Bhagavad Gita 14.13
अप्रकाशोऽप्रवृत्तिश्च प्रमादो मोह एव च । तमस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे कुरुनन्दन ॥ १३ ॥
aprakāśo 'pravṛttiś ca pramādo moha eva ca | tamasy etāni jāyante vivṛddhe kuru-nandana ||13||
Translation
Darkness, inertia, carelessness, and delusion—these arise, O joy of the Kurus, when tamas has increased.
Reflection
When did you last spend a whole day in aprakasha, apravritti, pramada, or moha?
Read this verse in its chapter: Chapter Fourteen
The tamasic signature is four-fold. Aprakasha, an absence of light, both mental and emotional. Apravritti, the inability to start, the heaviness that turns intention to lead. Pramada, the slack of attention in which the obvious is missed. Moha, getting things wrong in a fundamental way, mistaking one thing for another. Together these four describe most depressive afternoons, most botched mornings, most stalled projects. The verse offers them as readable signs, not as condemnation. Tamas is also a guna; it cycles. Naming its features turns a foggy day into a diagnosable one, and a diagnosable one into a workable one.