Five signs tell you passion has taken the wheel: greed that grows on being fed, and a restlessness that will not sit still.
Krishna is not scolding here; he is handing Arjuna a mirror. Watch for these five together, and you will know, without guesswork, which quality of nature is presently running you.
Greed, restless activity, the launching of new undertakings, an unrest that will not settle, and a craving that reaches for whatever it sees: these five arise together, Arjuna, when the quality of passion has grown strong.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just given Arjuna the marks of sattva, the light and clarity that show goodness has taken the lead. Now he turns to the second of the three qualities and hands over the matching signature: how to recognize, from the outside in, that rajas, the quality of passion and restless striving, has risen and taken the wheel.
The teaching
Five things arise together, Krishna says, when passion grows strong, and each is worth sitting with. Greed comes first, and it is not simple wanting; it is a craving that keeps growing precisely because it is fed. Wealth can be arriving from every side and the wanting still does not turn back; getting the object inflames the desire rather than settling it. Some of the tradition's own glosses sharpen this into reaching for what belongs to another, others into the refusal to let go of one's own; either way, the wanting itself has no natural floor. Next comes activity, a general stirring into work, sometimes moving even without a clear aim, and close behind it undertaking, the specific launching of new projects, building a house, starting an enterprise, often chasing enjoyment or standing. Together they describe a self that cannot stop setting things in motion. Then unrest: a mind that will not come to rest, running from one plan to the next, having done this, I will now do that, arriving nowhere. And last, longing, the thirst that fastens onto whatever has just caught the eye, whether the thing is great or small. Taken together, the five form one coherent portrait. Passion turns a person outward and keeps them in restless, unsettled motion, and none of the surviving commentary treats this as cause for shame. It is offered as a mirror: notice these marks in yourself, and you will know which quality is presently in charge.
The doubt that rises
But activity, ambition, and desire are what get anything done in this world. How is a person supposed to separate honest, productive striving from the rajasic restlessness this verse is naming as a problem?
Where the paths divide
A plain inventory, read close to the letter.
Shankara's gloss on this verse stays descriptive: greed as reaching for another's wealth, engagement as the general stirring into work, undertaking as deeds of every kind, unrest as a mind with no stillness, longing as a thirst for common objects. In the material that survives for 14.12 specifically, he does not extend this into a larger claim about bondage; the list is left to do its diagnostic work on its own terms.
Read as a precise, practical instrument for self-examination.
Ramanuja pins each term to its exact sense, engagement as motion without a fixed aim, undertaking as effort begun toward a desired fruit, and closes with a working rule: when these marks cluster together, know that rajas has grown strong in you. The verse becomes a tool for honest self-reading rather than a doctrinal argument.
An honest gap, not a hidden position.
The record for this verse is explicit: Madhva offers no comment here. Nothing in his voice should be manufactured to fill that space. On a Dvaita reading extended from his known commitments elsewhere, one might read even rajas's rise as unfolding under the Lord's ordinance according to each soul's own nature and fitness, but this is offered only as a clearly labeled extension, not as anything Madhva himself is recorded as having said about 14.12.
A thin, borrowed comment, flagged as such.
Abhinavagupta's surviving text folds 14.11 through 14.13 into one passage, with the fuller comment given at 14.11: the marks of a guna rise up each in turn as it grows strong, just as the marks of the opposite guna rise in their own turn as it recedes. Little beyond this general parallel survives for 14.12 itself. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this by treating greed and restlessness as consciousness's own freedom contracting into anxious, narrow forms, but that extension is offered here only as a conditional gloss for this page, not a recovery of the master's considered words on this exact verse.
Sharp, term-by-term definitions, without an explicit devotional frame in what survives.
Sridhara's gloss is the most vivid at the level of individual terms: greed as a craving wealth cannot satisfy, activity as never resting from doing, undertaking as the push to build and launch, unrest as a mind endlessly planning and revising, longing as the urge to seize whatever has just caught the eye. In what survives for this particular verse he does not explicitly set the list inside a larger devotional frame; his contribution is the precision of the definitions themselves.
The craving read as a self-feeding loop, and a practical checklist follows.
Madhusudana's account sharpens the psychology most clearly: greed as a desire that its own satisfaction does not turn back but only deepens. Read forward into a modern-facing gloss, the fault sits in the demand that wanting be satisfied, not in ordinary effort or the felt needs of daily life. The five marks become a practical checklist, greed, activity, launching, unrest, longing, useful for catching rajas early rather than only after it has taken hold.
All the extant sources agree on the same five marks and on reading them as symptoms rather than sins in themselves. They differ mainly in how much they extend the list into a larger frame: Shankara and Sridhara stay close to definition, Ramanuja and Madhusudana turn it into a working diagnostic tool, and for two of the six schools, Dvaita and Kashmir Shaivism, the honest state of the sources for this specific verse is thin or absent, so any fuller reading offered here is clearly a conditional extension rather than a recovered position. This page does not resolve how far such extensions should be trusted, and neither does it pretend the gaps are not there.
