Chapter 17: Śraddhā-traya-vibhāga-yoga: / Verse 7

Krishna began the dialogue with the immediate aim of relieving Arjuna’s scorching grief. To begin with, Krishna showed how hollow it is to grieve unduly over death (2.11), the last biological transformation in life.

He then analysed life as a ceaseless interaction between our senses and world objects, showing how one can take to it with harmony and poise. Krishna then brought many a line of thinking to fortify Arjuna’s perception and stability to course through all the events he may encounter.

Here he categorizes various kinds of people and different aspects of their life on the basis of the three gunas. The analysis helps us to understand the behaviour of people of various kinds and also shows us how to transform our constitution to gain greater harmony, poise and integration in life.

He discusses food as well as other practices, all of which go to enrich one’s spiritual knowledge and perfection. Krishna categorizes food into three, explaining when and how it becomes sāttvika, rājasa and tāmasa.