Cluster 0527 — BG-15.13 — *gām āviśya ca bhūtāni dhārayāmy aham ojasā — puṣṇāmi cauṣadhīḥ sarvāḥ somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥ*
BG-15.13
गामाविश्य च भूतानि धारयाम्यहमोजसा । पुष्णामि चौषधीः सर्वाः सोमो भूत्वा रसात्मकः ॥१३॥
"And entering the earth, I support all beings by my vital power; and becoming the sap-natured Soma (moon), I nourish all the herbs."
This is the second limb of the puruṣottama chapter's great theophany (BG-15.12-15), where Krishna stops describing a distant creator and names the specific things He does from inside the world. Two functions are paired here under one divine "I": He enters the earth (gām āviśya) and by ojas — vital cohesive force — holds all beings together against dissolution; and He becomes the sap-natured Soma-moon and nourishes every herb. The whole verse is an immanence-disclosure: the verb is āviśya, "having entered." Jñāneśvar's six ovis run this as a single unbroken cosmology — from the dust-clod that does not crumble because the indweller holds it (15.401), to the sky-moon imaged as a moving lake brimming with nectar whose ray-channels irrigate the storehouse of all herbs (15.403-404), down to the grain, the food, and the digestive fire by which a living being finally feels satisfied (15.405-406).
Ovi 15.401
Original (Marathi): मी रिगालों असें भूतळीं । म्हणौनि समुद्र महाजळीं । हे पांसूचि ढेंपुळी । विरेचिना ॥४०१॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the divine first-person मी रिगालों, "I have entered," opens the theophany-disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| मी रिगालों असें भूतळीं | I have entered into the earth (bhūtaḷa, the earth-ground) |
| म्हणौनि समुद्र महाजळीं | therefore the ocean, with its great waters |
| हे पांसूचि ढेंपुळी | and this very clod of dust (pāmsū-ḍhēmpuḷī) |
| विरेचिना | does not dissolve / does not crumble away |
Literal translation
English: I have entered into the earth — and therefore the ocean with all its great waters, and this very clod of dust, do not dissolve away.
मराठी (आधुनिक): मी पृथ्वीत प्रवेश केला आहे — म्हणूनच महासागर त्याच्या अफाट जळासह, आणि ही मातीची ढेकूळसुद्धा, विरून जात नाही, विखुरून जात नाही.
Sanskrit-root note
āviśya (गामाविश्य) = ā- (toward, into) + √viś (enter) — "having entered into"; the same viś root as praveśa. Jñāneśvar's रिगणें ("to enter, creep into") is the precise Marathi calque of this indwelling-verb, and he repeats it in 15.402.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| A clod of dust (and the ocean's mass) that does not dissolve | Ojas — the divine vital-cohesion that holds matter together from within; without the indweller, form would slump back into formlessness | The unseen binding force in any stable thing — the reason a structure holds is internal and invisible, never the surface you can see |
| "I have entered" (मी रिगालों) | Immanence — God is not outside the dust holding it up, but inside it as the holding | The integrity of a system coming from something woven through it, not propped against it from outside |
Metaphor-family: support-by-indwelling. The image is not decorative — the dust-clod not crumbling is the visible proof of the invisible ojas. Same indwelling-support logic recurs at 15.402.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. This is the vibhūti-theophany's cosmological earth-support; no cakra, suṣumnā, or kuṇḍalinī frame is active.
Cross-references
- Internal: Pairs with 15.402, which generalizes the same रिगणें (entering) from the earth to all beings — together they render gām āviśya bhūtāni dhārayāmi.
- Tukaram parallel: Abhang 37 — जेथें तेथें तुझीं च पाउलें — त्रिभुवन संचलें विठ्ठला गा ("wherever we look it is your footprints — the three worlds are filled with you, O Vitthala"), closing अणु तुजविण नाहीं — नभाहूनि पाहीं वाढ आहे ("not an atom exists without you — your extent is greater than the sky"). The same all-pervading indwelling, read from the support-side: Tukaram sees God filling every atom; here Krishna says it is precisely that indwelling that keeps the earth and ocean from dissolving. (Lines verified against corpus/0037.md.)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — गामाविश्य च भूतानि धारयाम्यहमोजसा; मी रिगालों भूतळीं renders gām āviśya, and विरेचिना ("does not dissolve") renders the dhārayāmi … ojasā support-by-vital-cohesion.
