Chapter 14 · Verse 10·Spoken by Arjuna
रजस्तमश्चाभिभूय सत्त्वं भवति भारत।रजः सत्त्वं तमश्चैव तमः सत्त्वं रजस्तथा
rajas tamaśh chābhibhūya sattvaṁ bhavati bhārata rajaḥ sattvaṁ tamaśh chaiva tamaḥ sattvaṁ rajas tathā
Goodness rises by overpowering passion and ignorance, Arjuna. Passion rises by overpowering goodness and ignorance. And ignorance rises by overpowering goodness and passion.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
he verse describes how the three gunas, the three basic strands or qualities that nature is woven from, take their turns. Sattva is the quality of clarity, knowledge, and happiness; rajas is the quality of activity, craving, and restlessness; tamas is the quality of darkness, inertia, and the veiling of knowledge. The verse says that sattva comes to be by overpowering rajas and tamas; rajas comes to be by overpowering sattva and tamas; and tamas comes to be by overpowering sattva and rajas. So each guna rises into dominance only by pressing the other two down.
Braided from 13 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
The gunas do not all reign at once; they alternate, each taking the field in its turn. Several commentators frame the verse as the answer to a precise question: do the gunas grow side by side, all at the same time, or do they take turns by a kind of rotation? The answer given is that they rise in sequence. At any one moment only one guna is uppermost, while the other two are suppressed; then the balance shifts and a different guna rises. So a person's inner condition is not a fixed blend but a fluctuating dominance, with one quality on top at a given time.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
When a guna becomes dominant, it sets going its own characteristic effect. Sattva, once it has risen, produces knowledge and happiness. Rajas, once it has risen, produces action and craving. Tamas, once it has risen, produces the veiling of knowledge, heedlessness, indolence, and sleep. This is why the verse matters practically: whichever guna is currently uppermost is the one whose marks a person displays, so the rise of a guna is known by recognizing its effect.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas
Several commentators ask why one guna should suddenly surge ahead when the three are otherwise balanced, and they answer that it happens through an unseen cause. The trigger is the ripening of a person's past karma of the corresponding kind, reinforced for some commentators by the kind of food that nourishes the body. This unseen force, the adrsta or destiny carried over from past action, is what tips the balance so that one guna overpowers the other two at a given moment.
Braided from 6 commentators
Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrī Puruṣottama
Divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita
The gunas belong to nature, yet they are always attendant on the self when the self is conjoined with nature. Their mutual rising and overpowering is driven by two named causes: the sway of earlier karma, and the unevenness of the food that nourishes the body. The dominant guna at any moment can be known only by apprehending its effect, so we read the inner state from its visible marks.
Rāmānujācārya
Śuddhādvaita
The capacity of one guna to push the others aside is not something the gunas hold on their own; the Lord himself has given them that power. The address Bharata is read as a pointer to this: just as by the Lord's will a devotee conquers every rival, so here one guna conquers the other two only because the Lord has granted it that capacity. The word 'eva' (just so) is read to mean that even though tamas has the greater power to bewilder, the deed still proceeds in this ordered way, by the Lord's arrangement.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Advaita Vedānta
The address Bharata is read as a hidden instruction, not a mere name. 'Bharata' is taken to hint at being 'rata', devoted or absorbed, in Brahma-vidya, the knowledge of Brahman. The lesson drawn is that the seeker should actively increase sattva and subdue rajas and tamas, since clarity is the quality that serves liberating knowledge.
Dhanapati Sūri
Modern
This verse is read as the capstone of a deliberate teaching sequence running from verse 6 to verse 10, set out in reverse order for a pedagogical reason. First the Gita gave the nature of each guna and how it binds (verses 6 to 8), then how a guna conquers (verse 9), and finally, here, how it rises by pressing the other two down. The natural chain of questions, what the gunas are, how they bind, what they do before binding, and how they conquer, is answered step by step, so the whole series actually runs in its own proper order.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A Seeker Asks
If which guna rules me at any moment is decided by my past karma and even my food, do I have any real power to choose clarity over restlessness or dullness?
It is true that the commentators trace the surge of a guna to an unseen cause, the ripening of past karma of the matching kind, reinforced for some by the kind of food that nourishes the body. So at a given moment the rotation is not arbitrary; it has real causes behind it.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya
But the very structure of the verse leaves room for change, because no guna is permanent. Each one rises only by pressing the other two down, and then yields its place as the balance shifts. Nothing is locked in; the field is always changing hands.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Ānandagiri · Śrīla Baladeva
And the same causes you can influence are exactly where your leverage lies. Food is named as one input you control, and the address Bharata is read as a direct instruction to be absorbed in the knowledge of Brahman, deliberately increasing sattva and subduing rajas and tamas. One commentator describes this concretely as setting up cleanness, clarity, and dispassion in the inner instrument in place of greed, restlessness, and dullness, which is precisely the act of choosing clarity.
Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Watch which quality is actually setting up shop in your inner instrument right now. When rajas rises it installs greed, restless activity, the launching of new undertakings, anxiety, and longing for worldly enjoyment. When tamas rises it installs heedlessness, laziness, needless sleep, and confusion. When sattva rises it installs cleanness, clarity, dispassion, and a restful turning inward. The practical point is that these are not fixed: by pressing down the tendencies of two gunas, the third rises in their place. So you cultivate sattva not by force but by quietly setting up its qualities, simplicity, purity, contentment, and stillness, in the place where rajas and tamas used to sit, and letting clarity take the field.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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