सर्वतः पाणिपादं तत् सर्वतोऽक्षिशिरोमुखम् / सर्वतः श्रुतिमल् लोके सर्वम् आवृत्य तिष्ठति
sarvataḥ pāṇi-pādaṃ tat sarvato'kṣi-śiro-mukham / sarvataḥ śrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati
Brahman: hands, feet, eyes, heads, mouths, ears everywhere — enveloping and pervading the entire universe.
Word by word (4)
- sarvataḥ pāṇi-pādam tat
- — That (tat = Brahman) has hands (pāṇi) and feet (pāda) everywhere (sarvataḥ) · Sarvataḥ = from all sides, everywhere (sarva + taḥ = from all). Pāṇi = hand; pāda = foot. Brahman has the capacity of grasping and moving everywhere — this is not a physical description but a declaration of Brahman's omnipotence (ability to act anywhere). The Puruṣa Sūkta (RV 10.90) also uses the cosmic body imagery: Puruṣa with thousand heads, eyes, feet.
- sarvataḥ akṣi-śiraḥ-mukham
- — with eyes (akṣi), heads (śiras), and mouths (mukha) everywhere · Akṣi = eye (capacity for perception and light); śiras = head (seat of consciousness and will); mukha = mouth (speech, expression, consumption). Each sense/organ represents a cosmic faculty: Brahman perceives everywhere (akṣi), knows everywhere (śiras), expresses and receives everywhere (mukha). This is omniscience + omnipresence expressed in bodily metaphor.
- sarvataḥ śrutimat loke
- — with hearing (śrutimant = endowed with śruti/hearing) everywhere in the world · Śrutimat = possessed of hearing. Brahman hears everywhere in the world (loke). This is not mere omniscience but the specific capacity to receive the prayers, joys, and sorrows of all beings — a quality particularly important in bhakti theology: Brahman hears.
- sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati
- — existing by enveloping/encompassing all (sarvam = all; āvṛtya = having covered/enveloped; tiṣṭhati = stands, abides, exists) · Āvṛtya = having encompassed, wrapped around (ā + vṛ = to cover all around). Tiṣṭhati = abides. The conclusive image: Brahman does not merely pervade the world as water fills a pot; it ENVELOPS all — the world is inside Brahman, not Brahman inside the world. This is the Vedantic panentheism: the universe is within Brahman, not Brahman within the universe.
After the paradoxical na sat nāsad (V13), Krishna now gives a positive cosmological description. Brahman is not a thing hiding somewhere: it has hands everywhere (acts everywhere), feet everywhere (moves everywhere), eyes everywhere (perceives everywhere), heads everywhere (knows everywhere), mouths everywhere (receives and gives everywhere), hearing everywhere (receives all). The crowning statement: it stands by enveloping ALL — the universe is inside Brahman, not outside.
A modern analogy
Ocean and waves: the ocean doesn't just touch the waves — the waves ARE the ocean in motion. Similarly, Brahman doesn't just 'pervade' the universe — all the universe's hands, feet, eyes, and mouths ARE Brahman's capacities appearing in countless forms. 'Sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati' = the ocean-nature that wraps around and includes every wave.
What it does NOT mean
Some readers take V14 as a description of a pantheistic God-who-is-literally-everywhere-visible. But this is a metaphysical statement, not a physical description. Brahman's 'hands everywhere' means the universal capacity for action is Brahman; the 'eyes everywhere' means the universal faculty of perception is Brahman. It is a statement about capacities and functions, not about a cosmic physical body.
V14 is the Gita's version of the Puruṣa Sūkta (RV 10.90) — the cosmic Puruṣa with thousand heads, eyes, feet. But the Gita's Brahman goes beyond the cosmogonic Puruṣa: this is not a myth of creation from the cosmic body but a metaphysical statement of what Brahman IS right now, always. Śaṃkara reads the body-imagery as indicating the infinitely distributed capacities (śaktis) of Brahman — not actual limbs but metaphors for omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
With hands and feet everywhere, with eyes, heads, and mouths everywhere, with ears everywhere in the universe — That exists pervading all. [4]
[Arnold full chapter text; verse describes Brahman with hands and feet everywhere, eyes and heads and mouths everywhere, hearing everywhere] [7]
With hands and feet on all sides, with eyes, heads and faces on all sides, with hearing on all sides, That exists in the world, enveloping all. [9]
With hands and feet on all sides, with eyes, heads, and faces on all sides, with ears on all sides — That exists in the world enveloping all. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Action → yajna → rain → food → all beings. Human right-action sustains the entire chain of life.
Whoever does not turn the cosmic wheel of giving — living only for sense-pleasure — lives in vain.
I taught this imperishable yoga to the sun-god at the dawn of time — it has been passed down through kings ever since.
Whenever dharma declines and adharma rises — I project Myself forth. The divine responds to every crisis.
For the protection of the good, destruction of wickedness, establishment of dharma — I come, age after age.
All beings arise from these two natures as their womb — and I am the origin and dissolution of the entire universe.