The taste on your tongue is the very place Krishna names himself.
It would be easy to hear this as a poetic flourish, the Lord praised through pretty comparisons. The commentators press something more exact: not resemblance but essence, the very thing that makes water water and light light.
I am the taste in water, the light in the moon and the sun, the syllable Om in every Veda, the sound that belongs to space, and the manhood in men.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
A worry was just left hanging. If all the world hangs on Krishna like beads on a thread, why does water seem rooted in its own taste, light in the sun, the Vedas in Om, and not in him directly? Here that gap begins to close, one ordinary thing at a time.
The teaching
You taste water, and the savour itself, the commentators say, is being named as Krishna. Not that he tastes the water from somewhere else; he is the taste. Take the taste out and no water remains, so the taste, and therefore he, is what holds the water in being at all. The same pattern is meant to run through everything else in the list: the light in moon and sun, the syllable Om threaded through all the Vedas, the sound proper to space, the manhood by which a man is recognized as a man. The word the commentators keep returning to is essence, not an added quality but the very core by which each thing is itself. And because he is that essence, these things are said to rest in him; they could not stand apart. This is offered as a teaching aid, not a closed list. The examples are chosen because they are close at hand and easy to grasp, so the same way of looking can be carried to anything else you meet, and the series continues into the verses that follow. Some read a deeper layer beneath the visible things: the subtle essences, taste, light, sound, from which the gross things arise, in which they abide, and into which they dissolve, so that this verse names a cause as much as a presence. Either way, the purpose stated is practical. This glory is taught for meditation and worship, so that an ordinary thing at hand becomes a doorway rather than a distraction.
The doubt that rises
If the Lord is the very taste of water and the light in the sun, am I really meeting him in every ordinary thing, or is this only a poetic way of saying he made everything and nothing more is meant by it?
Where the paths divide
Read as strict non-difference, stated rather than argued at length here.
Shankara reads the verse as identity, plainly: the Lord is the one essence in which each named thing is strung, exactly as the world itself was strung on him one verse earlier. He states this the same way five times, taste, light, Om, sound, manhood, without pausing at this verse to work through how an unchanging essence underlies so many changing things. The claim stands on its own, asserted with the same directness each time.
Read from a single terse sentence, honestly thin at this exact verse.
What survives of Ramanuja's own comment here is brief: these states of being arise from the Lord, are subordinate to him, and abide in him as his body, so that it is the Lord alone who truly abides, having them as his mode. On a Vishishtadvaita reading consistent with his wider commentary, one would extend this into a fuller middle path, the property genuinely belongs to the thing, but only because the Lord indwells it as essence, though that fuller argument is not restated in his own words at this particular verse.
Read as non-difference language over a preserved real difference.
Madhva insists the Lord and the thing remain distinct even in these tight identity-statements. Water and taste depend on him and are his to enjoy, but he is, in a special way, the regulator of natural qualities and the special enjoyer of their essence. Taste in water, rather than water alone, is named because taste is the substance's non-adventitious essential core, because we actually enjoy it, and because such images serve worship, where non-difference speech is customary though difference remains beneath it.
Read as the undivided ground beneath all later division.
Abhinavagupta reads each item as the common ground before particular differences ever break out: the taste is what is tasted everywhere, prior to sweet, sour, and the rest; the light he is carries no softness or fierceness of its own. Most distinctively, he glosses the sound in space as reaching past ordinary struck sound to the unstruck sound, anahata, known to yogins moving inwardly in the cave of Brahman, calling it the very truth of the Blessed One.
Read as strict non-difference, continuing the thread-and-gems image.
Sridhara reads the whole chain as abheda-shruti: not 'I am like the taste,' but 'I am the taste,' each instance grounded in a specific divine power, the taste-essence, the light-essence, Om as the Veda's spoken root, the sound-essence of space, effort as what men stand on. He folds this back into the previous verse's image directly: the gems are not the thread, but the thread runs through the gems, and that thread is Vasudeva.
Read as an answer to a natural objection, with a caution against overreach.
Madhusudana treats the verse as answering the question of how the world could be strung on the Lord: water is seen to be strung on taste because the Lord alone abides as that taste, and the same pattern holds for every item named. He adds an explicit caution that this glory is taught only as an aid to meditation and should not be pressed harder than that purpose asks.
All six readings agree the Lord names himself as the essence within each ordinary thing, not merely its distant maker. They part on how far that identity goes. Does it fully erase the distinction between the Lord and the water, as a strict reading of non-difference suggests, or does real difference remain beneath the worship-language, as Madhva insists? And how much can honestly be said to survive from Ramanuja's own brief words here, versus what his later tradition builds on top of them? This page does not resolve that, and leaves the question open on purpose.
