Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15, Verse 1

Chapter 15 – Purushottama Yoga · Speaker: Krishna

Sanskrit verse

श्रीभगवानुवाच ।
ऊर्ध्वमूलमधःशाखमश्वत्थं प्राहुरव्ययम् ।
छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि यस्तं वेद स वेदवित् ॥

Transliteration

śrībhagavānuvāca .
ūrdhvamūlamadhaḥśākhamaśvatthaṃ prāhuravyayam .
chandāṃsi yasya parṇāni yastaṃ veda sa vedavit ॥

Meaning

The Blessed Lord said: The wise speak of an imperishable ashvattha (peepul) tree with its roots above and its branches below, whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who truly knows this tree is a knower of the Vedas.

Word meanings

श्रीभगवान् उवाच – the Blessed Lord said
ऊर्ध्वमूलम् – having its root above
अधःशाखम् – having its branches below
अश्वत्थम् – the peepul tree; that which does not last till tomorrow
प्राहुः – they speak of
अव्ययम् – imperishable, endless as a stream
छन्दांसि – the Vedic metres, hymns
यस्य – whose
पर्णानि – leaves
यः – who
तम् – that (tree)
वेद – knows
सः – he
वेदवित् – a knower of the Vedas

Anvaya (word order)

श्रीभगवान् उवाच — ऊर्ध्वमूलम् अधःशाखम् अश्वत्थम् अव्ययम् प्राहुः । छन्दांसि यस्य पर्णानि, यः तम् वेद सः वेदवित् ।

Explanation

Having shown in the fourteenth chapter how the three gunas bind the soul and how one rises beyond them, Krishna opens the fifteenth with one of the most striking images in all of Indian scripture: an upside-down peepul tree. This tree is samsara, the whole cycle of embodied existence. An ordinary tree is rooted in the earth below; this one is rooted above, in the highest, subtlest reality, the Supreme. From that root the branches of creation spread downward, through the creator Brahma and the gods, down to humans, animals and plants.

The name ashvattha carries its own lesson. Traditional etymology reads it as ‘na shvah sthata’, that which will not stand till tomorrow. The world changes every moment, yet it is called avyaya, imperishable, because its flow has no traceable beginning or end, like a river whose water is never the same though the river remains. The image is ancient: the Katha Upanishad (2.3.1) declares, ‘Root above, branches below, this is the eternal ashvattha,’ and identifies its root as the pure Brahman, the immortal. Tree imagery for the cosmos also appears in the Mundaka and Shvetashvatara Upanishads, and the Gita gathers this Upanishadic vision into a few lines.

The Vedic hymns are its leaves. Leaves protect a tree and keep it green; in the same way the ritual portion of the Vedas, with its promises of heaven, wealth and progeny for those who perform sacrifices, keeps the tree of worldly life flourishing. This recalls Krishna’s earlier warning (2.42–45) against the ‘flowery words’ of those who cling to the ritual sections, and his call to rise above the three gunas.

Hence the closing line: whoever knows this tree is the true knower of the Vedas. Vedic knowledge is not memorising mantras; it is seeing that the world is transient, that its root is the Divine, and that refuge lies at the root rather than among the leaves. Shankara reads the root above as Brahman conditioned by the unmanifest, and the tree as a product of maya to be sublated by knowledge. Ramanuja also takes ‘above’ to point to the four-faced Brahma in the highest world, where the unfolding of creation begins, and treats the tree as the real but binding expansion of the Lord’s prakriti. Madhva sees it as a real world wholly dependent on Hari, who is its ultimate root.

Context

The fourteenth chapter closed with the marks of one who transcends the gunas and with unswerving devotion (14.26). Now, without any question from Arjuna, Krishna begins a new teaching on the nature of the world through the image of the ashvattha tree. The next verses describe its branches and roots, and then how it is to be cut down.

Life lesson

The glitter of the world is like foliage: lovely, yet always falling. Wisdom does not spend a lifetime counting leaves; it traces everything back to its root in the Divine. Real learning is whatever turns us toward that source.

Key terms

Ashvattha: the peepul tree; a symbol of the ever-changing world
Urdhva-mula: rooted above, that is, in the Supreme
Chhandas: Vedic hymns, called the leaves of the tree
Vedavit: one who knows the true purport of the Vedas