Word meanings
- tatra
- amongst these
- sattvam
- mode of goodness
- nirmalatvāt
- being purest
- prakāśakam
- illuminating
- anāmayam
- healthy and full of well-being
- sukha
- happiness
- saṅgena
- attachment
- badhnāti
- binds
- jñāna
- knowledge
- saṅgena
- attachment
- ca
- also
- anagha
- Arjun, the sinless one
Translations
Of these, sattva, which is luminous and healthy due to its stainlessness, binds one by attachment to happiness and knowledge, O sinless one.
O Sinless One! Of these, purity, being luminous, strong, and invulnerable, binds one with its yearning for happiness and illumination.
Among them, sattva, being pure and nirmala (pure-transparent, i.e., capable of resisting any form of ignorance, and hence an illuminator, i.e. a revealer of Consciousness), is harmless. O sinless one, it binds through attachment to happiness and attachment to knowledge.
हे पापरहित अर्जुन ! उन गुणोंमें सत्त्वगुण निर्मल (स्वच्छ) होनेके कारण प्रकाशक और निर्विकार है। वह सुख और ज्ञानकी आसक्तिसे (देहीको) बाँधता है।Commentary
Sattva is stainless like the crystal. It lays for one the trap of happiness and knowledge. It is a golden fetter. A Sattvic man compares himself with others and rejoices in his excellence. He is puffed up with his knowledge. His heart is filled with pride when he thinks that he, has more comforts or more pleasant experiences. He thinks? I am happy I am wise, and so he is bound as it were. These ideas really belong to the field but they are transferred through superimposition to the Self on account of the force of Sattva-Guna.
Rajas and Tamas are pitfalls on the path of knowledge. This attachment to happiness is an illusion. This is ignorance. An attribute of the object cannot belong to the subject. All the alities from desire to firmness (Cf.XIII.6) belong to the field. From ignorance, nondiscrimination is born and so the individual self is not able to discriminate between the permanent and the impermanent, the subject and the object. Knowledge is an attribute of the Antahkarana (inner instrument, viz., mind, intellect, the unconscious and the ego) but not of the Self.
It if were an attribute of the Self, it could not produce attachment and bondage. Sattva binds the soul to knowledge through attachment.