A question to carry
The next time you notice a taste, a light, or a sound closely enough to call it the nearest thing you have, what would change if you let that noticing be the meeting this verse describes?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
So take the ordinary thing in front of you, the water, the light, the sound, and let it rest for a moment as the doorway the verse names, without needing to settle every question it leaves open.
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.
Krishna has just said the whole world is strung on him like beads on a thread; here he begins, one ordinary thing at a time, to show exactly where that thread runs.
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.
This verse answers a worry left open by the last one: things seem rooted in their own qualities, not in Krishna, so he shows he is the essence within each quality.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhva · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Madhva, and 2 others’ words
This verse answers a worry the previous one left hanging. Krishna had just said the whole world is strung on him like beads on a thread; a listener might object that water seems rooted in its own taste, light in the luminaries themselves, the Vedas in Om, not directly in him. Here he closes that gap by naming, one by one, the exact place where he is found inside each thing.
'I am the taste in waters' is the pattern for the whole list: not 'I am like the taste,' but 'I am the taste,' with nothing left over once it is removed.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · MadhusūdanaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 1 others’ words
'I am the taste in waters' is read as the model for the whole list, and the grammar matters: not 'I taste water' and not even 'I am like the taste,' but 'I am the taste itself.' Draw the taste out of water and no water is left, so the taste, and therefore Krishna, is what holds the water in being at all.
The same claim is repeated for light in moon and sun, Om in the Vedas, sound in space, and manhood in men, five instances of one single teaching.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, Kashmir ŚaivaŚaṅkara · Śrīdhara · Madhusūdana · AbhinavaguptaIn Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara, and 2 others’ words
The same pattern is meant to run through every item named: light in moon and sun, Om in all the Vedas, sound in space, manhood in men. Each is read not as one quality a thing happens to carry among others, but as the very essence, the property by which the thing is what it is.
The examples are chosen for being ordinary and graspable; the same logic is meant to be carried to anything a seeker meets.
Across Advaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
The list is a teaching aid rather than a closed catalogue. It picks familiar, easily grasped examples so the same logic can be carried everywhere, and it opens a series that runs across the verses that follow, all pressing the same single point from different angles.
This glory is taught for meditation and worship, a practical doorway, not a puzzle to be resolved by argument.
Across Advaita, Dvaita, BhaktiMadhusūdana · Madhva · ŚrīdharaIn Madhusūdana, Madhva, and 1 others’ words
This glory is taught for the sake of meditation and worship, not as a puzzle to be argued over. The purpose is practical: a seeker can take any ordinary thing at hand, water, light, sound, and use it as a doorway to the Lord who is its inner truth.
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
What survives of Ramanuja here is a single compressed sentence: these states of being arise from the Lord, are subordinate to him, and abide in him as his body, so that it is the Lord alone who truly abides, having them as his mode. This is thin on the page compared to his fuller inner-ruler doctrine elsewhere; a careful middle path between mere metaphor and outright merger can be extrapolated from his wider Gita-bhashya, but that fuller argument is not stated at this verse itself.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva insists the difference between the Lord and things is preserved even in these tight identity-statements. Water and taste do depend on the Lord and are his to enjoy, but he is, in a special way, the regulator of natural qualities like taste and the special enjoyer of their essence; naming 'taste in water' rather than just 'water' marks taste as the substance's non-adventitious essential core, chosen because we actually enjoy taste, and because such images serve worship, where non-difference language is customary though real difference remains.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara reads the whole chain as abheda-shruti, plain non-difference, not 'I am like the taste' but 'I am the taste,' each instance grounded in a specific divine power, the rasa-tanmatra, the light-essence, Om as the Veda's spoken root, the sound-essence of space, effort as what men truly stand on. He folds this back into the thread-and-gems image of the previous verse: the gems are not the thread, but the thread runs through the gems, and that thread is Vasudeva.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Madhusudana treats the verse as answering a natural objection, how could all this be strung on you, by showing that water and its companions are seen to be strung on taste and its companions precisely because the Lord alone abides as that taste, that light, that Om, that sound, that manhood. He is careful to add a governing caution: this glory is taught only as an aid to meditation and should not be pressed past that purpose into a metaphysical puzzle.
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
Take this verse into something as plain as a glass of water. Notice the taste itself, not the water as an object but the very savour on the tongue, and let that be the point of contact named here. Do the same with sunlight on your skin, or the ordinary hum of a room's silence. You are not being asked to argue a doctrine; you are being asked to notice that the world's most familiar textures are also, on this teaching, the nearest doorway to what the verse calls the Lord.
So the next time you taste water or feel the sun's warmth, let the sensation itself be the meeting place, and rest there without needing to argue the matter further.
