Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14 in English IAST: Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga

ಲಿಪಿ · लिपिः · Script: ಕನ್ನಡ · संस्कृतम् · English IAST

Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 14: Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga

Twenty-seven verses. The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, how they bind, the signs seen when each increases, and the marks of one who has gone beyond them and the way to go beyond are here.
Tap any verse card to open its page with the word-by-word meaning. Pages are ready for every verse of this chapter.

All eighteen chapters are listed here: Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā.

oṃ tatsaditi śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṃ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṃvāde guṇatrayavibhāgayogo nāma caturdaśo’dhyāyaḥ ||

About Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga

The previous chapter had stopped at ‘attachment to the gunas is the cause of births’ (13.21). This chapter unfolds those gunas: sattva binds through attachment to happiness and knowledge, rajas through attachment to action, tamas through heedlessness, sloth and sleep. The subtlety of the chapter is that even sattva, the good guna, binds.

In the last part Arjuna asks three questions: what are the marks of one who has gone beyond the gunas, what is his conduct, and how does he go beyond them. Krishna’s answer recalls the marks of the devotee in the twelfth chapter, and ends by naming the way: unswerving devotion.

How the chapter moves

Verses 1 and 2: I shall again declare the best of all knowledge, and those who take refuge in it are free of creation and dissolution.
Verses 3 and 4: The great Brahman is my womb, I am the seed-giving father.
Verses 5 to 10: The three gunas, how they bind, and how they rise and fall against each other.
Verses 11 to 13: The signs seen when each guna increases.
Verses 14 to 18: The guna at the time of death and its fruit, the fruits of actions, and the directions up, middle and down.
Verses 19 and 20: One who sees the gunas as the doers and goes beyond them attains immortality.
Verses 21 to 25: Arjuna’s question and the marks of one beyond the gunas.
Verses 26 and 27: The way beyond is unswerving devotion, and I am the ground of Brahman, of dharma and of bliss.

Going beyond the gunas: three views

For Shankara going beyond the gunas is a state of knowledge possible while still living, and ‘my state’ and ‘brahmabhuya’ mean becoming Brahman itself. For Ramanuja ‘sadharmya’ is likeness with the Lord, not identity, and old impressions cannot be overcome by reflective discernment alone: refuge in the Lord is needed. For Madhva the ‘great Brahman’ is prakriti in the forms of Shri, Bhu and Durga, ‘brahmabhuya’ is becoming dear to the Lord, and even the one beyond the gunas is ‘for the most part’ free of aversion and desire. Sridhara Swami unfolds the chapter in the order of Arjuna’s three questions.

These pages do not decide between the readings. Wherever the acharyas part, each position is recorded in its own terms.

About these pages

These pages hope that the three gunas will be read not as labels to stick on others but as a mirror for observing ourselves. On the pages for 14.8 and 14.13 we have made clear that the signs of tamas can sometimes be symptoms of depression or of a bodily illness. The page for 14.15 carries a caution that the verse must not be used as a judgement on children born with disability.

In this chapter the ‘For life today’ box links the gunas to everyday experience: sleep, food, tiredness, the habit of putting things off, gambling addiction, palliative care, and the support needed to change habits. The health notes are for general understanding only, and for personal problems a doctor’s advice is what counts.

Sources: several.