All about Tamo guna

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The Mahabharata (Aswamedha Parva), Sections XXXVI to XXXIX

 

The descriptions of tamo guna (Darkness)

 

Complete delusion, ignorance, indecision in respect of action, sleep,

haughtiness, fear, cupidity, grief, censure of good acts, loss of

memory, un-ripeness of judgment, absence of faith, violation of all

rules of conduct, want of discrimination, blindness, vileness of

behaviour, boastful assertions of performance when there has been no

performance, presumption of knowledge in ignorance, unfriendliness

(or hostility), evilness of disposition, absence of faith, stupid

reasoning, crookedness, incapacity for association, sinful action,

senselessness, stolidity, lassitude, absence of self-control,

degradation, - all these qualities are known as belonging to Darkness

(Tamas).

 

Whatever other states of mind connected with delusion exist in the

world, all appertain to Darkness. Frequent ill-speaking of other

people, censuring the deities and the Brahmanas (priests), vanity,

delusion, wrath, unforgiveness, hostility towards all creatures, are

regarded as the characteristics of Darkness. Whatever undertakings

exist that are unmeritorious (in consequence of their being vain or

useless), what gifts there are that are unmeritorious, vain eating -

these also appertain to Darknesss (Tamas).

 

Indulgence in calumny, unforgiving, animosity, vanity, and absence of

faith are also said to be characteristics of Darkness. Whatever men

there are in this world who are characterised by these and other

faults of a similar kind, and who break through the restraints

provided by the scriptures, are all regarded as belonging to the

quality of Darkness.

 

I shall now declare the wombs where these men, who are always of

sinful deeds, have to take their birth. Ordained to go to hell, they

sink in the order of being. Indeed, they sink into the hell of (birth

in) brute creation. They become immobile entities, or animals, or

beasts of burden; or carnivorous creatures, or snakes or worms,

insects and birds; or creatures of the oviparous order, or quadrupeds

of diverse species; or lunatics, or deaf or dumb human beings, or men

that are afflicted by dreadful maladies and regarded as unclean.

These men of evil conduct, always exhibiting the indications of their

acts, sink in Darkness. Their course (of migration) is always

downwards. Appertaining to the quality of Darkness, they sink in

Darkness.

 

I shall, after this, declare what the means are of their improvement

and ascent; indeed, by what means they succeed in attaining to the

regions that exist for men of pious deeds.

 

Those men who take birth in orders other than humanity, by growing up

in view of the religious ceremonies of Brahmanas (priests) devoted to

the duties of their own order and desirous of doing good to all

creatures, succeed, through the aid of such purificatory rites, in

ascending upwards. Indeed struggling (to improve themselves), they at

last attain to the same regions with these pious Brahmanas. Verily,

they go to Heaven. Even this is the Vedic audition. Born in order

other than humanity and growing old in their respective acts, even

thus they become human beings that are, of course, ordained to

return. Coming to sinful births and becoming Chandalas, or human

beings that are deaf, or that lisp indistinctly, they attain to

higher and higher castes, one after another in proper turn,

transcending the Sudra order, and other (consequences of) qualities

that appertain to Darkness and that abide in it in course of

migrations in this world.

 

Attachment to objects of desire is regarded as great delusion. Here

Rishis and Munis (Seers and sages), and deities become deluded,

desirous of pleasure. Darkness, delusion, the great delusion, the

great obscurity called wrath, and death, that blinding obscurity

(these are the five great afflictions). As regards wrath, that is the

great obscurity (and not aversion or hatred as is sometimes included

in the list).

 

With respect then to its colour (nature), its characteristics, and

its source, I have, ye learned Brahmanas, declared to you, accurately

and in due order, everything about the quality of Darkness (Tamas).

Who is there that truly understands it? Who is there that truly sees

it? That, indeed, is the characteristic of Darkness, viz., the

beholding of reality in what is not real. The qualities of Darkness

have been declared to you in various ways. Duly has Darkness, in its

higher and lower forms, been described to you? That man, who always

bears in mind the qualities mentioned here, will surely succeed in

becoming freed from all characteristics that appertain to Darkness.

 

-- R Vaidyanadhan