Sattva (Sanskrit: सत्त्व, meaning goodness, harmony) is one of the three guṇas or "modes of existence" (tendencies, qualities, attributes), a philosophical and psychological concept understood by the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy. The other two qualities are rajas (passion and activity) and tamas (destruction, chaos, inertia). Sattva is the quality of goodness, purity, positivity, truth, serenity, balance, peacefulness, and virtuousness that is drawn towards Dharma and jñāna (knowledge). The act or a person who bears this is called Sattvik.
Hinduism
Samkhya Philosophy
In Samkhya philosophy, a is one of three "tendencies, qualities": sattva, rajas and tamas. This category of qualities has been widely adopted by various schools of Hinduism for categorizing behavior and natural phenomena. The three qualities are:
- Sattva is the quality of balance, harmony, goodness, purity, universalizing, holistic, constructive, creative, building, positive attitude, luminous, serenity, being-ness, peaceful, virtuous.
- Rajas is the quality of passion, activity, neither good nor bad and sometimes either, self-centeredness, egoistic, individualizing, driven, moving, dynamic.
- Tamas is the quality of imbalance, disorder, chaos, anxiety, impure, destructive, delusion, negative, dull or inactive, apathy, inertia or lethargy, violent, vicious, ignorant.
In Indian philosophy, these qualities are not considered as being present in either-or manner - instead everyone and everything has all three but differing in proportions and in different contexts. The living being or any substance is viewed as being a net result of the joint effect of all these three qualities within them.
According to the Samkhya school, no one and nothing is either purely sattvik or purely rajasik or purely tamasik.
Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita describes sattva as a path to liberation. It describes sattva as superior to the other two gunas because it brings clarity, leads to higher realms, and is without impurities, but it is also described as a cause of bondage. Verse 14.6 describes sattva as: