Every form that is ever born has the same two parents: the great Brahman as womb, Krishna as the seed-giving father.
The world shows countless kinds of birth, gods and ancestors and humans and animals, each rising from its own particular womb. Krishna gathers all of them under one cosmic womb and names himself the single father who plants the seed in it.
Whatever forms are born in any womb at all, Arjuna, the great Brahman, primal nature, is their womb, and I am the father who plants the seed.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just told Arjuna that the great Brahman is his own womb, into which he places the seed. Here he widens that claim at once: not only his own manifestation, but every being born in every kind of womb anywhere, traces to this same pair of causes.
The teaching
Think of the whole range of birth you can name: gods, ancestors, human beings, animals, birds, and every other kind of creature, each rising from what looks like its own separate womb. This verse gathers all of that variety under one cosmic womb. The great Brahman, read here as primal nature, is that womb, the one vast matrix out of which every body comes, the field in which forms grow as a seed grows in soil. It is called great precisely because it stands behind the countless nearer wombs we actually observe; those nearer wombs are not rival origins, they are this one source's own further unfolding. And Krishna names himself the father who gives the seed, the one who deposits it and quickens the womb, so that the whole manifest world is the child of nature as mother joined with him as father. Several of the commentators on file are careful to add that this is not a single act performed once at the dawn of creation and then finished. It is the standing, perpetual texture of all becoming: in every single birth, at every moment a form takes shape, the same two causes, womb and seed, are quietly at work.
The doubt that rises
If one cosmic womb and one cosmic father truly ground every being, why does the world still look like an endless scatter of unrelated bodies and lives? And where a given acarya's own voice on this exact verse is thin, or simply silent, as it is for Madhva here, what is the honest way to hold that silence without either ignoring it or inventing over it?
Where the paths divide
Read as the one material cause becoming the many particular causes.
The great Brahman is the cosmic material cause present in every state, and it has itself become the several particular causes an objector might point to. Madhusudana in particular frames this against a specific doubt: if all beings truly come from one source, why do the bodies we see, divine bodies and the rest, each seem to trace to their own separate cause? His answer is that the great Brahman's own particular states are exactly those other causes, so nothing stands outside it as a genuine rival origin.
For conscious selves joined to bodies according to their own karma.
Ramanuja reads the great Brahman as nature in its full unfolding, from the great principle down to the separate elements, to which the Lord joins the host of conscious beings. His fathering is this joining itself: binding each conscious self to a body, here and there, in exact keeping with what that self's own past deeds have earned, first at creation and then in every birth that follows it.
Not reported for this verse; only a flagged conditional extrapolation.
The surviving material states plainly that Madhvacharya offers no comment on this verse. Rather than construct a reading and place it in his mouth, this page reports that silence directly. A conditional extension consistent with his wider doctrine might read prakriti as wholly dependent on and governed by Vishnu, and the seed-giving father as Vishnu's sanctioning of each soul's birth into a body suited to its own eternal nature, but this is offered only as a clearly labeled extrapolation, never as an attested reading.
Stated briefly: power as mother, the inseparable holder as father.
The surviving Abhinavagupta material on this verse is a single compressed statement. The mother is named as the Blessed One's own generative power, whose nature is to bring forth the whole wheel of birth and rebirth; the father is the Lord who holds that power inseparably and who cannot himself be pointed out as something standing apart from it. On a Kashmir Shaiva reading, one might extend this into a fuller account of consciousness contracting into embodied diversity, but that extension goes beyond what the extant fragment itself states, and is flagged here as such rather than presented as his own words.
For the perpetual, ongoing texture of every birth.
Sridhara underlines the verse's own word for always: this pairing of prakriti as mother and the Lord as father is not a one-time cosmogonic claim confined to the first beings ever created. It is read as the standing manner of things, repeated at every single moment any embodied being, in any womb, moving or unmoving, comes to be.
Read as the technical answer to a standing objection about diversity.
Framed against the objection that many distinct causes seem to rival the one source, this verse is read as showing that the world's diversity is not evidence against a single origin. It is that origin's own self-differentiation: the great Brahman becomes the many particular wombs, so no birth stands as a genuinely separate cause outside it.