A question to carry
When you feel the itch to start something new today, can you tell whether honest effort is moving you, or the demand that a particular want must finally be satisfied?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So when greed, restlessness, or a sudden craving rises in you, do not rush to silence it or to shame yourself for feeling it. Simply notice that passion has risen, let the noticing be enough for now, and return your attention to the work in front of you.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Having just named the marks of goodness in the verse before, Krishna turns now to passion and lays out its matching signature, continuing the diagnostic thread that runs through this stretch of the chapter.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Greed here is a craving that feeds on being satisfied rather than ending there; wealth can pour in and the wanting still does not turn back.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The verse lists five outward signs by which a person can recognize that rajas, the quality of passion and restless activity, has grown strong within them: greed, activity, the undertaking of works, unrest, and longing. Read alongside the verse before it, which named the marks of sattva, this is understood as a matching diagnostic, giving the tell-tale traits of the second guna so a person can read their own present state.
Activity and undertaking together describe a self that cannot stop starting things, always in motion, always launching some new work.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Greed, lobha, is read as a craving that keeps growing precisely because it is fed, not because it goes hungry. Wealth can be arriving in abundance and the wanting still does not stop; the gaining of an object inflames the desire for more rather than settling it. The commentators differ slightly on its direction, some stressing a reach toward another's goods and others a refusal to release one's own, but all agree the wanting itself has no natural stopping point.
Unrest is the mind that runs from one plan to the next without arriving, and longing is the thirst that grabs at whatever has just caught the eye.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Activity, pravritti, and undertaking, arambha, are read as two faces of a self that cannot stop initiating. Activity is the general stirring into effort, sometimes moving even without a clear aim; undertaking is the more specific launching of new projects, building a house or a new enterprise, often for enjoyment or standing. Together they describe unceasing motion rather than any single deed.
The five marks are read as one coherent portrait: passion turns a person outward and keeps them in perpetual, unsettled motion.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
Unrest, ashama, and longing, spriha, are read as the inward and outward faces of the same condition. Unrest is the mind that will not come to rest, running from one plan to the next without arriving; longing is the thirst that fastens onto whatever object has just come into view, whether it is a great thing or a small one. Together the five marks form one coherent portrait of a person turned outward and kept in perpetual, unsettled motion.
Where the sources for a school are thin or absent, as with Madhva and Abhinavagupta on this particular verse, the honest reading says so rather than inventing what is missing.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
None of the extant glosses on this verse treats the five marks as inherently sinful states to be suppressed by force; they are treated as symptoms to be read, evidence from which the ascendant guna can be inferred, so that the appropriate response can follow from clear seeing rather than from shame at noticing them.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja pins each mark to a precise root sense: greed as the refusal to release one's own goods, engagement as motion without any fixed aim, undertaking as effort begun toward a desired fruit, unrest as the ceaseless activity of the senses, and longing as the wish for objects generally. His summary is practical: when these marks are present together, one should infer that rajas has grown strong, treating the verse as an instrument of accurate self-diagnosis rather than a doctrinal claim about the self's dependence on the Lord.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The record for this verse states plainly that Madhva offers no comment here, and none is manufactured in his name. On a Dvaita reading extended from his known commitments elsewhere, one would likely read even the rise of rajas as unfolding under the Lord's ordinance according to each soul's own nature, so that the marks named here would be read as evidence of a particular soul's fitness rather than as accidents of circumstance. This is offered only as a conditional extension, clearly separate from anything Madhva is recorded as having said about 14.12 itself.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara's gloss is vivid and specific at the level of each term: greed as a craving wealth cannot satisfy, activity as never resting from doing, undertaking as the push to build and launch new works, unrest as a mind endlessly planning and revising, and longing as the urge to seize whatever has just caught the eye. In the material that survives for this particular verse he does not explicitly set the list inside a devotional frame; his contribution is the precision of the definitions themselves, letting the inventory carry its own diagnostic weight.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana's account sharpens the psychological mechanism most clearly among the extant sources: greed is a desire that its own satisfaction does not turn back but only deepens, and each of the five marks is read as a symptom of attachment by which the presence of rajas can be inferred with confidence. Read forward, this supports a modern-facing gloss common in later readings of this verse: the fault lies in the demand that a craving be satisfied, not in ordinary effort or in the felt needs of daily living, so that self-observation of these five marks becomes the practical starting point for loosening rajas's hold.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice, without judgment, whether these five are stirring in you today: a wanting that grows when fed, a restlessness that keeps starting things, an unease that will not settle, a reaching for whatever has just caught your eye. You are not being asked to stop the work in front of you. You are being asked to see clearly what is moving you to do it, and to let that seeing, on its own, begin to loosen the grip.
