Sanskrit
प्रवृत्तिं च निवृत्तिं च कार्याकार्ये भयाभये । बन्धं मोक्षं च या वेत्ति बुद्धिः सा पार्थ सात्त्विकी ॥ ३० ॥
pravṛttiṃ ca nivṛttiṃ ca kāryākārye bhayābhaye bandhaṃ mokṣaṃ ca yā vetti buddhiḥ sā pārtha sāttvikī
Translation
That which knoweth energy and abstinence, what ought to be done and what ought not to be done, fear and fearlessness, bondage and liberation, that Reason is pure, O Partha.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Sattvic buddhi correctly discriminates energy from abstinence, right action from wrong, fear from fearlessness, and bondage from liberation. Notice this is framed entirely as a discriminating faculty — sattvic intellect isn’t defined by any particular belief or virtue but by its capacity to tell genuinely different things apart, exactly what the next two verses will show going wrong. Sāttvic buddhi knows pravṛtti/nivṛtti — when to act, when to withhold — the very competence BG 16.7 said the demonic lack. It sees bandha and mokṣa correctly.
Study deeper
Word by word
- pravṛttiṃ ca nivṛttiṃ caप्रवृत्तिं च निवृत्तिं च
- action and its restraint (pravṛttim + ca + nivṛttim + ca)
- kāryākārye bhayābhayeकार्याकार्ये भयाभये
- what to do and not do, fear and fearlessness (kārya-akārye + bhaya-abhaye)
- bandhaṃ mokṣaṃ ca yā vettiबन्धं मोक्षं च या वेत्ति
- bondage and liberation — the intellect that knows [these] (bandham + mokṣam + ca + yā + vetti)
- buddhiḥ sā pārtha sāttvikīबुद्धिः सा पार्थ सात्त्विकी
- that intellect, O Pārtha, is sāttvic (buddhiḥ + sā + pārtha + sāttvikī)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The four pairs sattvic buddhi is said to discriminate escalate in stakes as they go — from the practical, what to pursue and what to avoid, through the emotional, fear and fearlessness, to the largest possible frame, bondage and liberation. The verse isn’t listing four unrelated skills; it’s describing one discriminating capacity operating at every scale, from the day’s decision to the ultimate one.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- Test your own judgment against small everyday choices as well as your biggest life questions — a discrimination worth trusting should hold up consistently across scale, not just when the stakes are dramatic enough to focus your attention.
Professional
- A leader's judgment on a high-stakes strategic bet is only as trustworthy as the same judgment shows up in small daily calls — check for consistency across scale before extending confidence built on one big decision to everything else.
Family & Social
- Trust in someone's judgment within a relationship should be built from watching how they decide small daily things, not assumed wholesale from how well they once handled one big crisis.
Ask yourself
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