The shared spine here is narrow but solid: one cosmic womb, read as primal nature, and one cosmic father, the Lord who gives the seed, ground every birth in every kind of body. Where the schools genuinely diverge is on what the joining of self to body actually consists in, an unfolding of one material cause, a karma-governed binding of conscious selves, or an inseparable bond of power and its holder, and on how much weight to place on the verse's own word for always. And a real gap remains honestly open: no attested Dvaita reading survives for this exact verse, and the Kashmir Shaiva material is only a brief fragment. This page does not fill either gap with invented confidence.
A question to carry
When you look at the sheer variety of bodies and lives around you, can you hold both truths at once, that they share one womb and one father, and that some part of this teaching's record, for this exact verse, is honestly thin or missing rather than fully known?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So let the crowd of different forms around you rest on this one ground: the great Brahman as the womb that bears them, and the Lord as the father who gives the seed, present in this and in every birth, whether or not every voice has spoken on it.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
This verse widens what was said of Krishna's own womb and seed in the line just before it, generalizing that one relation to cover every birth, in every kind of body, without exception.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
Every shaped body, in every kind of womb, has this same origin: the great Brahman as its womb, Krishna as the father who sows the seed.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse names the two cosmic parents of every being that is ever born. Krishna answers a hidden objection: if all beings come from him, what of the many distinct causes we observe, the separate wombs of gods, ancestors, humans, animals and the rest? His reply gathers every particular womb under one cosmic womb, and every particular birth under one cosmic father.
The great Brahman is read as prakriti, the one vast matrix from which all bodies grow, of which the many particular wombs are only further branchings.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
The great Brahman named here is read as primal nature, prakriti, standing in the place of the mother, the one vast matrix out of which all bodies come. It is called great precisely because it is the single source behind the countless particular wombs; those nearer wombs are only its own further branching, not separate origins.
This fathering is not confined to one moment at the dawn of creation; it is the perpetual texture of every birth, present at each moment a form comes to be.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Śrīdhara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 3 others’ words
Krishna's own part is that of the seed-giving father: the one who deposits the seed and quickens the womb. The whole manifest world, on this reading, is the child of nature as mother joined with the Lord as father, so every embodied being in every kind of body is their joint work.
The world's astonishing variety is not evidence against the one source; on this reading it is exactly what the one source produces by its own self-differentiation.
Across Bhakti, ViśiṣṭādvaitaŚrīdhara · RāmānujaIn Śrīdhara and Rāmānuja’s words
This fathering is not confined to one founding moment at the dawn of creation. It is read as the perpetual texture of all becoming: in every single birth, at every moment a form comes to be, the same two causes, nature as womb and the Lord as the one who seeds it, are quietly at work.
Where an acarya's own comment on this verse is thin or absent, as with Madhva here, the honest record says so rather than filling the gap with an invented voice.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Śrīdhara · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 2 others’ words
On this verse's own testimony, no acarya reads the diversity of the world as evidence against a single source. The astonishing variety of bodies is treated as exactly what the one source produces by its own self-differentiation, not as a crowd of unrelated origins that would compete with it.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the great Brahman as nature in its full unfolding, from the great principle down to the separate elements, to which the Lord joins the host of conscious selves. His fathering is specifically this joining, binding each conscious self to a body in exact keeping with that self's own accumulated karma, first at creation and then in every subsequent birth.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
The surviving material records that Madhvacharya offers no comment on this verse; no independent Dvaita reading can honestly be reported here. A conditional extension, consistent with his broader doctrine, might read prakriti as wholly dependent on and governed by Vishnu, and the seed-giving father as Vishnu's sanctioning of each soul's birth into a body suited to its own eternal nature; but this is a flagged extrapolation, not an attested reading.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara stresses the verse's word for always: this pairing of prakriti as mother and the Lord as father is not a one-time cosmogonic event but the perpetual texture of birth, repeated at every moment any embodied being comes to be, in every womb, human or otherwise, moving or unmoving.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read against a standing objection, this verse is treated as furnishing the technical answer to how a single source can ground an endlessly diverse world: the diversity is not evidence against the one origin, it is that origin's own self-differentiation, so no particular birth stands as a genuine rival cause outside it.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Notice, for a moment, how many different lives and bodies surround you, and how easily their sheer variety can make the world feel like a crowd of strangers with nothing in common. Hold instead to this: every one of those forms is read here as drawing on the very same womb and the very same father. The variety does not have to be denied to be seen as one thing wearing many shapes.
