Three strands, born of Nature, tie the unchanging self fast to the body it lives in.
Krishna opens this teaching not with the way out but with the fact of bondage itself, naming the very stuff of Nature and how it fastens the imperishable one to what it inhabits.
Goodness, passion, and dullness: these three strands are born of Nature, and they bind the imperishable self fast to the body it lives in.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just finished the field and its knower; now he opens a fresh teaching, one that will run fourteen verses, on the three strands Nature is woven from and how they fasten the self that lives inside a body. This verse is the doorway into that whole teaching, and it opens, on purpose, with the fact of bondage rather than the promise of release.
The teaching
Goodness, passion, and dullness: these are named here as the three strands Nature itself is made of, not properties added onto Nature from some other source. At rest, in perfect balance, the three strands simply are Nature, undifferentiated; only when that balance breaks, one strand rising while another falls, do they stand apart as distinct, active forces, and their shifting ratios account for the entire variety of embodied life. These strands bind the one who dwells in a body, and they bind through nothing more exotic than identification: settle into the body, take it for your own self, and you are thereby tethered to its pleasure, its pain, its confusion, exactly as the body itself rises and falls. But notice what the verse calls the one so bound: avyaya, imperishable, unchanging. That word is not decorative. If the self bound here truly cannot change, then whatever this binding is, it cannot be a real alteration worked upon the self's own being. It can only be something laid over that being, an appearance taking hold because the self has, mistakenly, made the body's rising and falling its own. And the verse is placed here first, before any account of the way out, for a reason: only a hearer who feels the fact of being bound will want to learn what the rest of this teaching offers.
The doubt that rises
If I am genuinely unchanging, in what sense am I bound at all, and is that binding real enough that I actually need to do something about it, or is naming it only a manner of speaking?
Where the paths divide
Read as the binding being finally an appearance, never a change in the Self.
The strands bind, but only as it were. They are of the very nature of ignorance toward the one they seem to hold, taking that unchanging one as their resort and so appearing to acquire a self of their own. The Self so bound was already shown untouched and unstained even while dwelling in the body; nothing here reverses that. The classical image says it plainly: still water makes a motionless sun seem to tremble. It is the reflection that shakes, never the sun.
Read as real binding, but strictly through the condition of embodiment.
The three strands are real traits belonging to Nature's own form, invisible while Nature rests and manifest only through its transformations. The self, joined to a particular body, is by its own nature unfit for any real connection with these strands, and yet it is bound, genuinely, through the one condition of dwelling in that body. The binding is not denied or explained away; it is precisely located, in embodiment and nowhere else.
Read cautiously: the surviving comment here is a single brief line.
What is preserved from this school at this verse is only one sentence, that naming the manner of bondage is meant to prompt the soul toward the practice of release. The source does not elaborate further here. Read against the wider tradition's known commitments, one would expect the bondage to be treated as a genuine condition to be cut through disciplined practice, not merely reframed by insight, but that fuller claim goes beyond what this fragment itself states.
Read cautiously: only one compressed sentence survives at this verse.
The one line on record says the embodied self is bound by the three strands to an enjoyment that runs all the way as far as release, a framing that pairs bondage with bhoga rather than picturing only a fetter to escape. On a fuller Kashmir Shaiva reading, extended beyond this fragment, one would expect the strands to be read as consciousness's own freedom contracting into limited experience, so bondage and release stand on a single continuum. That extension should be taken as a labeled inference from the wider tradition, not as this fragment's own words.
Read as the spirit's felt oneness with a body it has joined.
This verse opens an account of the spirit's wandering through birth and death, and traces that wandering to nothing other than the spirit's joining with Nature. The three strands, in balance, simply are Nature; only once that balance breaks do they become the binding forces this verse describes, and they bind by making the spirit feel simply one with the body it inhabits. The Self's own unchanging being is never touched; only colored, by nearness, is what cannot itself be colored.
Read as one mistaken identification explaining the whole appearance of bondage.
Quality and quality-bearer are not really two here, since Nature is made of nothing but these three strands; nature-born names only the moment their built-in balance is disturbed. The single mistake at the root of all felt bondage is taking a changeless awareness to be the body it inhabits. Once that mistake is seen clearly, the strands can still act on the body and mind, but they no longer explain what the self, at bottom, actually is.
All six readings agree the strands are Nature's own substance and that they bind the self through the fact of embodiment. They part on how real to call that binding. Advaita and, more cautiously, the Kashmir Shaiva fragment treat it as appearance; Vishishtadvaita locates it precisely in embodiment without denying its reality there; Dvaita, on the little that survives, stresses only that naming it should move you to practice. This page does not choose among them, and for two of the six schools the record itself is too thin to press further than the sources allow.