Modern application
- When the infrastructure holding your life together is completely invisible to you — until it fails. The power grid, the water main, the immune system, the routine that quietly keeps a household standing. The dust-clod "does not crumble," and you never ask why, because the holding is internal and silent. This ovi is the reminder that something is holding, all the time, unseen.
- When you mistake the surface stability of a thing for self-sufficiency. A company, a body, a relationship looks solid and you assume it stands on its own. The verse says: nothing stands on its own — the cohesion is borrowed from an indweller, and "it does not dissolve" is never the whole story.
- When you want to feel the sacred not above the world but inside ordinary matter. A handful of soil, a glass of water — मी रिगालों असें भूतळीं. The bhakti-claim is that the divine is not in a far heaven but in the clod that does not crumble in your hand.
Sādhanā
Today, pick up one ordinary solid object — a stone, a clod of earth, a coin. Hold it for thirty seconds and ask the single question: what is holding this together right now, that I never think about? Don't answer with chemistry; sit with the fact that something holds, and you didn't arrange it.
Arc
15.401 establishes the earth-entering that keeps even a dust-clod from dissolving; 15.402 widens the same indwelling-support to all the moving and unmoving beings the earth bears.
Ovi 15.402
Original (Marathi): आणी भूतेंही चराचरें । हे धरितसे जियें अपारें । तियें मीचि धरी धरे । रिगोनियां ॥४०२॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the divine first-person मीचि धरी, "it is I who bear," continues the disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| आणी भूतेंही चराचरें | and the beings too, moving and unmoving (cara-acara) |
| हे धरितसे जियें अपारें | which [the earth] bears — those countless [beings] |
| तियें मीचि धरी धरे | those it is I myself who bear, [I and] the earth (dharā) |
| रिगोनियां | by entering [them / it] |
Literal translation
English: And those countless beings too, moving and unmoving, which the earth bears — it is I myself who bear them, by entering [the earth and them].
मराठी (आधुनिक): आणि जी असंख्य चर-अचर भूतं ही पृथ्वी धारण करते — ती खरं तर मीच, धरेत प्रवेश करून, धारण करतो.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. चराचरें ("moving-and-unmoving") and the double-bearing (the earth bears beings, I bear the earth) are stated directly as the generalization of 15.401's image, not as a fresh unfolding figure.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: Parallel-image to 15.401 (the repeated रिगणें indwelling-verb forms the support-pair) and developed-further toward 15.403, where the verse pivots from support to nourishment.
- Tukaram parallel: (none specific to this ovi — the immanence-parallel sits at 15.401 where the indwelling is first stated)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — च भूतानि धारयाम्यहम् ("and I support the beings"); भूतेंही चराचरें … तियें मीचि धरी renders bhūtāni dhārayāmi aham, and रिगोनियां repeats āviśya — the support is a support-from-within.
Modern application
- When you realize the thing you thought was the support is itself being supported. You lean on the earth; the earth is held by something further in. The manager who holds the team, who is held by the system, which is held by… the chain of bearing never ends at a self-standing floor.
- When you draw a hard line between the living and the non-living and the sacred only on one side. चराचरें — moving and unmoving — are upheld alike. The stone and the animal are both borne by the same indweller; the verse refuses to make the inert profane.
- When you want a felt basis for treating all beings as kin. If one "I" enters and bears every moving and unmoving thing, then the countless beings share a single inner supporter. Kinship is not sentiment here; it is a claim about who is doing the holding.
Sādhanā
Today, in one room, silently name three things that are "being held" right now — a shelf bearing weight, a person carrying a worry, your own breath being kept going without your effort. After each, add the half-sentence: and that holder is itself held. Notice the chain.
Arc
15.402 completes the earth-support half of the verse; 15.403 turns to the second cosmic-function — Krishna becoming the sap-natured Soma-moon that nourishes.
Ovi 15.403
Original (Marathi): गगनीं मी पंडुसुता । चंद्राचेनि मिसें अमृता । भरला जालों चालता । सरोवरु ॥४०३॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the पंडुसुता "son-of-Pāṇḍu" vocative directly names Arjuna; the divine first-person मी … जालों anchors the disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| गगनीं मी पंडुसुता | in the sky, I, O son of Pāṇḍu (Arjuna) |
| चंद्राचेनि मिसें अमृता | under the guise / pretext of the moon (candra), [filled] with nectar (amṛta) |
| भरला जालों चालता | brimming, I have become a moving |
| सरोवरु | lake (sarovara) |
Literal translation
English: In the sky, O son of Pāṇḍu, under the guise of the moon I have become a moving lake brimming with nectar.
