Sanskrit
सत्त्वं रजस्तम इति गुणाः प्रकृतिसंभवाः । निबध्नन्ति महाबाहो देहे देहिनमव्ययम् ॥
sattvaṃ rajas tama iti guṇāḥ prakṛtisambhavāḥ nibadhnanti mahābāho dehe dehinam avyayam
Translation
Harmony, Motion, Inertia, such are the qualities, Matter-born; they bind fast in the body, O great-armed one, the indestructible dweller in the body.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The chapter’s foundational claim, and worth being precise about since there’s no separate concept note for it: the three gunas are sattva (Besant renders it “Harmony” — purity, luminosity, lightness), rajas (“Motion” — passion, restless activity), and tamas (“Inertia” — darkness, heaviness, dullness). All three are said to be “born of prakriti,” i.e. products of nature/matter, not of the self. Yet they “bind fast” the dweller in the body (dehin) who is explicitly called avyaya, imperishable — the paradox the whole chapter works through: something that cannot actually be touched or destroyed can still, functionally, experience itself as bound, because its consciousness is conditioned by whichever guna currently dominates. Verses 6-8 define each in turn.