A question to carry
Today, when your mood lifts or drops, ask exactly what moved: the body and its weather, or the one who only watches the weather change?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
May you learn to feel the rope without mistaking it for your own skin, and may the one in you that only watches the rising and falling stand, quietly, undisturbed by either.
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.
This verse opens a long teaching on the three gunas, following the thirteenth chapter's account of the field and its knower, and it begins deliberately with bondage before any account of release.
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.
The three strands, sattva, rajas, tamas, are not properties resting on Nature from outside; Nature itself is made of nothing but these three.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
All six agree on the basic inventory: three strands, sattva, rajas, and tamas, goodness, passion, and dullness, and all three are born of Prakriti, Nature. None of the six treats these as ordinary properties resting in some separate substance the way color rests in a cloth. Nature simply is these three; there is no gap between the strands and what they belong to.
At rest and in balance, the three strands simply are Nature; only when that balance breaks do they stand apart as distinct, active forces.
Across Bhakti, AdvaitaŚrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana’s words
The three arise from Nature by a single mechanism repeated across the sources: at rest, in perfect balance, the three simply are Nature itself, undifferentiated. Only when that balance breaks, one strand rising while another sinks, do they become distinct, active, and properly nature-born, and from their shifting ratios comes the whole variety of embodied beings.
They bind the embodied self through identification alone: taking the body for oneself is what ties one to its pleasure, pain, and confusion.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The strands bind the dehin, the embodied one, precisely through the fact of dwelling in a body, and the mechanism of binding is identification: the self settles into the body and takes it for its own, and through that false identity it is tethered to the body's pleasure, pain, and confusion.
The self so bound is named imperishable, unchanging, so whatever binding means here, it cannot be an actual alteration of that self's own being.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
The embodied one bound here is called avyaya, imperishable, unchanging, and this word is read as carrying real weight by every commentator who elaborates on it: whatever the binding is, it cannot be a real alteration in the Self's own being, since that being is, by the verse's own naming, incapable of change.
The bondage is named first, deliberately, so that recognizing it will awaken the wish to learn the way out that the rest of the chapter unfolds.
Across Advaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana and Śrīdhara’s words
This verse opens a long teaching block on the three strands, and several sources note that it is deliberately placed first, before any account of the way out, so that the hearer first recognizes the fact and feel of being bound, which is what awakens the wish to learn the means of release that the rest of the chapter will unfold.
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 reads the strands as real natural traits belonging to Nature's own form, unmanifest while Nature rests and manifest only in its transformations. The embodied self, joined to a particular body, is in its own nature unfit for any real connection with the strands, yet is bound through the one limiting condition of dwelling in that body. The binding is genuine to the self's embodied career, tied strictly to embodiment, without denying that the self's own proper nature remains what it always was.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The one line preserved from Madhva treats this verse as pedagogical before it is descriptive: naming the strands and their grip is meant to move the hearer to recognize 'I am bound' and so to take up the practice of release. The source itself says little more; a Dvaita reading extended from the tradition's known commitments would treat the bondage as a genuine condition of a dependent soul, to be cut through discipline rather than dissolved by insight alone, though that fuller claim goes beyond what this fragment states.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara sets the verse within the larger story of spirit's wandering through birth and death, caused by its joining with Nature. He is precise that the strands, in their balanced state, simply are Nature, and only become binding forces once that balance breaks. Binding itself works by making the spirit feel one with the body, and Sridhara insists this never touches the Self's own unchanging being; it only colors, by mere nearness, what cannot itself be colored.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read for a modern ear, Madhusudana's account isolates the precise mechanism: quality and quality-bearer are not two, since Nature is made of nothing but these three strands, and 'nature-born' names only the moment their built-in balance is disturbed. The embodied one's mistake is a single, correctable error, taking a changeless awareness to be the body it inhabits, and the strands then make that changeless one seem to tremble exactly as a still sun seems to shake in moving water.
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
Sit for a moment with the word imperishable applied to yourself, and ask what in you actually trembles when the day goes well or badly. Notice that the trembling belongs to mood, body, circumstance, the very field these three strands weave, and see whether anything in you stands apart from that weaving, watching it rise and fall without itself rising or falling.
May you see clearly where the rope is actually tied, to the body's rising and falling moods, and not to the unchanging one who only watches them rise and fall.