मराठी (आधुनिक): आकाशात, हे पंडुपुत्रा, चंद्राच्या निमित्ताने, अमृताने भरलेलं एक चालतं सरोवरच मी झालो आहे.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| The moon as a moving lake brimming with nectar traversing the sky | Soma rasātmaka — the divine become the cosmic reservoir of rasa (sap/vital-fluid); the sky-borne source-pool of all the nourishing sap that will descend to the herbs | A central reservoir from which a whole distribution-network draws — the upstream source that everything downstream silently depends on |
| "Under the guise of the moon" (चंद्राचेनि मिसें) | The visible moon is the appearance; the divine sap-reservoir is what it really is — vibhūti as God wearing a cosmic form | The familiar surface (the moon you see) is a costume over a function you never credited it with |
| "Nectar" (अमृत) brimming and moving | Rasa as living, flowing, self-renewing nourishment — not a static store but a circulating gift | A living supply that replenishes as it gives, not a fixed stock that depletes |
Metaphor-family: nectar-reservoir / lake-and-channel. This is the cluster's central extended metaphor; the lake of 15.403 is drained through the ray-channels of 15.404. The "moving lake" (चालता सरोवरु) is a deliberate paradox — a lake (still water) that moves (across the sky) — naming the moon's traversal as the circulation of divine sap.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. (Honest note: the candra-amṛta moon-nectar image is, in Nāth-yoga, also the bindu-amṛta dripping from the moon at the brahmarandhra/lalāṭa. But the referent here is overtly cosmological — गगनीं the sky-moon that feeds earthly herbs, exactly matching somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥ. No suṣumnā, cakra, or body-interior vocabulary is present; reading the soma-cakra amṛta-dhāra here would be an interpretive stretch against the plain vibhūti-cosmology, so the esoteric layer is declined rather than fabricated.)
Cross-references
- Internal: developed-further toward 15.404 (the ray-channels are drawn out of this lake) and the opening of the nourishment-arc closed at 15.406.
- Tukaram parallel: (none specific to this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — सोमो भूत्वा रसात्मकः ("having become the sap-natured Soma"); भूत्वा→जालों, सोमः/रसात्मकः→चंद्र/अमृता-सरोवरु. The पंडुसुता vocative confirms the Krishna-to-Arjuna chariot-frame.
Modern application
- When you benefit daily from a source you never look up at. Almost no one thinks of the moon as feeding their dinner, yet the verse routes the grain back to a sky-reservoir of sap. The upstream sources of your nourishment — soil, water-cycle, distant labor — are the "moving lake" you drink from without crediting.
- When you imagine the sacred has to be still and remote. The image is a lake that moves, nectar that circulates. The divine here is not a frozen absolute but a flowing, giving reservoir — sustenance in motion.
- When something familiar turns out to have a function you never assigned it. चंद्राचेनि मिसें — "under the guise of the moon." The plainest object in your sky is a costume over a feeding-function. Where else are you taking the surface for the whole thing?
Sādhanā
Tonight, if the moon is visible, look at it for one minute and say to yourself, slowly, the verse's claim: this is a moving lake of nectar, and the sap in tomorrow's food began here. You don't have to believe the cosmology — practice the seeing of the familiar object as a source you depend on.
Arc
15.403 fills the sky with the nectar-lake; 15.404 opens the channels — the moon's rays carry that sap down to fill the storehouse of all herbs.
Ovi 15.404
Original (Marathi): तेथूनि फांकती रश्मिकर । ते पाट पेलूनि अपार । सर्वौषधींचे आगर । भरित असें मी ॥४०४॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the divine first-person भरित असें मी, "I fill," anchors the nourishment-disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तेथूनि फांकती रश्मिकर | from there [the lake] spread out the moon-rays (raśmi-kara) |
| ते पाट पेलूनि अपार | those channels (pāṭa), countless, conveying / carrying [the sap] |
| सर्वौषधींचे आगर | the storehouse / field of all herbs (sarva-oṣadhi-āgara) |
| भरित असें मी | I am filling |
Literal translation
English: From that [nectar-lake] the moon-rays spread out — those countless channels, conveying [the sap] — and the storehouse of all herbs, I am filling.
