, and a procrastinator (viṣādī + dīrgha-sūtrī + ca)
- kartā tāmasa ucyateकर्ता तामस उच्यते
- such an agent is called tāmasic (kartā + tāmasaḥ + ucyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Where the rajasic list in the previous verse closes on a symptom of movement, joy tipping into sorrow and back, this one closes on a symptom of standstill: chronic procrastination, dirgha-sutri, literally long-threaded. The two catalogues aren’t just longer or shorter versions of the same failure; they diagnose opposite malfunctions, one an actor who moves too reactively, the other one who barely moves at all.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If you're stuck between two failure modes in yourself, reactive swinging with every outcome, or chronic delay that never quite starts, name which one you're actually looking at; the fix for volatility and the fix for inertia are not the same fix.
Professional
- A project that's perpetually almost starting has a different root cause than one that's thrashing between pivots — diagnose stall versus churn before choosing whether the intervention is a push to begin or a pause to steady.
Family & Social
- A family member who never seems to move on a decision isn't showing the same problem as one who reacts to every development — treat the standstill and the volatility as different conditions needing different responses.
Ask yourself
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