Chapter 14 · Verse 13

Krishna speaks

अप्रकाशोऽप्रवृत्तिश्च प्रमादो मोह एव च⁠। तमस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे कुरुनन्दन⁠॥

aprakāśo'pravṛttiśca pramādo moha eva ca | tamasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe kurunandana ||

Word by Word

11 words

अप्रकाशः

a not pra forth kāś to shine, to give light

no light, dimness, a dull unlit feeling

अप्रवृत्तिः

a not pra forth vṛt to turn, to set going

no activity, not getting started, sluggishness

च

ca and

and

प्रमादः

pra forth, fully mad to be careless, to be heedless

carelessness, heedlessness, forgetting what matters

मोहः

muh to be confused, to be deluded

confusion, muddled thinking, delusion

एव

eva indeed, surely

indeed, surely

तमसि

tam to be dark, to grow dim

in tamas, in the heavy, dark quality

एतानि

etad this, these

these things

जायन्ते

jan to be born, to arise

are born, arise, spring up

विवृद्धे

vi intensely, greatly vṛdh to grow, to increase

when it has grown strong, when it has increased

कुरुनन्दन

kuru the Kuru family nand to delight, to gladden

O joy of the Kurus (Krishna's name for Arjuna)

Krishna names the signs of the heavy, dark quality called tamas. When tamas grows strong inside a person, four things appear together: a dimness, as if no light is shining; a stuckness, where nothing gets started; carelessness, forgetting the things that matter; and a muddled confusion that clouds the mind. "When you feel dull, lazy, forgetful, and foggy all at once," he tells Arjuna, "know that tamas has grown big inside you."

The Lamp That Would Not Light

From the Bhagavata-style telling of the gunas

In the old stories there once lived a king named Bahula, in a palace where a great lamp burned in the council hall, a wide brass lamp with a hundred wicks that lit the whole room gold.

For years King Bahula ruled well. But slowly a heaviness crept over him. He began to sleep late, then later, then half the day. When ministers brought him scrolls to read, his eyes slid off the words; the letters seemed dim, as though a grey cloth lay over them. "Later," he would mumble. "Tomorrow." But tomorrow he did nothing either.

The roads cracked and no one was sent to mend them. The granary doors hung open and no one was told to shut them. When a servant asked, "Maharaja, what shall we do?" the king only blinked, confused, as if he had forgotten there was a kingdom at all.

One evening an old wandering teacher came to the hall and found the great hundred-wick lamp gone dark. Dust had clogged the wicks. No one had thought to clean or light it.

"Maharaja," said the teacher gently, "look at your lamp. It is not broken. The oil is still in it, the wicks are still there. But dust has covered it, and no hand has lit it, and so the whole hall sits in shadow."

The king stared at the cold lamp.

"That is tamas," the teacher said. "The heavy quality. It does not break you — it covers you. The light is still inside, but it stops shining. You stop starting things. You forget what is dear to you. Your thoughts go foggy, like a room with no lamp lit. Dimness, stuckness, carelessness, confusion — these four come knocking together."

King Bahula rose slowly, took a cloth, and wiped the dust from one single wick. He set a flame to it. A small steady light bloomed in the dark hall.

"One wick," murmured the teacher, smiling. "That is how you begin to come back. You do not fight the dark. You light one small lamp, and then the next."

चिन्तनम् Think about it

Sometimes everything feels dim and heavy, and you can't be bothered to start anything or even remember what you wanted to do. Krishna calls that tamas. What is one tiny thing — one 'wick' — you could light to start coming out of a foggy, heavy mood?