Sanskrit
मम योनिर्महद्ब्रह्म तस्मिन् गर्भं दधाम्यहम् । सम्भवः सर्वभूतानां ततो भवति भारत ॥
mama yonir mahad brahma tasmin garbhaṃ dadhāmy aham sambhavaḥ sarvabhūtānāṃ tato bhavati bhārata
Translation
My womb is the great Eternal; in that I place the germ; thence cometh the birth of all beings, O Bhârata.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A cosmogonic image, not a biological one: Krishna names “the great Eternal” (mahad brahma — prakriti, primordial nature) as his own womb, into which he places the germ that becomes every being. The pairing matters for what follows — prakriti supplies the substance, Krishna supplies the seed, and verse 5’s claim that the gunas are “born of prakriti” only makes sense once this dual origin is on the table. Nature is not self-generating here; it is the material cause working alongside a conscious source.