So look again at the crowd of different bodies and different lives around you, and let this steady you: one womb, one father, stands behind all of it, and the variety is its own unfolding, not a scatter of unrelated beginnings.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse names the two cosmic parents of every being that is ever born. Krishna answers a hidden objection: if all beings come from him, what of the many distinct causes we observe, the separate wombs of gods, ancestors, humans, animals and the rest? His reply gathers every particular womb under one cosmic womb, and every particular birth under one cosmic father.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The great Brahman named here is read as primal nature, prakriti, standing in the place of the mother, the one vast matrix out of which all bodies come. It is called great precisely because it is the single source behind the countless particular wombs; those nearer wombs are only its own further branching, not separate origins.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Krishna's own part is that of the seed-giving father: the one who deposits the seed and quickens the womb. The whole manifest world, on this reading, is the child of nature as mother joined with the Lord as father, so every embodied being in every kind of body is their joint work.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
This fathering is not confined to one founding moment at the dawn of creation. It is read as the perpetual texture of all becoming: in every single birth, at every moment a form comes to be, the same two causes, nature as womb and the Lord as the one who seeds it, are quietly at work.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Rāmānujācārya
On this verse's own testimony, no acarya reads the diversity of the world as evidence against a single source. The astonishing variety of bodies is treated as exactly what the one source produces by its own self-differentiation, not as a crowd of unrelated origins that would compete with it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The great Brahman is the cosmic material cause present in every state, and it has itself become the several particular causes an objector might point to, so the many distinct wombs are never rivals to the one source, only forms it has taken. Madhusudana spells this out against a specific objection: since the great Brahman's own particular states are exactly those other causes, all beings can rightly be said to come from that one source without exception.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the great Brahman as nature in its full unfolding, from the great principle down to the separate elements, to which the Lord joins the host of conscious selves. His fathering is specifically this joining, binding each conscious self to a body in exact keeping with that self's own accumulated karma, first at creation and then in every subsequent birth.
Rāmānujācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta, in the single compressed statement that survives on this verse, names the mother as the Blessed One's own generative power, whose nature is to turn the wheel of birth and rebirth, and the father as the Lord who holds that power inseparably and cannot himself be pointed out as a separate object. The extant comment stops there; any fuller Trika unfolding of contraction and diversity would be a flagged extension beyond the surviving fragment.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara stresses the verse's word for always: this pairing of prakriti as mother and the Lord as father is not a one-time cosmogonic event but the perpetual texture of birth, repeated at every moment any embodied being comes to be, in every womb, human or otherwise, moving or unmoving.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read against a standing objection, this verse is treated as furnishing the technical answer to how a single source can ground an endlessly diverse world: the diversity is not evidence against the one origin, it is that origin's own self-differentiation, so no particular birth stands as a genuine rival cause outside it.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śaṅkarācārya
Dvaita
The surviving material records that Madhvacharya offers no comment on this verse; no independent Dvaita reading can honestly be reported here. A conditional extension, consistent with his broader doctrine, might read prakriti as wholly dependent on and governed by Vishnu, and the seed-giving father as Vishnu's sanctioning of each soul's birth into a body suited to its own eternal nature; but this is a flagged extrapolation, not an attested reading.
Madhvācārya
A Seeker Asks
If every being shares one cosmic womb and one cosmic father, why does the world look like an endless scatter of unrelated bodies and lives?
The single source is not contradicted by the variety; on this verse's own account it is what produces the variety. The great Brahman is one vast matrix that differentiates itself into the countless particular wombs, so the many distinct kinds of body are simply the shapes that one nature has taken.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The fathering that grounds this is not a single event you could locate at the start of time and then set aside. It is repeated at every moment a body comes to be, so the sameness of source is not a distant memory behind the world but something continuously at work in it right now.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Rāmānujācārya
Where the record is thin, as with Madhva's silence here, the honest answer is simply that this particular verse does not give every school's voice on the question; the shared spine, one womb, one father, stands on what the extant commentaries actually say, not on filling every gap with invented certainty.
Madhvācārya
Contemplation
Notice, for a moment, how many different lives and bodies surround you, and how easily their sheer variety can make the world feel like a crowd of strangers with nothing in common. Hold instead to this: every one of those forms is read here as drawing on the very same womb and the very same father. The variety does not have to be denied to be seen as one thing wearing many shapes.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.