अन्नाद् भवन्ति भूतानि

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The links of the cycle

Six words are the links of the chain. Tap each to see its Devanagari, its IAST transliteration and its meaning — and watch the cycle take shape.

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The verse, the cycle and a grammar key

The verse (Bhagavad Gītā 3.14 — public domain):

अन्नाद् भवन्ति भूतानि पर्जन्याद् अन्नसम्भवः।
यज्ञाद् भवति पर्जन्यो यज्ञः कर्मसमुद्भवः॥

annād bhavanti bhūtāni parjanyād anna-sambhavaḥ |
yajñād bhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ ||

अन्नाद् भवन्ति भूतानि — from food, living beings come into being (are nourished).
पर्जन्याद् अन्नसम्भवः — from rain comes the production of food.
यज्ञाद् भवति पर्जन्यः — from yajña (sacrifice/offering) comes rain.
यज्ञः कर्मसमुद्भवः — yajña itself is born of karma (action) — and so the wheel turns back to the start.

Whole meaning: Beings live on food; food grows from rain; rain follows yajña; yajña springs from action. Pull any link and the whole wheel feels it.

A wheel, not a ladder. The verse does not say one thing is “highest”. Each link depends on the one before it and feeds the one after. This is interdependence — the same truth modern ecology calls the food chain and the water cycle.
Rain ↔ food ↔ life. No rain, no crops; no crops, no food; no food, no living beings. We feel this every monsoon: a good rain means full granaries, a failed rain means hardship.
What is yajña, really? In its widest sense, यज्ञ means a spirit of giving and contributing — not only fire rituals, but any selfless act that puts something back into the common pool. The verse hints that what we give (care for forests, water, soil) returns to us as rain and food.
Why it still matters. Cut forests or waste water and the cycle weakens for everyone. The verse is a 2,000-year-old reminder that we are inside nature’s wheel, not outside it.

Common misreading: the verse is not magic weather-control (“do a ritual, get rain”). Read wisely, it teaches cause and contribution — our collective actions shape the conditions that bring rain, food and life.

विभक्ति = case-endings. Sanskrit shows a word’s job by changing its ending, not its position. The fifth case (पञ्चमी विभक्ति) means “from” — the source or point of separation. Its grammatical role is called अपादान कारक.
Spot it in the verse. Three words carry the -आत् ending: अन्नात् (from food), पर्जन्यात् (from rain), यज्ञात् (from yajña). Each names the source the next thing comes from.
The base pattern. For an अकारान्त masculine/neuter noun, the ablative singular ends in -आत्: देव → देवात् (from the god), ग्राम → ग्रामात् (from the village), वृक्ष → वृक्षात् (from the tree).

Worked example. Put each word into the ablative (“from …”): बालक (boy) · नगर (city) · जल (water).

बालकात् — “from the boy”.

नगरात् — “from the city”.

जलात् — “from the water” (just like अन्नात् = “from food”).

Common mistake: do not confuse the ablative -आत् (“from”) with the locative -ए / -आम् (“in / on”). अन्नात् = “from food”; अन्ने = “in food”. The ending decides the meaning.

Where you'll meet it

The cycle, all around us

Monsoon and the farmer

“पर्जन्याद् अन्नसम्भवः” is the farmer’s whole year in four words. A timely monsoon fills the fields; a failed one empties them. The verse names the link between rain and food that every farming family lives by.

Caring for water and forests

Rain depends on healthy forests, soil and air. Planting trees, harvesting rainwater and keeping rivers clean are modern forms of yajña — contributions that keep the cycle of rain and food strong for everyone.

Understanding the food chain

In science class, the food chain and the water cycle say the same thing as this verse: energy and matter move in linked loops, and no creature stands outside them. Sanskrit and science meet here.

Check yourself

Competency quiz

A mix of MCQ, assertion–reason and a case study — testing whether you can follow the cycle and read the grammar, not just recall the words.

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अन्नाद्भवन्ति भूतानि