BHAGAVAD-GITA 11:48

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BHAGAVAD-GITA 11:48

 

na veda-yajnadhyayanair na danair

na ca kriyabhir na tapobhir ugraih

evam-rupah sakya aham nr-loke

drastum tvad anyena kuru-pravira

 

WORD FOR WORD

 

na--never; veda-yajna--by sacrifice; adhyayanaih--or Vedic study;

na--never; danaih--by charity; na--never; ca--also; kriyabhih--by

pious activities; na--never; tapobhih--by serious penances;

ugraih--severe; evam-rupah--in this form; sakyah--can; aham--I;

nr-loke--in this material world; drastum--be seen; tvat--than you;

anyena--by another; kuru-pravira--O best among the Kuru warriors.

 

TRANSLATION

 

O best of the Kuru warriors, no one before you has ever seen this

universal form of Mine, for neither by studying the Vedas, nor by

performing sacrifices, nor by charity, nor by pious activities, nor by

severe penances can I be seen in this form in the material world.

 

PURPORT

 

The divine vision in this connection should be clearly understood. Who

can have divine vision? Divine means godly. Unless one attains the

status of divinity as a demigod, he cannot have divine vision. And

what is a demigod? It is stated in the Vedic scriptures that those who

are devotees of Lord Visnu are demigods (visnu-bhaktah smrta devah).

Those who are atheistic, i.e., who do not believe in Visnu, or who

recognize only the impersonal part of Krsna as the Supreme, cannot

have the divine vision. It is not possible to decry Krsna and at the

same time have the divine vision. One cannot have the divine vision

without becoming divine. In other words, those who have divine vision

can also see like Arjuna.

 

The Bhagavad-gita gives the description of the universal form.

Although this description was unknown to everyone before Arjuna, now

one can have some idea of the visva-rupa after this incident. Those

who are actually divine can see the universal form of the Lord. But

one cannot be divine without being a pure devotee of Krsna. The

devotees, however, who are actually in the divine nature and who have

divine vision, are not very much interested in seeing the universal

form of the Lord. As described in the previous verse, Arjuna desired

to see the four-handed form of Lord Krsna as Visnu, and he was

actually afraid of the universal form.

 

In this verse there are some significant words, just like

veda-yajnadhyayanaih, which refers to studying Vedic literature and

the subject matter of sacrificial regulations. Veda refers to all

kinds of Vedic literature, such as the four Vedas (Rg, Yajur, Sama and

Atharva) and the eighteen Puranas, the Upanisads and the

Vedanta-sutra. One can study these at home or anywhere else.

Similarly, there are sutras--Kalpa-sutras and Mimamsa-sutras--for

studying the method of sacrifice. Danaih refers to charity which is

offered to a suitable party, such as those who are engaged in the

transcendental loving service of the Lord--the brahmanas and the

Vaisnavas. Similarly, "pious activities" refers to the agni-hotra and

the prescribed duties of the different castes. And the voluntary

acceptance of some bodily pains is called tapasya. So one can perform

all these--can accept bodily penances, give charity, study the Vedas,

etc.--but unless he is a devotee like Arjuna, it is not possible to

see that universal form. Those who are impersonalists are also

imagining that they are seeing the universal form of the Lord, but

from Bhagavad-gita we understand that the impersonalists are not

devotees. Therefore they are unable to see the universal form of the

Lord.

 

There are many persons who create incarnations. They falsely claim an

ordinary human to be an incarnation, but this is all foolishness. We

should follow the principles of Bhagavad-gita, otherwise there is no

possibility of attaining perfect spiritual knowledge. Although

Bhagavad-gita is considered the preliminary study of the science of

God, still it is so perfect that it enables one to distinguish what is

what. The followers of a pseudo incarnation may say that they have

also seen the transcendental incarnation of God, the universal form,

but that is unacceptable because it is clearly stated here that unless

one becomes a devotee of Krsna one cannot see the universal form of

God. So one first of all has to become a pure devotee of Krsna; then

he can claim that he can show the universal form of what he has seen.

A devotee of Krsna cannot accept false incarnations or followers of

false incarnations.

 

Copyright 1983 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International. Used with

permission.