18.27

Sanskrit

रागी कर्मफलप्रेप्सुर्लुब्धो हिंसात्मकोऽशुचिः । हर्षशोकान्वितः कर्ता राजसः परिकीर्तितः ॥ २७ ॥

rāgī karmaphalaprepsur lubdho hiṃsātmako'śuciḥ harṣaśokānvitaḥ kartā rājasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ

Translation

Impassioned, desiring to obtain the fruit of actions, greedy, harmful, impure, moved by joy and sorrow, such an actor is pronounced passionate.

Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain

Explanation

The rajasic actor is impassioned, fruit-hungry, greedy, harmful, impure, and swings between elation and grief depending on how things go. The joy-sorrow oscillation is the tell: it’s the same instability chapter 2 diagnosed as bondage to the pairs of opposites, now given a name, rajasic, and a home within a fuller taxonomy of actor-types.