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 answers a worry the previous one left hanging. Krishna had just said the whole world is strung on him like beads on a thread; a listener might object that water seems rooted in its own taste, light in the luminaries themselves, the Vedas in Om, not directly in him. Here he closes that gap by naming, one by one, the exact place where he is found inside each thing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
'I am the taste in waters' is read as the model for the whole list, and the grammar matters: not 'I taste water' and not even 'I am like the taste,' but 'I am the taste itself.' Draw the taste out of water and no water is left, so the taste, and therefore Krishna, is what holds the water in being at all.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
The same pattern is meant to run through every item named: light in moon and sun, Om in all the Vedas, sound in space, manhood in men. Each is read not as one quality a thing happens to carry among others, but as the very essence, the property by which the thing is what it is.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
The list is a teaching aid rather than a closed catalogue. It picks familiar, easily grasped examples so the same logic can be carried everywhere, and it opens a series that runs across the verses that follow, all pressing the same single point from different angles.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
This glory is taught for the sake of meditation and worship, not as a puzzle to be argued over. The purpose is practical: a seeker can take any ordinary thing at hand, water, light, sound, and use it as a doorway to the Lord who is its inner truth.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Shankara reads the verse as strict non-difference: the Lord is the one essence in which each named thing is strung, exactly as the world was said to be strung on him one verse earlier. He states this identically five times over, taste, light, Om, sound, manhood, without pausing to argue the metaphysics of how an unchanging essence can underlie so many changing things; on the extant text of this verse, the claim is asserted, not defended at length.
Śaṅkarācārya
Viśiṣṭādvaita
What survives of Ramanuja here is a single compressed sentence: these states of being arise from the Lord, are subordinate to him, and abide in him as his body, so that it is the Lord alone who truly abides, having them as his mode. This is thin on the page compared to his fuller inner-ruler doctrine elsewhere; a careful middle path between mere metaphor and outright merger can be extrapolated from his wider Gita-bhashya, but that fuller argument is not stated at this verse itself.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva insists the difference between the Lord and things is preserved even in these tight identity-statements. Water and taste do depend on the Lord and are his to enjoy, but he is, in a special way, the regulator of natural qualities like taste and the special enjoyer of their essence; naming 'taste in water' rather than just 'water' marks taste as the substance's non-adventitious essential core, chosen because we actually enjoy taste, and because such images serve worship, where non-difference language is customary though real difference remains.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
Abhinavagupta reads each item as the undivided common ground beneath particular difference: the taste he is, is tasted everywhere before sweet, sour, and the rest ever branch apart from it; the light carries no softness or fierceness of its own. Most distinctively, he glosses 'sound in space' as reaching past ordinary struck sound to the unstruck sound, anahata, that yogins hear within the cave of Brahman, calling that the very truth of the Blessed One.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara reads the whole chain as abheda-shruti, plain non-difference, not 'I am like the taste' but 'I am the taste,' each instance grounded in a specific divine power, the rasa-tanmatra, the light-essence, Om as the Veda's spoken root, the sound-essence of space, effort as what men truly stand on. He folds this back into the thread-and-gems image of the previous verse: the gems are not the thread, but the thread runs through the gems, and that thread is Vasudeva.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Madhusudana treats the verse as answering a natural objection, how could all this be strung on you, by showing that water and its companions are seen to be strung on taste and its companions precisely because the Lord alone abides as that taste, that light, that Om, that sound, that manhood. He is careful to add a governing caution: this glory is taught only as an aid to meditation and should not be pressed past that purpose into a metaphysical puzzle.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If the Lord is the very taste of water and the light in the sun, am I really meeting him in ordinary things, or is this just a poetic way of saying he made everything?
It is meant closely, not as decoration. The verse does not say 'I am like the taste'; it says 'I am the taste.' The taste is not a separate quality that merely points back to the Lord, it is read as his actual presence as the water's essence, so that removing the taste would leave nothing recognizable as water at all.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
At the same time, this is not read as a flat identity that erases the water or the taste. What survives of Ramanuja's own words stays brief, but his fuller Vishishtadvaita position, developed elsewhere in his commentary, names a middle path: the Lord indwells the thing as its inner essence, and the property is genuinely the thing's own, but only because he is present within it.
Rāmānujācārya
So yes, ordinary things are treated as real meeting points, and that is exactly why such everyday examples, taste, light, sound, are chosen: they are easy to grasp, and the same logic is meant to be carried everywhere, taught for the sake of meditation rather than argument.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Take this verse into something as plain as a glass of water. Notice the taste itself, not the water as an object but the very savour on the tongue, and let that be the point of contact named here. Do the same with sunlight on your skin, or the ordinary hum of a room's silence. You are not being asked to argue a doctrine; you are being asked to notice that the world's most familiar textures are also, on this teaching, the nearest doorway to what the verse calls the Lord.
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.