ममैवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूतः सनातनः। मनःषष्ठानीन्द्रियाणि प्रकृतिस्थानि कर्षति॥

Verse 15.7 sits in the fifteenth chapter of the Gita, known as Purushottama Yoga, which begins with the image of an upside-down tree of worldly existence and moves on to describe three kinds of purusha: the perishable, the imperishable and the highest. This verse speaks about the individual living being, the jiva, and says that it is an amsha, a portion or fragment, of the Lord himself, and that it is eternal, sanatana.

The second line explains the jiva's predicament. Manah-shashthani indriyani means the senses of which the mind is the sixth, since Indian psychology counts the mind as a sense-organ alongside the five outward senses. Prakriti-sthani means they are rooted in nature, and karshati is usually rendered as draws to itself or struggles with. So the living being is shown as the bearer of a bundle of faculties that belong to material nature and that pull on it, which is why it needs guidance.

Schools handle the word amsha differently, and that difference is a good clue to the philosophical landscape. Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita takes the jiva as a real part of the Lord, distinct yet inseparable. Shankara's Advaita warns against reading amsha as a literal piece cut off from something indivisible and prefers the image of limited portions of one space. Devotional readers often use the verse to affirm both the dignity and the dependence of the soul. It is mostly studied in sequence with the chapter, though individual teachers may choose it as a short study text on the nature of the jiva.