Sanskrit
मयाऽध्यक्षेण प्रकृतिः सूयते सचराचरम् । हेतुनाऽनेन कौन्तेय जगद्विपरिवर्तते ॥
mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sacarācaram hetunānena kaunteya jagad viparivartate
Translation
Under Me as supervisor, Nature sends forth the moving and unmoving: because of this, O Kaunteya, the universe revolves.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Closes the cosmology unit begun at verse 7: nature (prakṛti) is now explicitly named as acting “under my supervision” (mayādhyakṣeṇa). The universe’s revolution is effortless for Krishna precisely because the doing is delegated to nature while he merely oversees it, which sharpens rather than resolves the immanence/transcendence tension opened in verses 4-6. Mayā adhyakṣeṇa — “with Me as overseer” — assigns all the doing to prakṛti and only the presiding to Krishna, the same division BG 13.29 draws for the individual: nature acts, the Self witnesses.
Study deeper
Word by word
- mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyateमयाध्यक्षेण प्रकृतिः सूयते
- under My oversight, nature brings forth (mayā + adhyakṣeṇa + prakṛtiḥ + sūyate)
- sacarācaramसचराचरं
- the moving and the unmoving (sa-cara-acaram)
- hetunānena kaunteyaहेतुनानेन कौन्तेय
- by this cause, O son of Kuntī (hetunā + anena + kaunteya)
- jagad viparivartateजगद् विपरिवर्तते
- the world revolves (jagat + viparivartate)
Commentary
Site Commentary
Adhyakṣa — “supervisor,” “overseer” — is a governance word, not a craftsman’s word. Krishna doesn’t describe running the universe as making or shaping it directly; he describes it as delegated oversight, nature doing the actual work under his supervision. The largest possible system in the text is explicitly not built on hands-on control — it runs on delegation, with oversight sufficient to keep it turning.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- You don't have to personally execute every part of a goal you're responsible for — overseeing well, and trusting a delegated system to do the actual work, can be a complete way of being responsible for an outcome.
Professional
- The largest systems you own should run on oversight and clear delegation, not on your hands touching every decision — if scaling a system means you personally have to do more, the delegation model, not the workload, is what needs fixing.
Family & Social
- You can hold real responsibility for a family situation without personally managing every detail of it — trusting others involved to carry their part, while you stay attentive at the oversight level, is still genuine care, not neglect.
Ask yourself
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