Display
Devanagari is shown only when this page stored it. Harvard-Kyoto and ASCII are generated from the IAST verse.
Vanisource / Original texts
Bhagavad-gītā 2.58
DonateSave this passage to keep a private note on this device. Notes are not sent to Vedawiki.
Cite
The source revision identifier is retained; its timestamp was not separately queried.
Source illustrations remain online: their exact image bytes were verified on 26 October 2026. Linked shared-image description pages have no local Vanisource page record and are not stored here; original links are retained.
Source navigation
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 58
- यदा संहरते चायं कूर्मोऽङ्गानीव सर्वशः ।
- इन्द्रियाणीन्द्रियार्थेभ्यस्तस्य प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठिता ॥५८॥
- yadā saṁharate cāyaṁ
- kūrmo 'ṅgānīva sarvaśaḥ
- indriyāṇīndriyārthebhyas
- tasya prajñā pratiṣṭhitā
yadāwhen—when; saṁharatewinds up—winds up; caalso—also; ayamall these—all these; kūrmaḥtortoise—tortoise; aṅgānilimbs—limbs; ivalike—like; sarvaśaḥaltogether—altogether; indriyānisenses—senses; indriya-arthebhyaḥfrom the sense objects—from the sense objects; tasyahis—his; prajñāconsciousness—consciousness; pratiṣṭhitāfixed up—fixed up.
One who is able to withdraw his senses from sense objects, as the tortoise draws his limbs within the shell, is to be understood as truly situated in knowledge.
The test of a yogī, devotee, or self-realized soul is that he is able to control the senses according to his plan. Most people, however, are servants of the senses and are thus directed by the dictation of the senses. That is the answer to the question as to how the yogī is situated. The senses are compared to venomous serpents. They want to act very loosely and without restriction. The yogī, or the devotee, must be very strong to control the serpents—like a snake charmer. He never allows them to act independantly. There are many injunctions in the revealed scriptures; some of them are do-not's, and some of them are do's. Unless one is able to follow the do's and the do-not's, restricting oneself from sense enjoyment, it is not possible to be firmly fixed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The best example, set herein, is the tortoise. The tortoise can at any moment wind up his senses and exhibit them again at any time for particular purposes. Similarly, the senses of the Kṛṣṇa conscious persons are used only for some particular purpose in the service of the Lord and are withdrawn otherwise. Keeping the senses always in the service of the Lord is the example set by the analogy of the tortoise, who keeps the senses within.