Guṇas

The guṇas, “strands” or “qualities”, are in Sāṃkhya the three constituents of nature (prakṛti). Sattva is lightness, clarity and goodness; rajas is activity, passion and pain; tamas is heaviness, inertia and darkness. Like the strands of a rope they are always found together, and every thing, physical or mental, is a particular mixture of them. Before the world unfolds they are in balance; creation begins when the balance is disturbed.

Because the mind belongs to nature, thoughts and moods are also mixtures of the guṇas: a clear and peaceful state is sattvic, a restless or craving one rajasic, a dull or deluded one tamasic. The Bhagavad Gītā develops this into a classification of foods, faiths, gifts and actions according to the guṇa that predominates in them, and describes the liberated person as one who has gone beyond all three.

The doctrine spread far beyond Sāṃkhya. Yoga, Vedānta, the Purāṇas and Indian medicine all use it, and it remains part of the ordinary vocabulary of Indian religion. In Sāṃkhya and Yoga, the witnessing consciousness (puruṣa) is wholly free of the guṇas; liberation is the recognition that their play was never its own.