आहारस्त्वपि सर्वस्य त्रिविधो भवति प्रियः ।यज्ञस्तपस्तथा दानं तेषां भेदमिमं शृणु ॥
āhārastvapi sarvasya trividho bhavati priyaḥyajñastapastathā dānaṁ teṣāṁ bhedamimaṁ śṛṇu
The food also which is dear to each is of triple character, as also sacrifice, askesis and giving. Hear thou the distinction of these.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
Essays on the Gita
For everything here, including physical things, partakes of this triple character. Our food, for example, the Gita tells us, is either sattwic, rajasic or tamasic according to its character and effect on the body. The sattwic temperament in the mental and physical body turns naturally to the things that increase the life, increase the inner and outer strength, nourish at once the mental, vital and physical force and increase the pleasure and satisfaction and happy condition of mind and life and body, all that is succulent and soft and firm and satisfying. The rajasic temperament prefers naturally food that is violently sour, pungent, hot, acrid, rough and strong and burning, the aliments that increase ill-health and the distempers of the mind and body. The tamasic temperament takes a perverse pleasure in cold, impure, stale, rotten or tasteless food or even accepts like the animals the remnants half-eaten by others. All-pervading is the principle of the three gunas. The gunas apply at the other end in the same way to the things of the mind and spirit, to sacrifice, giving and askesis, and the Gita distinguishes under each of these three heads between the three kinds in the customary terms of these things as they were formulated by the symbolism of the old Indian culture. But, remembering the very wide sense which the Gita itself gives to the idea of sacrifice, we may well enlarge the surface meaning of these hints and open them to a freer significance. And it will be convenient to take them in the reverse order, from tamas to sattwa, since we are considering how we go upward out of our lower nature through a certain sattwic culmination and self-exceeding to a divine nature and action beyond the three gunas.17·7, 17·9, 17·10
Evening talks
Disciple: The Gita has given a classification of what is Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic food.
