Verse 18.32

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of verse 18.32:

अधर्मं धर्मम् इति या मन्यते तमसावृता ।
सर्वार्थान् विपरीतांश् च बुद्धिः सा पार्थ तामसी ॥ ३२ ॥

adharmaṃ dharmam iti yā manyate tamasāvṛtā |
sarvārthān viparītāṃś ca buddhiḥ sā pārtha tāmasī || 32 ||

adharmam–irreligion; dharmam–religion; iti–thus; yā–which; manyate–considers; tāmasa-avṛtā–covered by darkness; sarva-arthān–all things; viparītān–said to be opposite; ca–and; buddhiḥ–intelligence;sā–that; pārtha–O son of Pṛthā; tamāsī–governed by the quality of darkness.

O Pārtha, a person whose intelligence is covered by the dark quality of ignorance considers irreligion to be the true religion and true religion to be irreligion, and his perception of everything is the opposite of reality. Being covered by the mode of ignorance, that intelligence is tāmasika.

Commentary: Sārārtha-Varṣiṇī Ṭīkā

(By Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura; the innermost intention of the commentary named ‘the shower of essential meanings’)

Yā manyate refers to an intelligence which sees that an axe cuts independently. [In other words, a person who only perceives the external function (e.g. the axe cutting) cannot enter the internal understanding that the soul, he who is wielding the axe, is the actual performer of the act of cutting, not the axe, which is just the instrument.]