Chapter 15 · 20 verses
पुरुषोत्तमयोगः
Puruṣottama-yoga
The supreme person
What lies beyond the perishable and imperishable?
A tree has its roots above and its branches below. To understand its spread is to understand a world of dependence; to find freedom is to seek the source beyond its binding roots.
What happens here
A turn in the
conversation.
Chapter 15 is short, but its movement is unusually concentrated. Krishna begins with an inverted sacred fig tree whose leaves are Vedic verses. Its branches spread through the qualities, its shoots are sense objects, and further roots bind through action in the human world. The image brings together the previous teaching on nature, knowledge, and attachment. The world is not presented as a set of disconnected things; it has a sustaining relation and a proliferating structure.
The tree cannot be fully grasped here through an ordinary view of its beginning, end, or foundation. Krishna instructs Arjuna to cut its deeply established hold with non-attachment and seek the primal person from whom the ancient current proceeds. The destination is described through non-return and a light not supplied by sun, moon, or fire. Detachment therefore has a direction: it opens toward refuge rather than simply leaving the person suspended without relation.
The teaching then turns to the living self, described as an enduring portion of Krishna. It draws the senses and mind, carries them between bodies, and experiences their objects. The wind carrying fragrance gives an image for a movement ordinary sight does not perceive. Knowledge and disciplined preparation are required to recognize it. The chapter's account belongs to its understanding of rebirth, not merely a metaphor for changing moods or roles.
Krishna next names his presence in sunlight, the nourishment of plants, digestion, memory, and knowledge. The cosmic source is also inward and sustaining. Finally he distinguishes the perishable, the imperishable, and the highest person who enters and supports the worlds. He identifies himself as that highest person. The chapter ends with knowing and wholehearted worship joined, describing an understanding in which the essential work has been accomplished.
Understand the tree whose branches spread through the qualities and action.
Cut its binding roots with non-attachment and seek the primal source.
I sustain the worlds and dwell in every heart. Know me as the highest person.
Chapter essence
Non-attachment loosens the world's binding hold so that its source can be sought. The highest person sustains both cosmic existence and the inward life through which that existence is known.
Key movements
Follow the
argument.
15.1–2
A living image of dependence
The tree's roots are above, reversing the reader's ordinary expectation. Its downward and upward branching gives a form to the world's extension, while the qualities nourish it and objects attract attention like new shoots. The additional roots associated with action locate bondage within human life. The Vedic leaves connect the image with sacred knowledge. The passage is not simply describing a beautiful cosmic object; it asks how a world is sustained, reproduced, known, and made binding through involvement.
15.3–6
Cutting and seeking belong together
The tree's form cannot be comprehended as an ordinary object with a readily visible foundation. Non-attachment is named as the firm weapon by which its hold is cut. But the instruction does not end with cutting. A destination must be sought, and refuge is directed toward the primal person. Freedom from pride, confusion, and possessive desire supports that movement. The highest abode is described as beyond borrowed illumination, giving the search a horizon beyond the world's recurring dependencies.
15.7–11
The living self and its instruments
The living self is described as an enduring portion of Krishna and as drawing the senses with the mind. It takes these faculties when entering and leaving bodies, as wind carries fragrance from its source. The image is precise about an unseen continuity without pretending that ordinary vision can observe it directly. Those with the eye of knowledge see; effort without inward preparation does not suffice. The account joins discernment with the transformation of the person attempting to discern.
15.12–15
Sustenance outside and within
The teaching moves from the sun's radiance to the earth's support, the nourishment of plants, the body's digestion, and the heart's capacities for memory and knowledge. This sequence brings divine sustenance close to ordinary life. The body is not discarded as spiritually irrelevant after the instruction to cut attachment. It remains a place of dependence upon Krishna. The Vedas themselves are gathered into the account: he is what they seek to make known, their culmination's maker, and their knower.
15.16–20
The highest person
The final distinction names the perishable, the imperishable, and another, highest person. Krishna identifies himself as transcending the perishable and standing above the imperishable, entering and sustaining the three worlds. Commentarial traditions explain these relations differently, and the compact verses should not be made to conceal those differences. Their devotional conclusion is explicit: the one who knows Krishna in this way worships with the whole being. Knowledge reaches completion in orientation, not merely in a successfully memorized classification.
