Chapter 3 · Verse 38·Spoken by Krishna
धूमेनाव्रियते वह्निर्यथाऽऽदर्शो मलेन च। यथोल्बेनावृतो गर्भस्तथा तेनेदमावृतम्
dhūmenāvriyate vahnir yathādarśho malena cha yatholbenāvṛito garbhas tathā tenedam āvṛitam
As fire is veiled by smoke, as a mirror is clouded by dust, as an embryo is wrapped in the womb, so is this veiled by desire.
Word by Word
Saved for this reading session
Three movements · tap a label to switch
Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
rishna gives three plain pictures to show how desire hides something good. The Sanskrit names them in order. Fire (vahni) is covered by smoke (dhuma). A mirror (adarsha) is covered by dirt or dust (mala). And an embryo (garbha) is wrapped on all sides by the caul (ulba), the thin membrane that encloses it in the womb. In the same way, the verse says, 'this' is covered by 'that.' Krishna is continuing his answer about desire (kama) from the verses just before, where desire was named the great enemy of the embodied being. Here he is making concrete, through everyday images, exactly how that enemy works: not by destroying the good thing, but by veiling it.
Braided from 15 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhvācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Sant Jñāneśvar · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Swami Ramsukhdas
What gets covered is knowledge or the clear seeing of the truth, and what does the covering is desire. The word 'idam' (this) in the verse points to knowledge (jnana), and 'tena' (by that) points back to desire (kama). So the line reads: this knowledge is veiled by that desire. Several commentators stress that the veil does not change the nature of the thing veiled. Fire is still bright by nature even under smoke; the mirror is still clear in itself under the dust; the embryo is still a living being inside the caul. In the same way, the inner light of knowing is not destroyed by desire. It is only hidden, dimmed, kept from doing its work.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Madhvācārya
The three images are not a single repeated point but a graded series, showing three strengths of desire and three depths of veiling. A number of commentators read them in this rising order. Smoke is the lightest veil: fire under smoke still glows and still burns, so it still does some of its own work. Dust on a mirror is heavier: the mirror's clearness is hidden, so it can no longer catch a reflection, though we can still see the mirror itself. The caul over an embryo is heaviest of all: the embryo cannot stretch its limbs or do anything, and it cannot even be seen. So with desire. In its mild state, knowledge is dimmed but can still remember the truth. In its strong state, knowledge can no longer grasp the truth. In its most intense state, the person is as good as insentient, unable even to function.
Braided from 7 commentators
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Vallabhācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
By choosing three different relationships between cover and thing covered, the verse also teaches how the veil arises and what would be needed to remove it. Smoke is born together with fire, its natural companion, an inseparable byproduct. Dust is adventitious, an outside thing that settles on the mirror after the mirror is made. The caul wraps the embryo closely from the start. Reading these contrasts, some commentators note that desire cannot simply be wished away by an act of will, because it comes bound up with our very condition; its lifting depends on the right conditions, and it returns when those conditions return.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The thing veiled is knowledge understood as the light of the Self. The fire image is read as the Self's own self-luminous nature, hidden by desire as light is hidden by smoke. One source maps the three images onto three senses of knowledge in turn: knowledge as the illumination of the Self, knowledge as the true reflection of objects, and knowledge as the mind's work of analysis and synthesis. The same tradition also unfolds desire itself into graded states, from subtle, before the body's organs are active, to gross, grosser, and grossest as the object is contemplated and then enjoyed, the swelling of desire matching the deepening of the veil.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Dvaita
Three distinct realities are veiled, not one. The fire stands for the supreme Self (the Lord), who though omniscient is, when veiled by desire, not known by others. The mirror stands for the inner organ, the mind, which when veiled by desire no longer serves to manifest the supreme Self and the rest. The embryo held bound in the caul stands for the individual soul (jiva), who when veiled by desire is held contracted, incapable of activity, unable to know the Lord and the rest. So the verse is read as a careful threefold scheme: the Lord, the mind, and the soul, each in its own way hidden or bound by desire.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
What is veiled is 'idam,' read as the whole brood of conscious creatures, the entire class of living beings, since insentient things cannot be the ones grasped by desire in this way. The point of the three images here is structural: they show that mere will cannot expel desire, that its removal needs the right conditions, and that it returns when those conditions return. Desire is marked as something that runs along with deep-seated mental tendencies, so it is not a surface thing that can be simply waved off.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Śuddhādvaita
