15.7 A fragment of my own self Krishna speaks
ममैवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूतः सनातनः
मनःषष्ठानीन्द्रियाणि प्रकृतिस्थानि कर्षति
mamaivānśho jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ-ṣhaṣhṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛiti-sthāni karṣhati
A fragment of my own self, eternal, becomes the living being in the world of the living, and draws to itself the six senses, the mind among them.
Explanation
A fragment of my own self becomes the living being.
mamaivāṁśaḥ — a portion of me, eternal. This is among the most consequential lines in the book: what animates a person is not something made, or granted, or won, but a piece of the thing itself.
And then, immediately, the ordinary consequence: it draws the six senses to itself, the mind among them. The eternal fragment is what is doing your seeing and hearing.
Going further
Word by word
- mama
- my
- eva
- only
- anśhaḥ
- fragmental part
- jīva-loke
- in the material world
- jīva-bhūtaḥ
- the embodied souls
- sanātanaḥ
- eternal
- manaḥ
- with the mind
- ṣhaṣhṭhāni
- the six
- indriyāṇi
- senses
- prakṛiti-sthāni
- bound by material nature
- karṣhati
- struggling
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A fragment of my own self becomes the living being.
Mamaivāṁśho — a portion of me. This is among the most consequential lines in the book, and it is stated without preamble in the middle of a chapter about a tree. Whatever the relation between the divine and a person is in this text, it is not described here as similarity or as proximity.