निबध्नन्ति महाबाहो देहे देहिनमव्ययम् ॥ ५ ॥
sattvaṃ rajastama iti guṇāḥ prakṛtisambhavāḥ .
nibadhnanti mahābāho dehe dehinamavyayam .. 5 ..
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Sattva (goodness), Rajas (vigour, activity, passion) and Tamas (darkness)—thus are the gunas named.—‘Guṇa’ is a technical term. It does not mean a property, attribute or quality, such as colour, as opposed to the substance in which it is said to inhere.* No separate existence of a guna and a gunin—of an attribute and a substance—is meant here. Accordingly, the gunas here meant are so called because, like the attributes of substances, they are ever dependent on another, namely, the Kṣetrajña, as they are only forms of avidya or nescience; and they bind fast as it were the Kṣetrajña. They are said to bind Kṣetrajña because they come into being with Kṣetrajña as the basis of their existence. Born of the Lord’s Māyā, they bind fast as it were in the body the embodied* one, the indestructible Self.† That the Self is indestructible has been shown in xiii. 31. Mighty-armed : with powerful arms reaching down to the knees.
The Gunas are the primary constituents of the Prakriti and are the bases of all substances; they cannot therefore be said to be qualities inhering in these substances,— A.
Him who identifies himself with the body.—A.
They make it appear that the Self undergoes all the changes that take place in then.—A.
(Objection):—It has been said that the embodied one is not tainted (xiii. 31). How then, on the contrary, is it said here that the gunas bind him?
(Answer) :—We have met this objection by adding ‘as it were,’ ‘they bind him as it were.’
The nature and functions of the gunas.
Of these three gunas, Sattva is thus defined :