मराठी (आधुनिक): त्या सरोवरातून चंद्रकिरणं पसरतात — ते असंख्य पाट [रस] वाहून नेतात — आणि सर्व औषधींचं — सर्व वनस्पतींचं — कोठार मी भरतो.
Sanskrit-root note
oṣadhi (औषधि) = the herbs/plants, especially the annual food-bearing and medicinal plants; in sarva-oṣadhi the "all-herb" totalizer that the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (2.2) uses of food itself (sarvauṣadha).
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Moon-rays as irrigation-channels (पाट) drawn off the nectar-lake | The distribution-mechanism of divine nourishment — rasa delivered from the cosmic reservoir to each individual plant | The pipe-and-channel layer of any supply: the reservoir is useless without the conveyance that brings it to each endpoint |
| "The storehouse of all herbs, I am filling" | Puṣṇāmi oṣadhīḥ sarvāḥ — the divine as the active filler of the world's food-store, nothing left un-nourished | The source that provisions the entire network, every node, without exception (सर्व) |
Metaphor-family: lake-and-channel / irrigation — continues directly from 15.403. The पाट (irrigation-channel) is an everyday Maharashtrian agricultural image: the moon's rays become the water-channels of a celestial farm.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: developed-further toward 15.405 (the filled herbs become grain-abundance and food).
- Tukaram parallel: (none specific to this ovi)
- Source citation:
- Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — पुष्णामि चौषधीः सर्वाः ("I nourish all the herbs"); सर्वौषधींचे आगर भरित असें मी renders oṣadhīḥ sarvāḥ puṣṇāmi, with the रश्मिकर-पाट ray-channel irrigation amplifying the bare nourishment into a full sap-cosmology.
- Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.2 (Brahmānanda-Vallī, Anuvāka II) — annam hi bhūtānām jyeṣṭham, tasmāt sarvauṣadham ucyate ("food is the eldest of beings, hence called the all-herb"). 15.404 shares the sarva-oṣadhi compound and the same move — the God-become-sap who fills all herbs is the upstream source of the anna by which beings live. Relation: echo.
Modern application
- When you see a reservoir but forget the delivery that makes it matter. Water in a dam feeds no field without the channels; a food-surplus feeds no one without distribution. The verse names the पाट — the conveyance — as part of the divine work, not an afterthought.
- When "abundance exists somewhere" is cold comfort to the one not reached. सर्व — all herbs, every node filled. The theological claim is that the nourishment reaches each plant; the practical echo is that a source that doesn't reach the endpoint hasn't finished the job.
- When you eat a plant and never trace it back past the grocery shelf. Trace one leaf back: shelf ← farm ← rain ← sun-and-moon-driven cycle ← the "storehouse of all herbs." The chain is real even when invisible.
Sādhanā
At your next meal, take the first bite and, before swallowing, trace that food backward in one breath: plate ← kitchen ← market ← field ← rain and light. Stop at the point where you can no longer name the link by hand. That edge is where the verse puts the divine filler.
Arc
15.404 fills the herb-storehouse with sap; 15.405 carries the consequence forward — the swollen herbs become a grain-abundance that gives all beings sustenance through food.
Ovi 15.405
Original (Marathi): ऐसेनि सस्यादिकां सकळां । करी धान्यजाती सुकाळा । दें अन्नद्वारां जिव्हाळा । भूतजातां ॥४०५॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the first-person nourishing-verbs करी / दें, "I make / I give," anchor the disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ऐसेनि सस्यादिकां सकळां | thus, for all the crops and the like (sasya = crop) |
| करी धान्यजाती सुकाळा | I make an abundance (sukāḷa) of the grain-kinds (dhānya-jāti) |
| दें अन्नद्वारां जिव्हाळा | I give, through the doorway of food (anna-dvāra), sustenance / life-warmth (jivhāḷā) |
| भूतजातां | to all classes of beings (bhūta-jāta) |
Literal translation
English: Thus, for all the crops, I make an abundance of grain; and through the doorway of food I give sustenance — life-warmth — to all classes of beings.
