The Supreme Lord said: The wise speak of an imperishable Ashvattha tree with its roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is a knower of the Vedas.

Krishna opens Chapter 15 with one of the Gita's most arresting images: the cosmic Ashvattha tree — the sacred fig, symbol of eternal life — growing upside down. Its roots are above, in the Supreme; its branches spread downward into the manifested world. The Vedic hymns are its leaves — protective, nourishing, beautiful, but not the trunk or the root. To know this tree — to understand that the entire universe is an inverted reflection of a higher reality — is the beginning of true Vedic knowledge. This is not botanical metaphor alone; it is a map of consciousness. The nourishment flows downward from the Divine; the seeker must trace it upward to its source.