अहं वैश्वानरो भूत्वा प्राणिनां देहम् आश्रितः । प्राणापानसमायुक्तः पचाम्य् अन्नं चतुर्विधम् ॥
ahaṃ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā prāṇināṃ deham āśritaḥ | prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ pacāmy annaṃ catur-vidham ||
I am Vaiśvānara — the digestive fire in every living body — digesting all four kinds of food with prāṇa and apāna.
Word by word (3)
- ahaṃ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā prāṇināṃ deham āśritaḥ
- — I, having become Vaiśvānara (the digestive/universal fire), residing in (āśritaḥ) the bodies (deham) of breathing creatures (prāṇinām) — the jāṭharāgni as Krishna's form
- prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ
- — joined/united (samāyuktaḥ) with prāṇa (upward breath) and apāna (downward breath) — the two primary prāṇic forces that support digestion
- pacāmy annaṃ catur-vidham
- — I digest (pacāmi) the four kinds of food (annaṃ catur-vidham): chewed, swallowed, sucked, and licked — all digestion is His activity
Having become Vaiśvānara (the digestive fire), I abide in the bodies of all breathing creatures. United with the upward and downward life-breaths, I digest the fourfold food.
A modern analogy
The kitchen stove does not cook; the fire does. And the fire in your body's 'kitchen' (the digestive system) — the jāṭharāgni — is the same Agni that blazes in ritual fires and in the sun. When you eat, it is not merely chemistry — it is Krishna as Vaiśvānara doing the sacred work of transformation.
V14 completes the triad: V12 = luminous fire (sun/moon/candle), V13 = nourishing earth-Soma, V14 = embodied metabolic fire. All three are aspects of the same Tejas-principle in different domains. Vaiśvānara is significant: it is both 'viśva-nara' (present in all humans) and the fire common to all beings — a Vedic cosmological category that bridge the macro and micro. V14 closes the cosmic-descent with the most intimate location: inside your own digestive system.
This verse echoes Chāndogya Upaniṣad 5.18-24 (the Vaiśvānara Vidyā), where Brahman is identified as the cosmic body whose head is fire, eye is sun, breath is air, trunk is the sky, belly is earth. The same Vaiśvānara that is the cosmic fire also dwells as the somatic digestive fire — the macrocosm-microcosm identity. Digestion (pacana) is therefore a sacred activity, not merely biological.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
Abiding in the body of living beings as Vaisvanara, associated with Prana and Apana, I digest the fourfold food. [1]
Abiding in the body of living beings as the fire Vaishvanara, I, associated with Prana and Apana, digest the fourfold food. [4]
Having become the fire Vaishvanara, and entered the bodies of creatures that breathe, I, joined with the upward and downward life-breaths, digest the four varieties of food. [9]
Myself becoming the vital heat Vaiswanara residing in the bodies of creatures that breathe, and uniting with the upward and the downward life-breaths, I digest the four kinds of food. [13]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Sitting still while the mind craves sense-objects is not discipline — the Gita calls it hypocrisy.
If You think me capable of seeing it, O Lord of Yogins — show me Your imperishable, all-pervading Self.
Paramātmā: beginningless, nirguṇa, imperishable — dwelling in the body, yet neither acts nor is tainted.
Śraddhā of the embodied is threefold — born of svabhāva (one's own nature): sāttvikī, rājasī, tāmasī. Hear this.
Tāmasic tapas: done with foolish delusion, self-torture, or to destroy another — declared tāmasic.
Unborn. Undying. Ancient. Eternal. Not slain when the body is slain — this is what you are.