Selected key verses
Stay with the words.
The Sanskrit, an original translation, and a way into the meaning.
Bhagavad Gita 15.1Krishna · in the dialogue
The roots above
Krishna said: They speak of an enduring sacred fig tree with roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the Vedic verses. One who knows this tree knows the Veda.
Original King of Dwarka translation · Complete verse
Why this verse matters
The inverted sacred fig tree gives a form to the world's dependence. Its roots are above and its branches below; the Vedic verses are its leaves. The following verses add the qualities, sense objects, and roots of action, so the image concerns both the world's sustaining source and the ways involvement in it becomes binding.
Explore deeper
The tree is called enduring, yet the next instruction is to cut its deeply rooted hold with non-attachment. The apparent tension is resolved by attending to the image's purpose: recurring existence has continuity, while freedom requires a changed relation to its entanglements. The chapter does not stop with destruction. It directs the reader toward the primal person and later describes divine nourishment within the world. Cutting attachment is not the same as despising life.
Bhagavad Gita 15.7Krishna · in the dialogue
The living self and its source
An enduring portion of me becomes the living self in the world of life. It draws to itself the senses, with the mind as the sixth, which belong to nature.
Original King of Dwarka translation · Complete verse
Why this verse matters
The living self is described as an enduring portion of Krishna, drawing the senses and the mind that belong to nature. The verse establishes both an abiding divine relation and the embodied instruments of experience. The next verse develops their movement through the image of wind carrying fragrance.
Explore deeper
Amsha means a portion or share, but its metaphysical interpretation differs among traditions. It need not imply a physical fragment broken from a larger material object. The translation preserves the relation without pretending that this single word settles every account of self and God. The passage then describes the living self entering and leaving bodies, so its horizon includes rebirth. Replacing that account entirely with a metaphor for personality change would lose part of the teaching.
Bhagavad Gita 15.15Krishna · in the dialogue
Present in every heart
I am established in everyone's heart. From me come memory, knowledge, and their loss. I alone am to be known through all the Vedas; I am the maker of the Veda's culmination and the knower of the Veda.
Original King of Dwarka translation · Complete verse
Why this verse matters
Krishna is described as inwardly present in everyone and as the source of memory, knowledge, and their removal. He is also what the Vedas seek to make known, their culmination's maker, and their knower. The verse brings the sustaining presence of the preceding passages into the capacities through which understanding itself becomes possible.
Explore deeper
The term apohana can indicate removal or loss; commentators discuss its relation to memory and knowledge in different ways. The translation retains that difficulty rather than promising uninterrupted mental clarity to devotees. The verse is about comprehensive dependence upon the divine, not a basis for diagnosing illness or divine displeasure. Its second half also makes scripture relational: sacred learning is directed toward knowing Krishna, rather than becoming a self-sufficient accumulation of textual accomplishment.
Read the full chapter
The whole conversation
matters.
All 20 verses, with Sanskrit, IAST transliteration and original King of Dwarka English.
Read Chapter 1520 verses · Sanskrit & English
Use the peacock feather above to mark your place. Sources & editions
15.1Krishna
Krishna said: They speak of an enduring sacred fig tree with roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the Vedic verses. One who knows this tree knows the Veda.
15.2
Its branches spread downward and upward, nourished by the qualities, with sense objects as their shoots. Its roots also extend below, binding through action in the human world.
15.3
Its form is not perceived here as it truly is: neither its end, its beginning, nor its foundation. Cut down this deeply rooted fig tree with the firm weapon of non-attachment,
15.4
and then seek that destination from which those who arrive do not return: 'I take refuge in that primal person from whom the ancient current of existence has flowed.'
15.5
Free of pride and confusion, having overcome the fault of attachment, constant in the knowledge of the self, their desires withdrawn and freed from the opposing pairs called pleasure and pain, the undeluded reach that imperishable destination.
15.6
Neither sun nor moon nor fire illuminates it. Those who reach it do not return. That is my highest abode.
15.7
An enduring portion of me becomes the living self in the world of life. It draws to itself the senses, with the mind as the sixth, which belong to nature.
Aṃśa, 'portion', raises a philosophical question about the enduring living self's relation to Krishna. Traditions distinguish literal division, dependent participation, and apparent limitation. The verse does not require imagining the divine as a material object cut into pieces.
