The Gita popularized a guna-karma caste theory with roots in Samkhya philosophy

Evidence

161 It was the Bhagvad Gita-which Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi (1962, 16) says was added to the epic Mahabharata “somewhere between 150 and 350 AD”-that made the first popular case for the guna-karma theory. Here, guna means intrinsic qualities or attributes, and karma is actions. Much before the Gita, around the second century BCE, the Samkhya school of upanishadic philosophy propounded the tri-guna theory, the three gunas being sattva (corresponding to clarity of thought and purity of mind, associated with the Brahmin), rajas (passionate, excitable state of mind, associated with the Kshatriya) and tamas (darkness, a state of confusion, associated with the Shudra). Drawing on this Samkhya core, the Gita says in 4.13: (Chaaturvanyaam mayaah srushtam gunakarmavibhaagasha: / Tasya kartaarama api maam viddhiya akartaaramavyayam.) — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1181

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the tri-guna theory and its mapping onto the three higher varnas, plus the claimed dates for the Gita’s insertion into the Mahabharata.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the reader’s interest in how caste ideology was justified and engineered — the ideological underpinning of the graded inequality the book attacks.