Sanskrit
बीजं मां सर्वभूतानां विद्धि पार्थ सनातनम् । बुद्धिर्बुद्धिमतामस्मि तेजस्तेजस्विनामहम् ॥ १० ॥
bījaṃ māṃ sarvabhūtānāṃ viddhi pārtha sanātanam buddhir buddhimatām asmi tejas tejasvinām aham
Translation
Know Me, O Pârtha! as the eternal seed of all beings. I am the Reason of the Reason-endowed, the splendour of splendid things am I.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Still inside the verse 8-11 list, but shifting from sensory qualities to psychological and evaluative ones: Krishna as the intelligence within intelligent beings, the splendor within splendid things. The progression across verses 8-11 moves outward-in — from physical elements, to abstract qualities, to mental faculties, to desire and strength in verse 11 — narrowing toward the human interior that verses 12-15 then interrogate directly. Bīja — “seed” — makes the essence-within also the origin: not just the intelligence in the intelligent, but what that intelligence grows from. The list is walking inward toward BG 7.11’s desire.
Study deeper
Word by word
- bījaṃ māṃ sarvabhūtānāṃबीजं मां सर्वभूतानां
- know Me as the eternal seed of all beings (bījam + mām + sarva-bhūtānām)
- viddhi pārtha sanātanamविद्धि पार्थ सनातनं
- know, O Pārtha, the everlasting (viddhi + pārtha + sanātanam)
- buddhir buddhimatām asmiबुद्धिः बुद्धिमतां अस्मि
- I am the intelligence of the intelligent (buddhiḥ + buddhimatām + asmi)
- tejas tejasvinām ahamतेजस् तेजस्विनां अहं
- the splendour of the splendid, I am (tejaḥ + tejasvinām + aham)
Commentary
Site Commentary
“Seed” echoes the “womb” language from verse 6, and the repetition isn’t incidental — both images describe a source that already contains, in compressed form, everything it will become. Calling the self a “seed” of all beings makes origin, again, not a distant historical event but something present-tense and structural: whatever exists is still, right now, unfolding out of that seed rather than having simply been produced by it once.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- The habits and choices shaping your future aren't separate from who you are right now — like a seed, everything you'll become is already compressed into your present patterns, unfolding rather than waiting to be produced later. Watch your present seed, not just your future harvest.
Professional
- The culture and practices you establish early in a project are already the seed of everything the project will become — don't treat early technical debt or shortcuts as separable from later outcomes. What's unfolding later was already present at the start.
Family & Social
- The small daily patterns in a relationship right now — how you argue, how you repair — are the seed of what that relationship will become years from now, not a separate early phase you'll grow out of. Tend the seed, not just the imagined future.
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