Sanskrit
सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसंभवाः । निबध्नन्ति महाबाहो देहे देहिनमव्ययम् ॥
sattvaṃ rajas tama iti guṇāḥ prakṛtisambhavāḥ nibadhnanti mahābāho dehe dehinam avyayam
Translation
Harmony, Motion, Inertia, such are the qualities, Matter-born; they bind fast in the body, O great-armed one, the indestructible dweller in the body.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chapter’s foundational claim, and worth being precise about since there’s no separate concept note for it: the three gunas are sattva (Besant renders it “Harmony” — purity, luminosity, lightness), rajas (“Motion” — passion, restless activity), and tamas (“Inertia” — darkness, heaviness, dullness). All three are said to be “born of prakriti,” i.e. products of nature/matter, not of the self. Yet they “bind fast” the dweller in the body (dehin) who is explicitly called avyaya, imperishable — the paradox the whole chapter works through: something that cannot actually be touched or destroyed can still, functionally, experience itself as bound, because its consciousness is conditioned by whichever guna currently dominates. Verses 6-8 define each in turn. The chapter’s thesis: the three guṇas — clarity, passion, inertia — bind the imperishable dweller to the body. Note the paradox: the dehin is avyaya, unchanging, yet somehow bound. The rest of the chapter is how that binding works and how it is undone.
Study deeper
Word by word
- sattvaṃ rajas tama itiसत्त्वं रजस् तम इति
- sattva, rajas, tamas — thus (sattvam + rajaḥ + tamaḥ + iti)
- guṇāḥ prakṛtisambhavāḥगुणाः प्रकृतिसंभवाः
- the guṇas born of nature (guṇāḥ + prakṛti-sambhavāḥ)
- nibadhnanti mahābāhoनिबध्नन्ति महाबाहो
- bind, O mighty-armed (nibadhnanti + mahā-bāho)
- dehe dehinam avyayamदेहे देहिनं अव्ययं
- in the body, the imperishable dweller (dehe + dehinam + avyayam)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Before verse 5 says the gunas bind, it says where they come from — prakriti, not the self. That ordering functions almost like an acquittal read before a charge: the self is cleared of authorship over sattva, rajas, and tamas in the same breath it’s told they will bind it anyway. Being exonerated as the source of a condition doesn’t excuse you from experiencing its effects — whose fault and who’s affected turn out to be two separate questions.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Site Commentary — Second Reading
All three gunas share one stated origin — “prakṛtisambhavāḥ,” born of nature — which means whatever quality currently has hold of you, restless agitation or heavy dullness included, isn’t drawn from some separate defective source running alongside the luminous one. It’s the same raw material in a different phase. That reframes the practical task less as expelling a foreign contaminant and more as shifting a mixture that was never, at the root, a different substance to begin with.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When a mood or compulsion doesn't originate in your deepest self, don't confuse that with being unaffected by it — knowing something isn't 'really you' doesn't exempt you from having to deal with how it currently constrains you.
Professional
- When a process failure clearly originates outside your team's design — a vendor default, inherited legacy config — don't stop at establishing you're not the source; you're still the one who has to manage its effect, so treat root-cause and remediation as separate jobs.
Family & Social
- When you recognize that a family member's difficult behavior comes from something outside their true character — stress, an old wound — hold both facts at once: they aren't its author, and you both still have to deal with what it does.
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