Sanskrit
मम योनिर्महद्ब्रह्म तस्मिन् गर्भं दधाम्यहम् । सम्भवः सर्वभूतानां ततो भवति भारत ॥
mama yonir mahad brahma tasmin garbhaṃ dadhāmy aham sambhavaḥ sarvabhūtānāṃ tato bhavati bhārata
Translation
My womb is the great Eternal; in that I place the germ; thence cometh the birth of all beings, O Bhârata.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A cosmogonic image, not a biological one: Krishna names “the great Eternal” (mahad brahma — prakriti, primordial nature) as his own womb, into which he places the germ that becomes every being. The pairing matters for what follows — prakriti supplies the substance, Krishna supplies the seed, and verse 5’s claim that the gunas are “born of prakriti” only makes sense once this dual origin is on the table. Nature is not self-generating here; it is the material cause working alongside a conscious source. The cosmogony is sexual imagery: mahad brahma (here prakṛti, the great unmanifest) is the womb; Krishna deposits the garbha, the seed of consciousness. Every being is that union — the same kṣetra-kṣetrajña-saṃyoga of BG 13.27.
Study deeper
Word by word
- mama yonir mahad brahmaमम योनिः महद् ब्रह्म
- My womb is the great Brahman (mama + yoniḥ + mahat + brahma)
- tasmin garbhaṃ dadhāmy ahamतस्मिन् गर्भं दधांय् अहं
- in it I place the germ (tasmin + garbham + dadhāmi + aham)
- sambhavaḥ sarvabhūtānāṃसंभवः सर्वभूतानां
- the birth of all beings (sambhavaḥ + sarva-bhūtānām)
- tato bhavati bhārataततो भवति भारत
- from that comes to be, O Bhārata (tataḥ + bhavati + bhārata)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Krishna doesn’t call prakriti a rival origin or a lesser one — he calls it “my womb,” folding the material cause into his own possession before assigning himself the separate act of placing the seed within it. The image quietly refuses a common either/or, matter versus spirit, substance versus agency. Every birth described here needs both a receptive medium and a directing seed, and neither one alone produces anything.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're building something that matters to you, remember it needs both a receptive medium — time, environment, discipline — and a directing intention; supplying only one of the two, however strong, won't produce the outcome on its own.
Professional
- When a project stalls, check whether you've supplied both halves this verse pairs — the platform or process that receives the work, and the deliberate direction that seeds it — teams often over-invest in one and quietly starve the other.
Family & Social
- When you want to nurture something in a relationship — trust, a child's growth — provide both the receptive space that lets it develop and the deliberate attention that starts it; one without the other rarely produces what you're hoping for.
Ask yourself
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