15.1 The tree rooted upward Krishna speaks
ऊर्ध्वमूलमधःशाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम्
छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि यस्तं वेद स वेदवित्
ūrdhva-mūlam adhaḥ-śhākham aśhvatthaṁ prāhur avyayam
chhandānsi yasya parṇāni yas taṁ veda sa veda-vit
They speak of an imperishable sacred fig with its roots above and its branches below, whose leaves are the Vedas. One who knows it knows.
Explanation
The world is a tree growing the wrong way up.
An aśvattha, the sacred fig, with its roots above and its branches below, and the Vedas for leaves. It draws from what cannot be seen and spreads into what can.
The image does the work of an argument. Everything visible is the foliage of something whose source is in the other direction — so looking harder at the branches is exactly the wrong move.
Going further
Word by word
- śhrī-bhagavān uvācha
- the Supreme Divine Personality said
- ūrdhva-mūlam
- with roots above
- adhaḥ
- downward
- śhākham
- branches
- aśhvattham
- the sacred fig tree
- prāhuḥ
- they speak
- avyayam
- eternal
- chhandānsi
- Vedic mantras
- yasya
- of which
- parṇāni
- leaves
- yaḥ
- who
- tam
- that
- veda
- knows
- saḥ
- he
- veda-vit
- the knower of the Vedas
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Roots above, branches below. The image the chapter is named for and the one its art was made from.
A tree drawing from what is unseen and spreading into what is visible — so the world we can point at is the foliage, and the source is in the direction we do not look. The inversion is doing the whole job, and the verse offers no argument for it. It simply says: they speak of such a tree, and one who knows it knows.