---
type: Concept
bundle: yoga-darshana
bundle_version: "0.2.0"
id: raga
title: "Rāga"
iast: "Rāga"
devanagari: "राग"
description: "The structural pull toward remembered pleasure, the third kleśa — not attachment, not love, not desire."
darshana:
  - Pātañjala Yoga
  - Sāṃkhya
text_source: "YS 2.7"
tags:
  - Yoga
  - Patanjali
  - klesha
  - craving
  - attachment
  - citta
  - prakriti
not:
  - term: "attachment"
    why: "attachment implies a bond formed over time; rāga is a structural pull arising the instant pleasure is remembered"
    instead: "Keep Rāga untranslated; do not substitute the English term."
  - term: "desire"
    why: "too broad; desire includes neutral wants; rāga specifically tracks remembered pleasure and drives toward its repetition"
  - term: "craving"
    why: "closer, but craving implies a conscious hunger; rāga operates below the threshold of volition, in the citta itself"
  - term: "love"
    why: "rāga shares an etymology with love (Sanskrit root *rañj*) but in the kleśa context it names a cognitive distortion, not genuine care"
  - term: "passion"
    why: "passion in English connotes intensity but not necessarily error; rāga is structurally erroneous regardless of intensity"
related:
  - /concepts/klesha.md
  - /concepts/avidya-yoga.md
  - /concepts/asmita.md
  - /concepts/dvesha.md
  - /concepts/abhinivesha.md
  - /concepts/samskara.md
  - /concepts/vasana.md
  - /concepts/kaivalya.md
timestamp: "2026-06-20"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Rāga — राग

**Not:** attachment, desire, craving, love, passion

The third kleśa — the pull of pleasure-memory. The habitual tendency of citta to lean toward whatever it has previously associated with pleasure, creating a gravitational drag that masquerades as preference, taste, or natural inclination.

## Etymology

- Root: *rañj* — to be colored, to be affected, to feel attraction
- *rāga* — coloring; the state of being colored by an object
- Related: *anurāga* (deep attachment), *virāga* (fading of color — dispassion)

The metaphor of coloring is precise: just as white cloth absorbs a dye and cannot easily become white again, citta absorbs the impression of a pleasant experience and colors all subsequent perception toward that category of experience.

## Patañjali's Definition (YS 2.7)

*sukānuśayī rāgaḥ*

"Rāga is that which follows after pleasure (*sukha*)."

Compact and precise. Rāga does not arise from pleasure directly but from the *anusaya* — the residue or trace (*anuśaya*) that pleasure leaves behind. The pleasure-event ends; the trace remains; the trace pulls. This is rāga.

## The Mechanism

Within Patañjali's system:

1. Avidyā misidentifies Puruṣa with Prakṛti, producing asmitā (I-am-ness)
2. This apparent self has experiences, some of which register as pleasant
3. These experiences leave saṃskāras (impressions) in the citta
4. The saṃskāras activate as vāsanās (tendencies) — subtle memories of pleasure
5. These vāsanās generate rāga: a forward lean toward the category of experience that produced the pleasure

Rāga is therefore not a surface-level emotion. It is a structural property of citta that has been conditioned by pleasure-experience and now filters all subsequent encounter.

## Rāga and Saṃskāra

Rāga and saṃskāra are intimately related but distinct:

- **Saṃskāra** is the stored impression — the groove left by past experience
- **Rāga** is the directional pull that saṃskāra generates when a relevant object appears

Every instance of rāga fulfilled creates a deeper saṃskāra; every deeper saṃskāra generates stronger rāga. This self-reinforcing loop is what Patañjali identifies as the engine of cyclic suffering (*saṃsāra*).

## Rāga in the Four States of Kleśa

Like all kleśa-s, rāga operates in four states (YS 2.4):

- **Prasuptā (dormant):** rāga is latent; the relevant pleasure-category simply has not appeared in the field of awareness
- **Tanu (thin):** rāga is present but weak; yogic practice has attenuated the pull without eliminating the saṃskāra
- **Vicchinnā (interrupted):** rāga is overridden by an opposing force (e.g., dveṣa toward the same object interrupts the pull) but the underlying saṃskāra remains
- **Udārā (active):** rāga is operating fully; the pull is consciously felt or is driving behavior

Only asamprajñāta samādhi — the cessation that burns the saṃskāras at their root — eliminates rāga from the prasuptā state permanently.

## Rāga vs. Dveṣa (Paired Kleśa-s)

Rāga and dveṣa (aversion) are the two sides of the same coin. Both arise from asmitā's encounter with experience. The apparent self moves toward what it has marked as pleasure (rāga) and away from what it has marked as pain (dveṣa). The movement toward and the movement away are both driven by the same structural error: taking citta's conditioned responses as one's own authentic preferences.

## Cross-References

- [Kleśa](klesha.md) — the five affliction-roots; rāga is the third
- [Asmitā](asmita.md) — the I-am-ness that makes rāga possible by creating an apparent subject that experiences pleasure
- [Dveṣa](dvesha.md) — the paired kleśa; aversion follows pain as rāga follows pleasure
- [Saṃskāra](samskara.md) — the impression-residue from which rāga draws its pull
- [Vāsanā](vasana.md) — the subtle tendency that expresses saṃskāra as behavioral inclination
- [Abhiniveśa](abhinivesha.md) — the fifth kleśa; clinging to existence arises from the accumulated weight of rāga
- [Kaivalya](kaivalya.md) — liberation; the state in which all kleśa-s including rāga are permanently dissolved

## Audience Metaphor

Rāga is the phone's recommendation algorithm applied to experience: the system noticed what felt good once, logged it, and now quietly pushes similar content toward you every time that memory activates. You didn't decide to crave — the algorithm ran. The kleśa is in the algorithm, not the desire itself.

## Citations

1. [Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali](/references/yoga-sutras.md) 2.7
2. [Yoga Bhāṣya of Vyāsa](/references/yoga-bhasya.md) on YS 2.7
3. [Sāṃkhya Kārikā](/references/samkhya-karika.md) of Īśvarakṛṣṇa