मराठी (आधुनिक): अशा रीतीने सर्व पिकांना मी धान्याचा सुकाळ करतो; आणि अन्नाच्या द्वारे सर्व भूतजातींना जिव्हाळा — जीवनरस — देतो.
Sanskrit-root note
jivhāḷā (जिव्हाळा) — Marathi for affection / warmth / life-sap; it carries both "tender warmth" and the older sense of vital-moisture (cf. जीव, life). Through anna-dvāra (the doorway of food), the moon-sap becomes the very jivhāḷā of beings.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. अन्नद्वारां ("through the doorway of food") is a single compact image — food as the door through which nourishment passes — not a sustained unfolding; the rest is the literal consequence-chain (sap → grain-abundance → sustenance).
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: developed-further toward 15.406 (the produced food still needs the digestive fire to become satisfaction).
- Tukaram parallel: (none specific to this ovi)
- Source citation:
- Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — पुष्णामि चौषधीः सर्वाः developed to its consequence: सस्यादिकां … धान्यजाती सुकाळा … अन्नद्वारां जिव्हाळा भूतजातां (crops → grain-abundance → sustenance-through-food to all beings).
- Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.2 — annād bhūtāni jāyante ("from food beings are born") and annam hi bhūtānām jyeṣṭham. The anna-as-life-medium of 15.405's अन्नद्वारां जिव्हाळा rests on the same anna-vidyā. Relation: echo.
Modern application
- When you feel the difference between being fed and being nourished. अन्नद्वारां जिव्हाळा — food is the door, but the thing that comes through it is jivhāḷā, life-warmth. A meal eaten in fear nourishes less than the same meal received as a gift; the verse points at what actually comes through the door.
- When abundance reaches you and you treat it as your own production. सुकाळा — the "good season," the surplus — is named here as given, not earned. The harvest credited to the farmer's labor alone forgets the sap-cycle upstream that no labor controls.
- When you want gratitude that has a definite object. Not vague thankfulness, but: the warmth I feel after eating came through the door of food, from a sap I did not make. The bhakti-claim hands you a specific recipient for the thanks.
Sādhanā
Today, after one meal, pause for the length of one slow breath and feel — literally feel — any warmth or settledness in your body. Name it: this is the jivhāḷā that came through the door of food. One moment of crediting the warmth to its source.
Arc
15.405 produces the food and gives its warmth to beings; 15.406 closes the cluster by naming the missing piece — the digestive fire that turns produced-food into actual satisfaction.
Ovi 15.406
Original (Marathi): आणि निपजविलें अन्न । तरी तैसें कैचें दीपन । जेणें जिरूनि समाधान । भोगिती जीव ॥४०६॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (the implied first-person — the producer of the food and the giver of the दीपन — continues the disclosure)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| आणि निपजविलें अन्न | and [even] the food [I have] produced (nipajaviṇē = to produce, bring forth) |
| तरी तैसें कैचें दीपन | yet, [without me] from where would come such digestive-fire / kindling (dīpana) |
| जेणें जिरूनि समाधान | by which, [the food] being digested (jirūni), satisfaction (samādhāna) |
| भोगिती जीव | living beings (jīva) enjoy / experience |
Literal translation
English: And even the food I have produced — from where else would come the digestive fire by which, once it is digested, living beings enjoy satisfaction?
मराठी (आधुनिक): आणि मी अन्न उत्पन्न केलं — तरी [माझ्यावाचून] ते पचवणारं दीपन — जठराग्नी — कुठून येणार? ज्याने अन्न जिरून जीव समाधान भोगतात.
Sanskrit-root note
dīpana (दीपन) = from √dīp (to blaze, kindle) — the kindling/digestive-fire that "lights up" the gastric process. The same root as dīpa (lamp). This term reaches forward to the vaiśvānara fire that the very next śloka (BG-15.14) names explicitly.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. दीपन ("digestive kindling") is a single technical term, and the food → digestion → satisfaction sequence is stated as the literal completion of the nourishment-arc, not as a fresh sustained image.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The दीपन here is the ordinary digestive (jaṭhara) fire of the vibhūti-cosmology, named to bridge to BG-15.14's vaiśvānara — not the yogic kindling of the inner fire.
