Three Gunas In Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important philosophical and religious classics in the world. It systematically synthesizes both rational analysis and religious inspiration in answering the fundamental questions of existence. The major ideas woven together in the Gita has their roots in ancient Indian texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Samkhya and Yoga systems. A number of chapters in the Gita are soaked in the concept of the three gunas of the Samkhya Philosophy. These three gunas are ‘satwa’, ‘rajas’ and ‘tamas’. All these three gunas are said to be always present in everyone, but in different proportion which decides and defines the predominant temperament of any being in nature(‘prakriti’). Amitav Ghosh’s debut novel The

He insists Alu, “The future is what is important. The past doesn’t matter. One can do anything with the future. One can change the world” (The Circle of Reason 30). Balaram derives this lesson from the biography of Pasteur. Balaram’s own version of scientific reason coupled with practical passion leads him to realize that Alu’s organs “correspond exactly to his calculations of the proportions ideal for a weaver”( The Circle of Reason 59). Balaram even interprets the ‘loom’ as the ultimate symbol of history and hope, of unity and understanding. In shloka 7 of the 7th chapter of Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna urges Arjuna to realize that the entire universe is contained in Him just as threads are woven into one whole. The realization and visualization of the one and only ‘Brahma’ in everything and everywhere is, as Bhagavad Gita tells us, the step toward attaining ‘moksha’ or complete spiritual liberation.

During war, the insanitary conditions of the habitation of the refugees prompts Balaram to undertake Carbolic campaign; and when his mission is on the verge of abrupt extinction due to the lack of ‘filthy money’(The Circle of Reason 89), Alu’s weaving provided him the necessary means to carry it on. In shloka 19, of the 3rd chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna directs to perform one’s duties and works without attachment

What Anshuman A Mondal reads as reason being bound with desire in the novel can also be read as satwa being entwined with rajas in human life. Even Assistant Superintendent of Police Jyoti Das who shows a remarkably grand philosophical objectivity in his attitude to and association with the world and the life, ultimately succumbs to rajas when ‘terrified of the future, without a past, aware only of the prickings of his painfully virginal flesh’(The Circle of Reason 440) he becomes obsessed with Kulfi. Bhudeb Roy, another important character in the story, initially appears to be the epitome of rajasik guna. Balaram’s sattvik scrutiny revealed that Bhudeb Roy’s project of opening the school was not wholly spiritual; and that even his worship of Ma Saraswati was ‘not learning’, but ‘Vanity’( The Circle of Reason 33). Ironically enough, it is this same Bhudeb Roy, Balaram’s alter-ego, his doppelganger, who speaks out sattvik sentiment after the plane crash: “ A new time beckons. The time to teach is over. The time has come to serve the people. The time has come…for straight lines”( The Circle of Reason 107). But Balaram reads it as a flawed logic because this time Balaram himself has been engulfed by rajasik suspicion. Apart from Bhudeb Roy, there are a number of other characters in the story with predominantly rajasik temperament. While