14.4

Sanskrit

सर्वयोनिषु कौन्तेय मूर्तयः संभवन्ति याः । तासां ब्रह्म महद्योनिरहं बीजप्रदः पिता ॥

sarvayoniṣu kaunteya mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ tāsāṃ brahma mahad yonir ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā

Translation

In whatsoever wombs mortals are produced, O Kaunteya, the great Eternal is their womb, I their generating father.

Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain

Explanation

Verse 3 generalized here: whatever form a being takes, born from whatever womb, the same two-part origin applies — prakriti as the universal womb, Krishna as the seed-giving father. This closes the cosmogonic preamble. Having established that every embodied being’s substance comes from nature, the chapter can now ask the question it actually cares about: what is it about that nature-given substance that binds the being living inside it? Verse 5 answers directly.