Those who stand in sattva, who stand in the conduct of the quality sattva, go upward, are born in the world of the gods and the like. Those of rajas stand in the middle, are born among men. Those who stand in the conduct of the lowest quality, the lowest quality being tamas, whose conduct is sleep, sloth and the like, the deluded, go downward, are born among beasts and the like. In the earlier chapter it was said, in brief, that the attachment of the Puruṣa, joined with the false knowledge that is his standing in Nature, toward the things to be enjoyed, the qualities of the nature of pleasure, pain and delusion, the attachment of the form 'I am happy, I am unhappy, I am deluded', is the cause of his transmigration, marked as the gaining of births in good and evil wombs. Here, from 'sattva, rajas and tamas, the qualities born of Nature' (Gītā 14.5) onward, the true nature of the qualities, the conduct of the qualities, the binding power of the qualities through their conduct, and the course of the Puruṣa bound by the conduct of the qualities, all this, rooted in false knowledge and the cause of bondage, having been told at length, the Blessed Lord now, since liberation by right vision is to be told, says.

Thus, in the manner described, those settled in sattva go upward, by stages go to release from the bondage of transmigration. Since rajas makes for greed for the fruits of heaven and the rest, the rajasic, having performed the action that is the means to fruit and experienced its fruit, are born again and carry out the action that this asks for; so they stand in the middle, and that, by being of the form of return, is mostly pain. But the tamasic, settled in the working of the lowest quality, settled in the workings of the more and more inferior quality of tamas, go downward; they go to the lowest-born state, then to the animal state, then to birth as worms, insects, and the like, then to the unmoving state, then further to the state of bush and creeper, then to the state of stone, wood, clod, grass, and the like. This is the meaning. The Lord states the manner of the upward going, by way of the passing-beyond of the qualities, of those whose sattva has been made to grow by particular foods and by particular good deeds done with no eye to their fruit, by succession.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Madhvacharya does not comment on this verse.