The veiled knowledge is read in terms of devotion and service. One source maps the three images onto three layers of devotional knowing: the first image signifies the knowledge that is the very heat-flame of Bhagavan, the second the knowledge that is the attainment of one's own form fit for service, and the third the knowledge of the rising seed-state. Each layer of this bhakti-knowledge has its own answering veil. The graded covering is kept, from the light obscuration of smoke to the close wrapping of the womb.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
The stress falls on the practical, experiential scale of the three states. Knowledge here is the ability to remember and grasp the highest reality. Under mild desire one is still somehow able to remember or grasp the truth; under strong desire one is not; under the most intense desire the whole world becomes as good as insentient and one cannot even proceed, nor is one perceived. One source adds vivid further images in the same spirit: a serpent coiled round the root of a sandal tree, the sun never seen without its rays, good seed always wrapped in its husk, to say we have never seen knowledge standing alone, wholly free of lust and anger.
Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Sant Jñāneśvar
Kashmir Shaivism
The three illustrations are read as stating three things about desire: that it is hard to approach, that it keeps the thing veiled from doing what it should do, and that it is a thing of disgust. The 'this' that is covered is identified directly as the self.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Modern
One modern voice reads the veiled thing as viveka, the human power of discernment that shows itself in the intellect (buddhi). When desire (kamana) covers the intellect, discernment is dimmed and cannot tell what should be done from what should not; the intellect slides from clear (sattvic) seeing into confused (rajasic) and finally inverted (tamasic) judgment, where the wrong is taken for the right. Since dim discernment can no longer guide the senses, this voice draws an urgent practical conclusion: desire must be thrown out. Another modern voice keeps the reading broad, that everything has been enveloped by desire, without narrowing what 'this' means.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
A Seeker Asks
If desire only veils my clear seeing rather than destroying it, why can I not just decide to see clearly again, and what actually lifts the veil?
Start with the good news the verse insists on: the seeing itself is not lost. Fire under smoke is still fire, still bright, still burning; the mirror under dust is still clear in its own nature; the embryo in the caul is still a living being. Your inner knowing is only hidden, not destroyed, so there is always something real to recover.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Dhanapati Sūri
But a simple act of will is not enough, and the three images are chosen to show why. The smoke is born together with the fire as its natural companion; the dust settles on the mirror from outside; the caul wraps the embryo closely. Desire is not a tidy surface item you can just decide away. It comes bound up with deep mental tendencies and with our very condition, which is why some commentators say plainly that mere will cannot expel it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Vallabhācārya · Vedānta Deśika
What lifts the veil, then, is meeting the conditions that thin desire, and staying with them, because the veil returns when those conditions return. The strength of your seeing tracks the strength of your wanting in a graded way: under mild desire you can still remember the truth, under strong desire you cannot, and under intense desire you can barely function. So the practical path is to keep desire in its mild state and shrink it from there, watching your discernment clear as the wanting loosens, rather than expecting one decision to burn off a lifetime of smoke at once.
Vedānta Deśika · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice that the verse does not say your clear seeing is gone. It says it is covered, the way smoke hides a fire that is still burning. The faculty of discernment, your power to tell what truly should be done from what should not, lives in the intellect and is still there. What dims it is desire. So the work is not to manufacture wisdom you lack, but to remove what is sitting on top of the wisdom you already have. Watch how, as wanting grows, your judgment quietly turns: first it gets cloudy, then it gets confused so that the right thing looks wrong, and at last it gets so inverted that the plainly wrong looks like the very thing to do. When you catch your seeing tilting like this, treat it as a sign that desire is thickening, and turn your attention to loosening that desire rather than to forcing the decision. As long as the veil stays, dimmed discernment cannot reliably guide the senses; this is why there is real urgency in setting desire aside.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.