Purushah Prakritistho Hi

When the soul dwells within Prakriti and gets attached to its gunas, it begins to experience them — pleasure, restlessness, dullness. And this very attachment — this clinging to the gunas — becomes the reason it takes birth in good or bad circumstances.

The principle is direct. Grab hold of a mango branch and you end up with mangoes. Grab the tamarind branch and you get tamarind. Whichever guna the soul clings to, that determines the nature of its next birth. This is the root mechanism of the cycle of rebirth.

This verse explains rebirth and karma within the Prakriti-Purusha framework. Attachment to the gunas is the engine of the world-cycle. This is one of the Gita's core teachings.

In the Gita Press edition, this is the twenty-second shloka. 'Sadasad-yoni' — good and bad wombs — refers to every possible form of birth.