Sanskrit
ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते । सङ्गात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥
dhyāyato viṣayān puṃsaḥ saṅgas teṣūpajāyate saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho'bhijāyate
Translation
Man, musing on the objects of sense, conceiveth an attachment to these; from attachment ariseth desire; from desire anger cometh forth;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The negative counterpart to the whole portrait so far, and one of the Gita’s most quoted passages: a precise causal chain showing how ordinary dwelling on sense-objects escalates step by step — musing to attachment, attachment to desire, desire to anger. Verse 63 continues the same chain to its end point. The first link is the surprising one: not sense-contact (unavoidable) but dhyāna, dwelling — letting the mind circle an object. That is the last point at which the chain is cheap to break, which is the whole reason BG 2.64 locates the discipline right there, at attraction and repulsion.
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Word by word
- dhyāyato viṣayān puṃsaḥध्यायतो विषयान् पुंसः
- in a person dwelling on sense-objects (dhyāyataḥ + viṣayān + puṃsaḥ)
- saṅgas teṣūpajāyateसङ्गस् तेषूपजायते
- attachment to them arises (saṅgaḥ + teṣu + upajāyate)
- saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥसङ्गात् सञ्जायते कामः
- from attachment desire is born (saṅgāt + sañjāyate + kāmaḥ)
- kāmātकामात्
- from desire
- krodho'bhijāyateक्रोधोऽभिजायते
- anger arises (krodhaḥ + abhijāyate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The chain that follows in verse 63 makes this verse’s real target legible in hindsight: not the initial “musing on sense-objects,” which the verse treats as unremarkable, but the second step, attachment, where the chain actually gets its first foothold. Contact alone isn’t named as the problem — lingering into attachment is.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Before reacting to whatever triggered your anger, ask what you were dwelling on beforehand — the attachment usually formed minutes or days earlier, not in the moment itself.
Professional
- A frustrated reaction at work is often a frustrated attachment to a specific outcome. Noticing the attachment — to being right, to a deadline, to credit — earlier gives you a cheaper point to intervene than after anger has already shown up in a meeting.
Family & Social
- Recurring arguments with the same person are often the same chain repeating: the same desire, unmet, escalating to the same anger. Naming the underlying desire out loud can break the pattern faster than addressing the argument's surface topic.
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