Sanskrit
गामाविश्य च भूतानि धारयाम्यहमोजसा । पुष्णामि चौषधीः सर्वाः सोमो भूत्वा रसात्मकः ॥
gām āviśya ca bhūtāni dhārayāmy aham ojasā puṣṇāmi cauṣadhīḥ sarvāḥ somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥ
Translation
Permeating the soil, I support beings by my vital energy, and having become the delicious Soma I nourish all plants.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Continuing the immanence catalogue, this verse locates Krishna in soil-permeating vital energy and in Soma, the plant- and moon-associated substance that nourishes vegetation. The translator’s own footnote flags real uncertainty about whether “rasātmakaḥ” here means “having become the moon” or simply “having become sap” — that ambiguity is worth keeping rather than resolving artificially, since it reflects genuine interpretive disagreement in the tradition rather than a translation error. The pervasion becomes agricultural: Krishna is the ojas (vital force) in the earth that holds beings up, and the rasa (sap, essence) in the moon that swells the crops. The abstract “I sustain all” of BG 7.7 made concrete as soil and moonlight.
Study deeper
Word by word
- gām āviśya ca bhūtāniगां आविश्य च भूतानि
- and entering the earth, [I support] beings (gām + āviśya + ca + bhūtāni)
- dhārayāmy aham ojasāधारयांय् अहं ओजसा
- I uphold [them] by [My] energy (dhārayāmi + aham + ojasā)
- puṣṇāmi cauṣadhīḥ sarvāḥपुष्णामि चौषधीः सर्वाः
- I nourish all the plants (puṣṇāmi + ca + oṣadhīḥ + sarvāḥ)
- somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥसोमो भूत्वा रसात्मकः
- becoming the sap-filled moon (somaḥ + bhūtvā + rasa-ātmakaḥ)
Commentary
Site Commentary
The translator’s own footnote admits real uncertainty about whether “rasātmakaḥ” means Krishna “becoming the moon” or simply “becoming sap” — and that ambiguity is worth preserving rather than resolving artificially, since it reflects genuine interpretive disagreement rather than sloppy translation. Sometimes the more honest scholarly move is naming exactly where the uncertainty sits instead of picking a confident answer just to close the sentence.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When you're genuinely unsure why you made a choice or reacted a certain way, it's more honest to name that ambiguity directly than to construct a confident story about yourself just to feel settled. Uncertainty stated plainly beats false clarity.
Professional
- When a root cause or requirement is genuinely ambiguous given the available data, document that ambiguity explicitly in the postmortem or spec rather than manufacturing false confidence in one interpretation. Honest uncertainty is more useful to the next reader than a tidy guess.
Family & Social
- When you don't actually know why someone close to you reacted the way they did, it's fine to say so openly instead of inventing a confident explanation just to resolve the discomfort. Naming the ambiguity honestly usually serves the relationship better.
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