Chapter 14 · Verse 12·Spoken by Arjuna
लोभः प्रवृत्तिरारम्भः कर्मणामशमः स्पृहा।रजस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे भरतर्षभ
lobhaḥ pravṛittir ārambhaḥ karmaṇām aśhamaḥ spṛihā rajasy etāni jāyante vivṛiddhe bharatarṣhabha
Greed, activity, the undertaking of actions, restlessness, and craving: these arise when passion grows strong, Arjuna.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
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Convergence
his verse lists the outward signs by which you can recognize that rajas, the quality of passion and restless activity, has grown strong in you. Krishna names five marks: lobha (greed), pravritti (activity or engagement), arambha (the undertaking of works), ashama (unrest, the failure to settle down), and spriha (longing or craving). The teaching is diagnostic: just as the previous verse named the marks of sattva, here Krishna gives the tell-tale traits so a person can read which quality is dominant in them at a given time. When these traits appear together, you should know that rajas is ascendant.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas
Greed (lobha) is not simple wanting but a craving that keeps growing even after it is fed. Several commentators stress this precisely: even when wealth is already arriving in abundance, the longing for more does not stop; the gaining of the object does not turn the desire back but only feeds it. Some sharpen lobha into the wish to seize what belongs to others, the hankering after another's wealth, while others describe it as the refusal to part with one's own goods, the inability to give away or let go. Either way the common core is a relationship to possessions that can never be satisfied.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pravritti (activity) and arambha (undertaking) together describe a self that cannot stop initiating and striving. Pravritti is the state of being perpetually in motion, given over to manifold effort, throwing oneself into whatever action is at hand; some commentators note it is movement that bestirs itself even without aiming at any real purpose. Arambha is more specific: the launching of new works, characteristically the building of houses and similar large undertakings, often pursued for worldly enjoyment, for status, or to be called wealthy or great. The two are close but distinct, and the picture they paint is of a person continually setting things in motion.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
Ashama (unrest) and spriha (longing) round out the picture as the inner restlessness and outward craving that drive all the rest. Ashama is the failure to come to rest, often described as the unceasing flow of resolve, the mind running 'having done this, I shall now do that', with no end to the chain of plans; some add that it is the agitation of the inner instrument, the antahkarana, especially when wished-for things do not arrive. Spriha is the thirst for sense-objects in general, the longing that fastens onto whatever high or low thing has just come into sight, the wish to grasp here and there. Together these five marks form one coherent portrait: rajas turns a person outward and keeps them in perpetual unsettled motion.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Modern
This reading insists that the rajasic taint lies in the motive, not in the activity itself, and carefully separates each mark from its innocent look-alike. The natural increase of things is not greed: if a farmer's crop or a trader's profit grows by ordinary effort, that growth is no fault; greed is wanting to increase what one already has enough of. Activity done free of attraction and aversion is no fault, for such activity is even seen in the liberated great soul; rajasic activity is the kind driven by the urge for pleasure, comfort, and wealth. Likewise the felt need of hunger, thirst, or cold is not the fault; the fault is the demand that what is needed must come, since no object obeys our wish. The practical upshot is that the seeker should reflect, 'my living is going on, what more do I need?', and by this discernment grow indifferent to these restless tendencies.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Modern
This reading adds a warning that rajasic restlessness is easily mistaken for spiritual work. People may claim they are doing selfless service to the world, but on examining their motives a taint of personal desire is usually found in some form. Do not mistake rajasic movement, the inability to sit still and the compulsion to be always busy, for karma yoga or divine activity. By a striking inversion, the sage who sits still with a calmed mind, doing nothing physically, is the most active person in the world, while the one who runs about endlessly accomplishes nothing; sattva is intense activity, like a wheel spinning so fast it appears at rest.
Swami Sivananda
Śuddhādvaita
This reading frames the marks against a devotional backdrop: rajasic greed shows itself even where one has been given, by one's own will, materials fit for serving the Lord, yet through worldly attachment the mind runs here and there longing for more materials and pours effort into worldly works done for one's own enjoyment. The address to Arjuna as 'bull of the Bharatas' is read as a call to freedom from these very defects, by being without longing for kingdom and the like.
Śrī Puruṣottama
Advaita Vedānta
This reading too hears the address 'Bharatarshabha', bull of the Bharatas, as more than a polite epithet: it hints that one of Arjuna's standing should not take on these marks at all.
Dhanapati Sūri
A Seeker Asks
If activity, ambition, and even strong desire are the natural fuel of getting anything done in the world, how do I tell ordinary productive striving apart from the rajasic restlessness this verse warns against?
The dividing line is the motive, not the action. Activity carried out free of attraction and aversion is no fault at all; that same engaged action is even found in the liberated great soul. What makes activity rajasic is its being driven by the urge for pleasure, comfort, status, or wealth. So the test is not whether you are busy but whether craving is steering the busyness.
Swami Ramsukhdas
A clear marker is whether the wanting can ever be satisfied. The greed this verse names is the craving that keeps growing even as it is fed, so that getting the object does not end the desire but only inflames it. Natural increase from ordinary effort, a farmer's crop or a trader's honest profit, is not the fault; the fault is the hunger for more on top of enough that never comes to rest.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas
Beware too of the disguise this can wear. Restless rajasic movement, the inability to sit still and the compulsion to always be doing, is easily mistaken for selfless service or divine activity; examine the motive and a thread of personal desire is usually there. By contrast a calmed and settled person can be deeply effective, so do not measure yourself by sheer motion. The remedy is the same quiet discernment: my living is going on, what more do I need; with that, the agitation loosens and you grow steady toward these tendencies.
Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
The practice this verse invites is not to stop working but to watch the motive behind the working. When you feel greed, activity, the itch to launch something new, agitation, or craving rising in you, that is the moment to notice rajas is on the rise. Then turn to one quiet question: my living is already going on, what more do I really need? The point is not that effort is wrong; ordinary growth from honest work is no fault, and a felt need like hunger or cold is no fault either. The fault is the inner demand that more must come, that what you want must arrive, when in truth no outcome obeys your wish. Letting go of that demand is what settles the agitation, because agitation only arises when the wished-for thing fails to appear. By this discernment the restless tendencies grow quiet and you become calmly indifferent toward them.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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