15.8
When the embodied lord obtains a body, and when it leaves one, it carries these faculties with it, as the wind carries fragrances from their source.
15.9
Presiding over hearing, sight, touch, taste, smell, and the mind, this living self experiences the objects of the senses.
15.10
The deluded do not see it departing, remaining, or experiencing while joined with the qualities. Those with the eye of knowledge see.
15.11
Yogis who strive see it established within the self. But those whose selves are unprepared and whose understanding is absent do not see it, even though they strive.
15.12
The radiance in the sun that illuminates the entire world, and the radiance in the moon and in fire: know that radiance to be mine.
15.13
Entering the earth, I sustain beings by my power. Becoming Soma, whose nature is nourishing sap, I nourish all plants.
15.14
Becoming the digestive fire within the bodies of living beings, joined with the incoming and outgoing vital breaths, I digest the four kinds of food.
15.15
I am established in everyone's heart. From me come memory, knowledge, and their loss. I alone am to be known through all the Vedas; I am the maker of the Veda's culmination and the knower of the Veda.
Apohana is rendered as the loss or removal of knowledge. It is also interpreted as a discriminating rejection or removal of doubt. Both readings concern the grounds of cognition rather than a simple claim that forgetfulness is a moral failure.
15.16
There are two persons in the world: the perishable and the imperishable. All beings are the perishable; the unchanging is called the imperishable.
15.17
But there is another, the highest person, called the supreme self: the imperishable lord who enters and sustains the three worlds.
15.18
Because I transcend the perishable and am higher even than the imperishable, I am celebrated in the world and in the Veda as the highest person.
15.19
Whoever, free of confusion, knows me in this way as the highest person knows all and worships me with the whole of their being, descendant of Bharata.
15.20
Thus I have told you this deepest teaching, blameless one. Understanding it, a person becomes discerning and has accomplished what was to be done, descendant of Bharata.
A deeper reading
Questions worth
remaining with.
15.1–6
The tree is cut through attachment, not contempt
A reader might mistake the instruction to cut the tree for hatred of the world. The chapter's next movements resist that interpretation. Krishna is present in the radiance and nourishment that sustain beings, and in the inward capacities through which they know. What must be cut is the binding relation described through roots of action and attachment. The instrument is non-attachment, not cruelty toward embodied existence.
The paired instructions to cut and to seek are therefore important. Mere refusal can leave the structure of desire intact, with the ego now attached to its own renunciation. Seeking the primal source gives release a positive orientation. The tree remains a powerful image because it displays both dependence and entanglement. Freedom requires understanding that structure rather than merely replacing affection for the world with a prideful claim to stand outside it.
15.7–15
A portion does not settle every metaphysical question
The living self is called an enduring portion of Krishna. The Sanskrit term amsha can suggest a part or share, but traditions differ over how that relation applies to a reality not treated as divisible material. An introductory reading should retain the word's force without imposing a crude picture of a physical fragment broken from a larger body. The verse establishes an enduring relation, and the surrounding account explores its embodied conditions.
The progression toward nourishment and memory adds intimacy to that relation. Divine presence is not only something sought at a remote destination. It sustains the capacities through which seeking already occurs. The inclusion of the loss of memory or knowledge in 15.15 is philosophically difficult and is explained differently by commentators. It should not become a judgment that an individual illness reveals divine displeasure. The passage concerns comprehensive dependence, not a diagnosis of another person's condition.
15.16–20
Read the final distinction without rushing it
Perishable and imperishable recur elsewhere in the Gita, but their exact referents here require attention to this passage and its commentarial traditions. Some explanations distinguish conditioned beings, an unchanging principle, and the supreme; others articulate the relations differently. The chapter's claim about Krishna as Purushottama, the highest person, is unmistakable. Its precise metaphysical exposition cannot be replaced responsibly with a single casual equivalence.
The final verse nevertheless gives the inquiry a clear purpose. Understanding should make a person discerning and bring the essential undertaking to fulfilment. The previous verse joins that understanding with wholehearted worship. The chapter thus completes a movement from the branching complexity of existence to an integrated relation with its source. Its brevity intensifies the need to read slowly: each image and distinction carries work that a longer argument might have spread across many more verses.
Sources & editions
The complete chapter is above. These optional external editions support further study; their modern translations and commentaries belong to their publishers.
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