Text 4
āgamo ’paḥ prajā deśaḥ
kālaḥ karma ca janma ca
dhyānaṁ mantro ’tha saṁskāro
daśaite guṇa-hetavaḥ
āgamaḥ — religious scriptures; apaḥ — water; prajāḥ — association with people in general or one’s children; deśaḥ — place; kālaḥ — time; karma — activities; ca — also; janma — birth; ca — also; dhyānam — meditation; mantraḥ — chanting of mantras; atha — and; saṁskāraḥ — rituals for purification; daśa — ten; ete — these; guṇa — of the modes of nature; hetavaḥ — causes.
According to the quality of religious scriptures, water, one’s association with one’s children or with people in general, the particular place, the time, activities, birth, meditation, chanting of mantras, and purificatory rituals, the modes of nature become differently prominent.
The ten items mentioned above possess superior and inferior qualities and are thus identified as being in goodness, passion or ignorance. One can increase the mode of goodness by selecting religious scriptures in goodness, pure water, friendship with other persons in goodness, and so on. One should scrupulously avoid any of these ten items that may be polluted by an inferior mode of nature.