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
ll six agree on the basic inventory: three strands, sattva, rajas, and tamas, goodness, passion, and dullness, and all three are born of Prakriti, Nature. None of the six treats these as ordinary properties resting in some separate substance the way color rests in a cloth. Nature simply is these three; there is no gap between the strands and what they belong to.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The three arise from Nature by a single mechanism repeated across the sources: at rest, in perfect balance, the three simply are Nature itself, undifferentiated. Only when that balance breaks, one strand rising while another sinks, do they become distinct, active, and properly nature-born, and from their shifting ratios comes the whole variety of embodied beings.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The strands bind the dehin, the embodied one, precisely through the fact of dwelling in a body, and the mechanism of binding is identification: the self settles into the body and takes it for its own, and through that false identity it is tethered to the body's pleasure, pain, and confusion.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The embodied one bound here is called avyaya, imperishable, unchanging, and this word is read as carrying real weight by every commentator who elaborates on it: whatever the binding is, it cannot be a real alteration in the Self's own being, since that being is, by the verse's own naming, incapable of change.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
This verse opens a long teaching block on the three strands, and several sources note that it is deliberately placed first, before any account of the way out, so that the hearer first recognizes the fact and feel of being bound, which is what awakens the wish to learn the means of release that the rest of the chapter will unfold.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The binding named here is finally unreal, a working of maya. Shankara is explicit that the strands bind 'as it were', taking the field-knower as their resort in a manner that is itself of the nature of ignorance; the imperishable Self, already shown untouched and unstained, cannot in truth be altered by anything Nature produces. Madhusudana supplies the classical image: still water makes the motionless sun in the sky appear to tremble, and it is exactly this appearance, never the Self itself, that the strands are said to bind.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the strands as real natural traits belonging to Nature's own form, unmanifest while Nature rests and manifest only in its transformations. The embodied self, joined to a particular body, is in its own nature unfit for any real connection with the strands, yet is bound through the one limiting condition of dwelling in that body. The binding is genuine to the self's embodied career, tied strictly to embodiment, without denying that the self's own proper nature remains what it always was.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
The one line preserved from Madhva treats this verse as pedagogical before it is descriptive: naming the strands and their grip is meant to move the hearer to recognize 'I am bound' and so to take up the practice of release. The source itself says little more; a Dvaita reading extended from the tradition's known commitments would treat the bondage as a genuine condition of a dependent soul, to be cut through discipline rather than dissolved by insight alone, though that fuller claim goes beyond what this fragment states.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The single preserved sentence names the embodied self as bound by the three strands 'to an enjoyment that runs all the way as far as release,' a distinctive framing that pairs bondage with bhoga rather than picturing only a fetter to escape. Read cautiously, given how little survives, this suggests binding and release stand on a single continuum rather than as opposites; any further Kashmir Shaiva elaboration, that the strands are consciousness's own freedom contracting into limited experience, is a labeled extrapolation from the wider Pratyabhijna framework, not this fragment's own words.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara sets the verse within the larger story of spirit's wandering through birth and death, caused by its joining with Nature. He is precise that the strands, in their balanced state, simply are Nature, and only become binding forces once that balance breaks. Binding itself works by making the spirit feel one with the body, and Sridhara insists this never touches the Self's own unchanging being; it only colors, by mere nearness, what cannot itself be colored.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read for a modern ear, Madhusudana's account isolates the precise mechanism: quality and quality-bearer are not two, since Nature is made of nothing but these three strands, and 'nature-born' names only the moment their built-in balance is disturbed. The embodied one's mistake is a single, correctable error, taking a changeless awareness to be the body it inhabits, and the strands then make that changeless one seem to tremble exactly as a still sun seems to shake in moving water.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If I am really unchanging and untouchable, why does it feel so real when my moods, my body, and my circumstances pull me around all day?
Because the pull is real at the level where it occurs, the level of the strands acting on the body and mind you have identified with. What is not real is any claim that this pull reaches your own unchanging being; the verse itself names you avyaya in the same breath it names you bound.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The binding is tied strictly to embodiment, to the fact of dwelling in a body at all, not to some flaw in your deeper nature. That is exactly why it can feel so total from inside a body, and exactly why it need not touch what you actually are underneath that dwelling.
Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
And the verse is placed here precisely so you will feel this pull and want out of it; the whole point of naming the bondage first is to turn a bare idea into a lived recognition, which is the only thing that ever moves anyone to take up the means of release.
Madhvācārya
Contemplation
Sit for a moment with the word imperishable applied to yourself, and ask what in you actually trembles when the day goes well or badly. Notice that the trembling belongs to mood, body, circumstance, the very field these three strands weave, and see whether anything in you stands apart from that weaving, watching it rise and fall without itself rising or falling.
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.