Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 14, Verse 3: Krishna to Arjuna — Guṇatraya-Vibhāga-Yoga
The great Brahman is my womb; into it I place the seed, and from that union all beings come forth, Arjuna.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
The great womb (mahat brahma) is none other than my own tripartite prakriti (material nature) — called 'great' because it surpasses all effects and nourishes its own transformations. Into that womb I, the Lord (Ishvara) who wields the dual power of field and field-knower, deposit the seed that is the embryo of Hiranyagarbha and the cause of all birth. This act means I conjoin the field-knower — conditioned by ignorance, desire, and karma — with the field, and from that conjunction all beings arise, O Bharata.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Mahat brahma is the unconscious prakriti — the eight-fold lower nature described in BG 7.4 — and it belongs entirely to me as my body; in it I deposit the seed, which is the aggregate of conscious souls (chetana-punja), identified as my higher nature (para prakriti) from BG 7.5. The conjunction of conscious experiencer (bhoktri) with unconscious experience-field (bhogya) is my deliberate act of will, not an autonomous Sankhya coupling. From this divinely-willed union of the two prakriti-s arises the entire creation from Brahma down to a blade of grass.
- Madhvadvaita
Mahat brahma here means prakriti, and that prakriti is not one entity but is itself threefold — Shri, Bhu, and Durga — while Uma, Sarasvati and other beings are other jivas who are parts (amsha) of those goddesses. The 'womb' (yoni) in 'mama yonir' is the place of embryo-placement, not the mother — as the Sama-veda Sharkarakshashruti confirms: 'Vishnu's yoni is Mahamaya, purpose-built for embryo-holding, free from all suffering.' Thus all birth, including the apparent suffering of Sita and similar figures, is the Lord's deliberate illusion-play, not real.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Having drawn the listener forward with praise, Bhagavan now reveals his unfathomable-power lila (acintya-shakti-vaibhava-lila): prakriti as 'my yoni' is a portion of my own sat-essence (sadamshabhuta), designated mahat brahma by shruti ('tasmad etad brahma namarupa-mannam ca jayate'). Into that unconscious causal prakriti I, the imperishable Purusha (aksharatma), deposit the conscious seed — the aggregate of jivas who are non-different from my own caitanya — through the act of seeing and sustaining (ikshana-dharana). From that cosmic embryo all beings arise.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Prakriti is called mahat brahma because it is unlimited in space and time and because it causes the growth (brimhana) of all its effects. That mahat brahma is the Lord's womb (garbhadhana-sthana); into it he deposits the embryo — the cidabhasa (reflected consciousness) that is the cause of world-expansion — thereby conjoining the field-knower, who lay dissolved in him at pralaya carrying latent karma and desires, with the experiential field at the moment of creation. From that act of cosmic insemination, all beings from Brahma downward are born.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Unlike the Sankhya view where prakriti and purusha are independently co-causal, here the Lord makes explicit that both are subordinate instruments: mahat brahma — the great unmanifest three-gunned maya — is his womb, and his resolve ('aham bahu syam prajayeya') is the seed he deposits there. Just as a father places his son-seed into a womb so the son acquires a body, the Lord at creation places the reflected-consciousness seed (cidabhasa-retas) into maya to unite the field-knower — who lay latent with karmic residues through pralaya — with the aggregate of body and senses; and from that union all beings from Hiranyagarbha onward arise.