कट्वम्ललवणात्युष्णतीक्ष्णरूक्षविदाहिनः । आहारा राजसस्येष्टा दुःखशोकामयप्रदाः ॥
kaṭv-amla-lavaṇāty-uṣṇa-tīkṣṇa-rūkṣa-vidāhinaḥ | āhārā rājasasyeṣṭā duḥkha-śokāmaya-pradāḥ ||
Rājasic food: bitter, sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry, burning — loved by the rājasic; yields pain, grief, disease.
Word by word (3)
- kaṭv-amla-lavaṇāty-uṣṇa-tīkṣṇa-rūkṣa-vidāhinaḥ
- — bitter (kaṭu), sour (amla), salty (lavaṇa), excessively hot (aty-uṣṇa), pungent (tīkṣṇa), dry (rūkṣa), and burning/acrid (vidāhī) — seven sensory qualities of rājasic food
- āhārā rājasasyeṣṭāḥ
- — these foods (āhārāḥ) are desired (iṣṭāḥ = loved/preferred) by the rājasic (rājasasya) — rājasic preference naturally goes to strongly stimulating sensations
- duḥkha-śokāmaya-pradāḥ
- — these produce (pradāḥ = givers) pain (duḥkha), grief/sorrow (śoka), and disease/ailment (āmaya) — the three consequences of rājasic eating
Foods that are bitter, sour, salty, excessively hot, pungent, dry, and burning — these are loved by those of rājasic nature, causing pain, grief, and disease.
A modern analogy
Rājasic food is like high-stimulant energy drinks — intense sensation in the moment, but leaving behind inflammation, restlessness, and eventual crash. The rājasic person craves the intensity (kaṭu, tīkṣṇa, vidāhī) because rajas itself craves stimulation. But the result is duḥkha-śoka-āmaya — the body and mind pay the price.
V9 gives the rājasic food contrast to V8's sāttvic ideal. The seven sensory qualities are all extreme versions of taste: bitter, sour, salt are the three fire-vitiation tastes; excessive heat, pungency, dryness, burning complete the picture. The three outcomes (pain, grief, disease) mirror the three āsurī consequences at a smaller scale: the food-level version of the āsurī life-trajectory.
Rājasic food's connection to duḥkha-śoka (pain-grief) rather than just physical disease shows that food affects emotional states, not just body health. Rajas creates agitation (dolanā) — and the rājasic food perpetuates and amplifies that agitation. This is the food-based mechanism of the larger Sāṃkhya insight: rajas = activity → agitation → suffering.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
The foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning, are liked by the Rajasic, causing pain, grief and disease. [1]
The foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry, and burning, are liked by the Rajasika, and are productive of pain, grief, and disease. [4]
Foods which are bitter, sour, saltish, very hot, pungent, dry, and burning, are desired by the rajasic, causing pain, grief, and disease. [9]
Those kinds of food which are bitter, sour, salted, over-hot, pungent, dry, and burning, and which produce pain, grief and disease, are desired by the passionate. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Treat pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as equal — then engage. No sin follows from this.
Rājasic tapas: done for reception, honour, worship, and show — unstable and transient.
Once that joy is found, no other gain seems greater — established in it, even the heaviest sorrow cannot shake you.
Thinking → clinging → craving → anger. The chain of suffering begins in where you let your mind dwell.
Equal to enemy and friend, honor and dishonor, cold and heat, pleasure and pain — free from all attachment!
Sāttvic food enhances life, sattva, strength, health, joy, delight — savoury, oleaginous, substantial, heart-pleasing.