Bhagavad Gītā · Chapter 14, Verse 3
मम योनिर्महद्ब्रह्म तस्मिन् गर्भं दधाम्यहम्।संभवः सर्वभूतानां ततो भवति भारत।।
mama yonir mahad brahma tasmin garbhaṁ dadhāmy aham
sambhavaḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ tato bhavati bhārata
also searched as "mama yonir mahad brahma tasmin garbham dadhamy aham"
Translation
My womb is the great Brahman (i.e. Prakṛti). In it, I lay the germ. From that, O Arjuna, comes the birth of all beings.
Vāṇi's rendering
The vast womb of nature is mine; into it I set the seed. From that, every being is born.
Word by word
| Sanskrit & transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ममmama | mine, belonging to me |
| योनिःyoniḥ | womb, the place of origin (appears as yonir before the next word) |
| महत्mahat | great, vast (appears as mahad before brahma) |
| ब्रह्मbrahma | the vast one — here primordial nature, the unformed ground of all matter |
| तस्मिन्tasmin | in that, into it |
| गर्भम्garbham | the seed, the germ of life |
| दधामिdadhāmi | I place, I set down (appears as dadhāmy before aham) |
| अहम्aham | I |
| संभवःsambhavaḥ | coming into being, birth |
| सर्व-भूतानाम्sarva-bhūtānām | of all beings, of everything that lives |
| ततःtataḥ | from that, thence |
| भवतिbhavati | happens, comes to pass |
| भारतbhārata | O descendant of Bharata — Krishna addressing Arjuna |
Frequently asked
What does Bhagavad Gita Chapter 14 Verse 3 mean?
Krishna names two things and claims both. Prakṛti, the vast unformed ground of all matter, is his womb; the quickening seed is his to place. Every creature that has ever drawn breath comes from that union. Birth is not accident and not decree — it is a meeting Krishna holds open.
What does mama yonir mahad brahma mean?
"The vast womb is mine." Brahma here is not the abstract absolute but mahat brahma — great nature, the fertile ground from which all forms rise. Krishna does not stand outside it, disowning matter. He calls it his own, and then says the life in it is his gift too.
Is nature separate from Krishna in this verse?
No. That is precisely what the verse refuses. Nature is not a rival kingdom or a fallen realm — it is his womb. The body you carry, the earth that fed it, the decay waiting at the end: all of it belongs to him. There is nowhere in matter you can go and be elsewhere.
Why does Krishna use the image of a womb and a seed?
Because it is the one creation you already understand from the inside. Nothing is made from nothing here; something receives, something enters, and life follows. Krishna is not explaining cosmology to Arjuna. He is telling him that the process which made him is not impersonal — someone set the seed.
Read every verse this way, held — inside Vāṇi.
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Commentary
Krishna does not create the way a potter creates. He fathers. Nature — vast, sleeping, older than any form — is what receives, and he is what quickens it. Neither alone makes a world. Arjuna is being told where he came from: not from an accident of matter, and not from a decree issued at a distance, but from a meeting. Your body is nature's. That it wakes, wants, and knows itself is not nature's. You are held between the two, and both ends of you are Krishna's — the womb he calls mine, and the seed he sets in it.