Devanagari
यो वा अहं च गिरिशश्च विभु: स्वयं च
स्थित्युद्भवप्रलयहेतव आत्ममूलम् ।
भित्त्वा त्रिपाद्ववृध एक उरुप्ररोह-
स्तस्मै नमो भगवते भुवनद्रुमाय ॥ १६ ॥
Verse text
yo vā ahaṁ ca giriśaś ca vibhuḥ svayaṁ ca
sthity-udbhava-pralaya-hetava ātma-mūlam
bhittvā tri-pād vavṛdha eka uru-prarohas
tasmai namo bhagavate bhuvana-drumāya
Synonyms
yaḥ
—
one who
;
vai
—
certainly
;
aham ca
—
also I
;
giriśaḥ ca
—
also Śiva
;
vibhuḥ
—
the Almighty
;
svayam
—
personality (as Viṣṇu)
;
ca
—
and
;
sthiti
—
maintenance
;
udbhava
—
creation
;
pralaya
—
dissolution
;
hetavaḥ
—
the causes
;
ātma
—
mūlam — self-rooted
;
bhittvā
—
having penetrated
;
tri
—
pāt — three trunks
;
vavṛdhe
—
grew
;
ekaḥ
—
one without a second
;
uru
—
many
;
prarohaḥ
—
branches
;
tasmai
—
unto Him
;
namaḥ
—
obeisances
;
bhagavate
—
unto the Personality of Godhead
;
bhuvana
—
drumāya — unto the tree of the planetary system .
Translation
Your Lordship is the prime root of the tree of the planetary systems. This tree has grown by first penetrating the material nature in three trunks — as me, Śiva and You, the Almighty — for creation, maintenance and dissolution, and we three have grown with many branches. Therefore I offer my obeisances unto You, the tree of the cosmic manifestation.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
I offer my respects to the Supreme Lord, the tree of the worlds, who is Brahmā, the cause of creation, Śiva, the cause of destruction and independent Viṣṇu, the cause of maintenance, and who, though one, after dividing up pradhāna, increases into three branches (guṇāvatāras), and then into extended branches (Prajāpatis and Manus).
Brahmā offers respects, indicating that not only he, but the all the elements starting from maha-tattva, should surrender to the Lord, since they all arise from the Lord. That one Lord (ekaḥ) increases by having three large branches (tripāt), consisting of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, and having extended (uru) branches consisting of Prajāpatis such as Marīci and the Manus. What has he done to increase in this way? Dividing the cause of all bodies, pradhāna (ātmā-mūlam), into the three guṇas, the Lord has become Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva. Their functions are described not in exact sequence. Viṣṇu is distinguished by the word svayam, to show that he is not related to the guṇas in the same way as Brahmā and Śiva. He is completely separate by his very nature. Or the meaning can be “He who is Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, who is the cause of himself ātma-mūlam), dividing up by means of his śaktis, first becomes the three worlds (tripāt) and then the fourteen worlds (uruprarohaḥ) I offer respects to the form of the worlds, the universal form, who is like a tree.”
Purport
The cosmic manifestation is grossly divided into three worlds, the upper, lower and middle planetary systems, and then it broadens into the cosmos of fourteen planetary systems, with the manifestation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the supreme root. Material nature, which appears to be the cause of the cosmic manifestation, is only the agency or energy of the Lord. This is confirmed in
Bhagavad-gītā
(9.10)
:
mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram.
“Only under the superintendence of the Supreme Lord does material nature appear to be the cause of all creation, maintenance and dissolution.” The Lord expands Himself into three — Viṣṇu, Brahmā and Śiva — for maintenance, creation and destruction respectively. Of the three principal agents controlling the three modes of material nature, Viṣṇu is the Almighty; even though He is within material nature for the purpose of maintenance, He is not controlled by the laws of material nature. The other two, Brahmā and Śiva, although almost as greatly powerful as Viṣṇu, are within the control of the material energy of the Supreme Lord. The conception of many gods controlling the many departments of material nature is ill conceived of by the foolish pantheist. God is one without a second, and He is the primal cause of all causes. As there are many departmental heads of governmental affairs, so there are many heads of management of the universal affairs.
Due to a poor fund of knowledge, the impersonalist does not believe in the personal management of things as they are. But in this verse it is clearly explained that everything is personal and nothing is impersonal. We have already discussed this point in the Introduction, and it is confirmed here in this verse. The tree of the material manifestation is described in the Fifteenth Chapter of
Bhagavad-gītā
as an
aśvattha
tree whose root is upward. We have actual experience of such a tree when we see the shadow of a tree on the bank of a reservoir of water. The reflection of the tree on the water appears to hang down from its upward roots. The tree of creation described here is only a shadow of the reality which is Parabrahman, Viṣṇu. In the internal potency manifested in the Vaikuṇṭhalokas, the actual tree exists, and the tree reflected in the material nature is only the shadow of this actual tree. The impersonalists’ theory that Brahman is void of all variegatedness is false because the shadow-tree described in
Bhagavad-gītā
cannot exist without being the reflection of a real tree. The real tree is situated in the eternal existence of spiritual nature, full of transcendental varieties, and Lord Viṣṇu is the root of that tree also. The root is the same — the Lord — both for the real tree and the false, but the false tree is only the perverted reflection of the real tree. The Lord, being the real tree, is here offered obeisances by Brahmā on his own behalf and also on behalf of Lord Śiva.