Chapter 18 · Verse 27·Spoken by Krishna
रागी कर्मफलप्रेप्सुर्लुब्धो हिंसात्मकोऽशुचिः।हर्षशोकान्वितः कर्ता राजसः परिकीर्तितः
rāgī karma-phala-prepsur lubdho hinsātmako ‘śhuchiḥ harṣha-śhokānvitaḥ kartā rājasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ
An agent who is attached, who craves the fruits of action, greedy, cruel by nature, impure, swept by joy and sorrow, is called an agent of passion.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
his verse paints the portrait of the rajasic doer, the agent whose acting is colored by the guna of rajas, the strand of nature that is restless passion and craving. Krishna gives a list of traits, and almost every commentator simply walks down the list and names each one. 'Ragi' means passionate or attached, full of fondness for the objects and persons he wants. 'Karma-phala-prepsu' means he craves the fruit of his action, set on the result. 'Lubdha' means greedy. 'Himsatmaka' means injurious by nature, one who harms others. 'Ashuchi' means impure, lacking purity. 'Harsha-shokanvita' means swept by joy and grief. Such a doer, the verse concludes, is declared rajasic. The whole verse is one composite description, and the commentators are unusually unanimous in reading it that way.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya
The commentators sharpen the trait of greed, 'lubdha', in a consistent and pointed way. It is not vague acquisitiveness. It has two faces. The greedy doer thirsts after what belongs to others, longing for another's wealth or possessions. At the same time he will not part with his own, unable to spend even on dharma, holding back his wealth even at a place of pilgrimage. Several voices specifically tie this to the cost of the action itself: he is unable to bear the expenditure that the action actually requires. So his greed is double, grasping at what is not his and clinging to what is, and it leaves him unwilling to fund even what he has undertaken to do.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar
Impurity, 'ashuchi', is read as a double lack, of both outer and inner purity. Outwardly he neglects the prescribed cleansings: bath, the ritual sipping of water, and the other scripturally stated purities the action calls for. Inwardly he is unclean as well. One commentator fills in what inner purity would have been, namely freedom from lust, anger, greed and pride, and a heart filled with compassion, forgiveness, dispassion and love. So the rajasic doer is unwashed in both senses, missing both the ritual cleanness his act demands and the cleanness of heart that would steady it.
Braided from 7 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas
The closing trait, being swept by joy and grief, is explained as the natural result of a stake in outcomes. Because he is invested in the fruit, he rejoices when he gains what he wished for and grieves when he gains the unwished for or loses the wished for. He is elated at the success of his action and dejected at its failure. His inner state is therefore not his own; it swings with every turn of result. One striking note develops this: the rajasic doer, grasping so hard at the harvest, often does not even get the kingdom or heaven he chases, and what he actually reaps is just this oscillation between elation and disappointment.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Vallabhācārya · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak
Several commentators add that the listed traits are not a random catalogue but flow from a single center, the engagement with the fruit. Because the doer is attached, he longs for the result; because he longs, he grasps greedily; because he grasps, he is willing to harm others to get it; because he is caught in the chase, he does not pause for purity; and because the chase has a stake, the result swings him from joy to grief. Pull the thread back to the center and the whole tangle loosens at once: as the longing for the fruit goes, the traits loosen together.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Śrī Ānandagiri · Vallabhācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
These commentators read the trait of injury, 'himsatmaka', in a precise and unexpected way. Injury here is not simply violence. It is the harming of others by hiding one's real intent. By not disclosing what he is up to, the doer cuts off or obstructs the activity of others to his own advantage. One of these voices draws a sharp distinction: the one who conceals his intent in this way is called injurious, while one who does it through outright deceit is properly called a 'cheat'. On this reading the rajasic doer's harm is the harm of concealment, of working against others under cover.
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This commentator gives the traits a distinctly social and martial cast. 'Passionate' is read as desirous of fame, hungry for renown rather than merely for objects. And the joy and grief at the end are illustrated by war: in action such as battle he is joined with elation and dejection at victory or defeat, success or failure. Greed too is read as the refusal to spend the very substance that the action requires. The picture is of an active man in the public arena, driven by reputation and shaken by the swings of conquest.
Rāmānujācārya
Bhakti
This commentary expands the bare list into vivid pictures. The rajasic doer is like a dung-hill where all the village dirt collects, the sink that stores the wash of the whole world's sins and greed. He hugs his gains more dearly than his own life and will not give up even a single small coin. He watches for chances to rob others while a heron-like stillness feigns absorbed meditation to catch its fish. He is a thorny berry tree that scratches whoever grapples with it. He is impure within and without like the datura fruit, intoxicating pulp inside and thorny rind outside. When he wins he grins and mocks the world; when he loses he curses everything he has done. The teaching is the same as others give, but it is dramatized so the type can be unmistakably recognized.
Sant Jñāneśvar
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators add a note on the inner mechanism and the deluded basis of the attachment. One stresses that the doer's attachment rests on an illusion, the false sense that worldly things belong to him, and that his greed is fed by the scriptural rumour that great fruits attend even small acts, so he is drawn in all directions; he is of a scattered nature. The other emphasizes that the inner state is restless, swung between elation and disappointment by every turn of result, and that the supposed harvest eludes the very hand that grasps at it, so the rajasic doer ends up not with the kingdom or heaven he sought but only with the swinging itself.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
A Seeker Asks
Where is the line between the ordinary ambition that any working person needs and the rajasic doership this verse warns against?
The commentators locate the line not in whether you act, or even act energetically, but in your relation to the fruit of the action. The rajasic doer is defined as 'karma-phala-prepsu', one who craves the result and is set on it. It is the craving and the personal stake, not the activity itself, that the verse marks.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Swami Ramsukhdas
The tell-tale sign the verse offers is the swing of joy and grief. A doer who is elated when the result comes and stricken when it does not has revealed that his inner state is held hostage by outcomes. That oscillation, more than the effort or the goal, is the diagnostic of rajasic acting.
Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śaṅkarācārya
Several commentators add that the other traits cluster around this same craving: greed for others' goods and clinging to one's own, willingness to harm to get ahead, and neglect of purity. So the line is crossed not by a single ambitious act but when the craving for the fruit begins to pull these other distortions in behind it. Watch the craving, and the whole pattern can be caught early.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri
Contemplation
If you find several of these traits in yourself, do not try to fight them one by one. They are not separate enemies. Notice that they all grow from a single root: your stake in the result. Because you are attached you long for the outcome; because you long you grasp; because you grasp you are tempted to push past others; because you are in the chase you skip what would steady you; and because everything rides on the result, you swing from elation to gloom. So pull the thread back to the center. As the longing for the fruit eases, all of these loosen at the same time. The work to be done is not at the surface, with the symptoms, but at the quiet center, with the craving for the fruit itself.
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