Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 14, Verse 9
Verse 9
The Yoga of the Three Gunas
Sattva attaches one to happiness, rajas to action, O Bharata. But tamas, covering over knowledge, attaches one to negligence.
Context & Meaning
A concise summary of the three modes of bondage: sattva draws the soul toward sukha (happiness and wellbeing); rajas draws it toward karma (incessant activity); tamas covers over jñāna (knowledge itself) and draws the soul toward pramāda (heedlessness, negligence, oblivion). The most dangerous of the three is tamas, precisely because it obscures the very capacity for discrimination that would allow the soul to recognise its situation. One cannot easily escape a trap one cannot see.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainRamanujacharya
VishishtadvaitaJñānam āvṛtya — covering over knowledge. Tamas does not argue against wisdom; it simply prevents wisdom from arising. The tāmasic person is not convinced that the spiritual life is wrong — they simply never think about it. This covering of intelligence is more dangerous than active opposition to truth, because it forecloses the very possibility of inquiry.