Sanskrit
न तद्भासयते सूर्यो न शशाङ्को न पावकः । यद्गत्वा न निवर्तन्ते तद्धाम परमं मम ॥
na tad bhāsayate sūryo na śaśāṅko na pāvakaḥ yad gatvā na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṃ mama
Translation
Nor doth the sun lighten there, nor moon, nor fire; having gone thither they return not; that is My supreme abode.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The destination described abstractly in verse 4 gets a concrete image here — a place needing no external light source, unlike everything in the visible world that depends on sun, moon, or fire. This is less a claim about literal astronomy than a way of saying the “supreme abode” is self-luminous consciousness itself, not a location illuminated by something else. A very similar figure appears in the Katha and Mundaka Upanishads’ descriptions of Brahman as that which shines without needing sun, moon, or stars, and this verse is almost certainly drawing on that same image directly.