Cross-references
- Internal: parallel-image closing back to 15.403 — the nourishment-arc (nectar-lake → ray-channels → herb-storehouse → grain → food → digestion → satisfaction) completes the cycle the moon-lake opened.
- Tukaram parallel: (none specific to this ovi)
- Source citation:
- Bhagavad Gītā 15.13 — closes the nourishment-arc: निपजविलें अन्न … दीपन … जिरूनि समाधान भोगिती जीव (produced-food → digestive-fire → digested → beings enjoy satisfaction). Producing food is incomplete without the fire that digests it — and Krishna is that too.
- Bhagavad Gītā 15.14 — aham vaiśvānaro bhūtvā prāṇinām deham āśritaḥ — prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ pacāmy annam caturvidham ("becoming the vaiśvānara-fire seated in the bodies of beings, joined with prāṇa-apāna, I digest the four-fold food"). 15.406's दीपन anticipates this immediately-following śloka — a different verse than this cluster's own BG-15.13, the bridge forward. Relation: echo.
Modern application
- When you provide something to someone who cannot yet receive it. Food without digestion is just matter; advice without readiness, money without capacity, love without trust — the gift is incomplete until the दीपन on the receiving side is lit. The verse insists the giver supplies even that.
- When you notice that satisfaction is a separate event from acquisition. You got the meal, the promotion, the thing — and felt no समाधान. The verse locates satisfaction not in the food but in the digesting of it; what you have not metabolized cannot satisfy you.
- When you want to credit not just the harvest but the capacity to be nourished by it. That your body can turn bread into warmth is itself a gift you did not arrange. The bhakti-claim extends the divine work all the way to the inner fire that makes the gift usable.
Sādhanā
Today, find one good thing you "have" but haven't actually let land — a kindness received, a small success, a meal eaten in a rush. Spend two minutes digesting it: recall it slowly, let it settle, notice it move from possession to satisfaction. That settling is the दीपन this ovi names.
Arc
15.406 closes the cluster by naming the digestive fire that turns produced-food into satisfaction — and in doing so hands directly to the next śloka (BG-15.14), where Krishna will name that fire by its name: aham vaiśvānaro bhūtvā … pacāmy annam caturvidham, "becoming the vaiśvānara-fire, I digest the four-fold food."
Cluster summary
Core teaching: BG-15.13 is the second limb of the puruṣottama-theophany (BG-15.12-15), pairing two cosmic-functions under one divine "I": ENTERING the earth, Krishna upholds all beings by ojas — vital cohesion — so that even the ocean and a clod of dust do not dissolve; and BECOMING the sap-natured Soma-moon, He nourishes every herb. Jñāneśvar runs this as a single unbroken sap-cosmology across six ovis: the dust-clod that holds because the indweller holds it (15.401-402), the sky-moon imaged as a moving lake brimming with nectar (15.403) whose ray-channels irrigate the storehouse of all herbs (15.404), and the resulting grain, food, and finally the digestive fire by which a living being is satisfied (15.405-406). The whole cluster is an immanence-disclosure — the verb is āviśya, "having entered" — and Jñāneśvar's one sustained metaphor, the nectar-lake-and-ray-channels, makes the abstract somo bhūtvā rasātmakaḥ into a vivid celestial irrigation-cosmology.
Chapter arc position: This cluster sits inside the great theophany of chapter 15. BG-15.12 gave the radiance of sun, moon, and fire; BG-15.13 (here) gives the earth-support and the herb-nourishment; BG-15.14 will give the vaiśvānara digestive-fire; BG-15.15 will seat Krishna in all hearts as the source of memory and knowledge. The cluster's distinctive force is its immanence — not a creator standing over the world, but the God who enters and sustains every particle of matter from within, the same all-pervading indwelling that Tukaram (abhang 37) reads from the worship-side: अणु तुजविण नाहीं, "not an atom exists without you."
Connects to BG-15.14: अहं वैश्वानरो भूत्वा प्राणिनां देहमाश्रितः — प्राणापानसमायुक्तः पचाम्यन्नं चतुर्विधम्. Having produced and nourished the food in BG-15.13, Krishna now becomes the vaiśvānara-fire in every body that DIGESTS the four-fold food — the very दीपन (digestive-kindling) that Jñāneśvar already reaches toward in this cluster's closing ovi 15.406. The sap-cosmology that began at the sky-moon's nectar-lake completes in the gastric fire of every living being.