So when you feel these five stirring in you today, do not rush to silence them. Simply notice that passion has risen, and let the noticing itself begin to loosen its hold.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
he verse lists five outward signs by which a person can recognize that rajas, the quality of passion and restless activity, has grown strong within them: greed, activity, the undertaking of works, unrest, and longing. Read alongside the verse before it, which named the marks of sattva, this is understood as a matching diagnostic, giving the tell-tale traits of the second guna so a person can read their own present state.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Greed, lobha, is read as a craving that keeps growing precisely because it is fed, not because it goes hungry. Wealth can be arriving in abundance and the wanting still does not stop; the gaining of an object inflames the desire for more rather than settling it. The commentators differ slightly on its direction, some stressing a reach toward another's goods and others a refusal to release one's own, but all agree the wanting itself has no natural stopping point.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Activity, pravritti, and undertaking, arambha, are read as two faces of a self that cannot stop initiating. Activity is the general stirring into effort, sometimes moving even without a clear aim; undertaking is the more specific launching of new projects, building a house or a new enterprise, often for enjoyment or standing. Together they describe unceasing motion rather than any single deed.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Unrest, ashama, and longing, spriha, are read as the inward and outward faces of the same condition. Unrest is the mind that will not come to rest, running from one plan to the next without arriving; longing is the thirst that fastens onto whatever object has just come into view, whether it is a great thing or a small one. Together the five marks form one coherent portrait of a person turned outward and kept in perpetual, unsettled motion.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
None of the extant glosses on this verse treats the five marks as inherently sinful states to be suppressed by force; they are treated as symptoms to be read, evidence from which the ascendant guna can be inferred, so that the appropriate response can follow from clear seeing rather than from shame at noticing them.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara's own gloss on this verse stays close to definition rather than argument: greed is reaching for another's wealth, engagement is the general stirring into work, undertaking is the launching of deeds of every kind, unrest is a mind with no stillness, and longing is a thirst for common objects. He does not, in the material that survives for this verse, extend the list into a larger claim about bondage or liberation; the diagnostic reading is left to stand largely on its own descriptive force.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja pins each mark to a precise root sense: greed as the refusal to release one's own goods, engagement as motion without any fixed aim, undertaking as effort begun toward a desired fruit, unrest as the ceaseless activity of the senses, and longing as the wish for objects generally. His summary is practical: when these marks are present together, one should infer that rajas has grown strong, treating the verse as an instrument of accurate self-diagnosis rather than a doctrinal claim about the self's dependence on the Lord.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The record for this verse states plainly that Madhva offers no comment here, and none is manufactured in his name. On a Dvaita reading extended from his known commitments elsewhere, one would likely read even the rise of rajas as unfolding under the Lord's ordinance according to each soul's own nature, so that the marks named here would be read as evidence of a particular soul's fitness rather than as accidents of circumstance. This is offered only as a conditional extension, clearly separate from anything Madhva is recorded as having said about 14.12 itself.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta's extant comment treats 14.11 through 14.13 as one passage, with the substance given at 14.11: the marks of a guna rise up each in turn as that guna grows strong, just as the traits of the opposite guna, tamas, rise in their own turn when darkness increases. Beyond this parallel, little specific to verse 14.12 survives. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one would extend this by treating the five marks as consciousness's own freedom contracting into narrow, anxious forms, but this extension is clearly a conditional gloss for this page, not a recovery of the master's own words on this particular verse.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara's gloss is vivid and specific at the level of each term: greed as a craving wealth cannot satisfy, activity as never resting from doing, undertaking as the push to build and launch new works, unrest as a mind endlessly planning and revising, and longing as the urge to seize whatever has just caught the eye. In the material that survives for this particular verse he does not explicitly set the list inside a devotional frame; his contribution is the precision of the definitions themselves, letting the inventory carry its own diagnostic weight.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana's account sharpens the psychological mechanism most clearly among the extant sources: greed is a desire that its own satisfaction does not turn back but only deepens, and each of the five marks is read as a symptom of attachment by which the presence of rajas can be inferred with confidence. Read forward, this supports a modern-facing gloss common in later readings of this verse: the fault lies in the demand that a craving be satisfied, not in ordinary effort or in the felt needs of daily living, so that self-observation of these five marks becomes the practical starting point for loosening rajas's hold.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
Activity, ambition, and even strong desire are what get anything done in the world. How am I supposed to tell honest, productive striving apart from the rajasic restlessness this verse is warning against?
The commentators locate the fault in the shape of the wanting, not in effort itself. Greed as named here is specifically a craving that its own satisfaction does not turn back but only deepens; ordinary gain from honest work, arriving and being enough, does not fit that shape. The question to ask is whether getting the thing ever lets the wanting rest, or whether it only asks for more.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Ramanuja and Shankara both treat the five marks as descriptive symptoms rather than blanket condemnations of action: engagement and undertaking are named plainly, without an added claim that all motion or all new projects are at fault. What the verse tracks is a cluster of restlessness, unrest, and reaching, not the mere fact of being productively occupied.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
None of the extant glosses on this verse tells you to suppress activity by force; they offer it as a mirror. Use the five marks as a honest checklist for your own state today, greed, restless activity, launching, unrest, longing, and let noticing which ones are present be the whole of the diagnostic work for now.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Notice, without judgment, whether these five are stirring in you today: a wanting that grows when fed, a restlessness that keeps starting things, an unease that will not settle, a reaching for whatever has just caught your eye. You are not being asked to stop the work in front of you. You are being asked to see clearly what is moving you to do it, and to let that seeing, on its own, begin to loosen the grip.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.