Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 15, Verse 14: Krishna to Arjuna — Puruṣottama-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The supreme Brahman, which alone is, appears as the vaisvanara (the digestive fire within the body), dwelling inside the living being as the inner self (antaratman). As the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad declares, 'This Agni Vaisvanara who is inside a person, by whom this food that is eaten is cooked,' that one non-dual Atman, united with prana and apana as its instruments, digests the fourfold food (bhaksya, bhojya, lehya, cosya). The one who sees that both the eater (Vaisvanara as Agni) and the eaten (food as Soma) are together the whole of existence — Agnisomaatmakam sarvam — is not tainted by the faults of food.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The Paramatman (supreme Person), of whom all beings are modes (prakaras), becomes the jatharagni (gastric fire) dwelling within every embodied being, and, united with the functional modes of prana and apana, digests the fourfold food — chewable, drinkable, lickable, and suckable — that creatures consume. Here Bhagavan declares his vibhuti (lordly manifestation) in both Soma and Vaisvanara together, naming himself by their names through samanadhikaranya (grammatical co-reference), showing that the cosmos of nourishment is entirely his body. The act of digestion is thus not a natural process but the Lord's direct kainkarya (service-as-lordship) to his own body.

• Madhvadvaita

  Madhva treats 15.12-14 together: Hari alone, eternally distinct from and superior to all jivas, pervades the cosmos as the light in the sun, the moisture in the moon, and here as the Vaisvanara fire within all living beings. The jiva that digests food does not do so by its own power; Hari, dwelling inside as the inner controller (antaryamin), directs prana and apana and performs the digestion. The jiva is eternally dependent (paratantra), the food and the fire both belong to Hari, and the fourfold nourishment that sustains embodied life is his prasada.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha anchors this verse in the Brahmasutra discussion (1.2.24) on the Vaisvanara of the Chandogya Upanishad: the word vaisvanara is a scriptural technical term pointing to Krishna himself pervading all as the digestive fire, not merely a physiological fact. Krishna declares his own sarvavyapakata (all-pervasiveness) through naming himself in namas and rupas — 'Vaisvanara, lord of speech, the gastric fire, that am I.' The prana and apana are his own expressed distinctions; the fourfold food dissolves into his lila. To recognise that the fire eating within you is Krishna's own playful self-consumption is to receive every meal as prasada.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara gives the most careful taxonomy of the fourfold food: bhaksya is what is chewed and bitten (like modaka or apupa); bhojya is what is swallowed after rolling on the tongue (like payasa); lehya is what is placed on the tongue and licked off as it liquefies (like raw jaggery, rasala, or sikharin); cosya is what is pressed between the teeth to extract juice and then discarded (like sugarcane stalk). All four kinds are digested by the Lord himself who, having entered the body as the jatharagni and kindled by prana and apana, performs the cooking. The devotee sees every act of eating as the Lord's own operation within the body.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana holds both registers simultaneously: the Isvara himself, as established by the sruti ('This Agni Vaisvanara who is inside a person, by whom food is cooked'), enters all bodies as the gastric fire, fanned into activity by prana and apana, and digests the fourfold food. He preserves the full Advaita gloss — one who meditates on all this as 'Agnisomaatmakam sarvam' (everything as fire-and-soma, the eater-and-eaten) is freed from the taint of whatever food is consumed — while equally stressing that this inner fire is the personal Lord, Krishna, whose presence in digestion is not metaphor but fact. The bhakta and the jnani converge here: the same inner reality is worshipped as Bhagavan and recognised as Brahman.