Bhagavad Gita — Shraddhatraya Vibhaga Yoga, Shloka 2
Shraddhatraya Vibhaga Yoga
श्रीभगवानुवाच । त्रिविधा भवति श्रद्धा देहिनां सा स्वभावजा । सात्त्विकी राजसी चैव तामसी चेति तां शृणु ॥ १७.२ ॥
śrī-bhagavān uvāca | trividhā bhavati śraddhā dehināṁ sā svabhāvajā | sāttvikī rājasī caiva tāmasī ceti tāṁ śṛṇu || 17.2 ||
The Blessed Lord said: Threefold is the faith of embodied beings, born of their own nature—sāttvika, rājasa, and tāmasa. Hear of it.
श्रीभगवान बोले—देहधारियों की श्रद्धा स्वभाव से उत्पन्न तीन प्रकार की होती है—सात्त्विकी, राजसी और तामसी; उसे तुम सुनो।
The Blessed Lord said: The faith of embodied beings is threefold, arising from their own nature: sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic—hear about it.
‘स्वभावजा’ anchors faith in psychological/constitutional tendencies rather than purely doctrinal assent. Some interpret this deterministically; others read it as descriptive but transformable through practice.
FAQs
Faith is treated as a function of temperament: different people trust, value, and commit in different ways depending on clarity (sattva), drive (rajas), or inertia/confusion (tamas).
Because guṇas structure embodied experience, faith too is conditioned; spiritual progress involves refining the guṇas rather than assuming faith is automatically liberating.
Krishna begins answering Arjuna by establishing a threefold classification, which will be applied to worship, food, austerity, and giving later in the chapter.
It can encourage empathetic pluralism: recognizing diverse motivations behind religious or ethical life, while still evaluating their effects on well-being and clarity.