The darkest and heaviest of the gunas, tamas is connected to ignorance, laziness, and neglect. Those governed by tamas tend to reincarnate downward, into inferior bodies, and act destructively, forgetting the gods and religious obligations. (The adjective form of tamas is “tamasic.”)
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Tamas Term Timeline in The Bhagavad Gita
The timeline below shows where the term Tamas appears in The Bhagavad Gita. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Discourse 7
...desire to follow dharma. While Krishna is not in the gunas of sattva, rajas, and tamas, they are all in him, and they confuse those in the world who are not...
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Discourse 14
The three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas—inhere in matter and bind the imperishable self to the body. Sattva brings light, binding people...
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...lust emerge when rajas prevails, and darkness, sloth, and confusion come to the fore when tamas dominates a person. Sattva leads embodied beings to dissolution, but those dominated by rajas and...
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Discourse 16
...in demonic wombs. The most sinister vices are greed, anger, and desire. Those governed by tamas set themselves on a path to hell, and tamas must be cast off to ensure...
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Discourse 17
...they trust.” The sattvic sacrifice for the gods, the rajasic for the demons, and the tamasic to “the dead / and gangs of ghosts.” Those who undertake discipline outside the bounds...
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...and smooth; rajasic foods are spicy, salty, sour, and rough, leading to disease and pain; tamasic food, including leftovers and what is spoiled or tasteless, is unfit for sacrifice.
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...a material goal for their sacrifice at the same time as the sacrifice itself, and tamasic sacrifices ignore Vedic law and simply discard food.
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...desire for ends; rajasic when done for the sake of social status or respect; and tamasic when destructive or delusional.
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...are rajasic, and those given wrongly—disrespectfully, to the wrong person or in the wrong context—are tamasic.
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Discourse 18
...after one learns to stop clinging to action’s fruits. Renouncing such prescribed actions is actually tamasic; quitting actions because they are difficult or painful is rajasic; but undertaking prescribed action for...
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...as a whole; in rajasic action, one sees separate natures in different beings; and in tamasic action, one clings to action without motives, missing action’s “true aim.” Similarly, in sattvic action...
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...is not to be done and feared, rajasic action does not discern these distinctions, and tamasic action inverts them, leading people to perform the opposite of dharma. Steadiness in yoga, actions,...
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