Yad Adityagatam Tejah

From here, Krishna begins declaring his presence in the natural world. The sunlight that floods the earth each morning, the soft glow of the moon at night, the warmth of a fire burning in the hearth — the radiance in all of these, Krishna says, is his own.

Imagine a single great lamp from which many smaller lamps are lit. Each smaller flame is an extension of that original light. The sun, the moon, and fire are exactly like that — visible extensions of one supreme radiance.

This shloka also mirrors 15.6 from a different angle. There, Krishna said his supreme abode cannot be illuminated by sun, moon, or fire. Here, he says the light within sun, moon, and fire is his own. Both statements point to the same truth: every form of light in creation originates from the divine.

Shlokas 15.12 through 15.15 form a sequence where Krishna reveals his presence in the world, moving from the cosmic to the intimate. Here, 15.12 starts with external light — the sun, moon, and fire. Shloka 15.13 will move to the earth's sustaining power, 15.14 to the digestive fire within every body, and 15.15 to the heart itself. Tradition reads this shloka alongside Gita 10.21, where Krishna says: among luminaries, I am the radiant sun.