Bhagavatgita a detailed study- chapter 11The Cosmic Form

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Arjuna uvaacha

 

15.paSyaami dhevaan thava dheva dhehe

sarvaan thaTha bhootha viSesha sanghaan

 

brahmaaNam eesam kamalaasanasTham

 

rsheen cha sarvaan uragaan cha dhivyaan

 

Arjuna said,

 

I see , oh Lord , all the devas and also all the species of beings in your body. I see Lord Brahma seated on the lotus and all the rshis and the divine serpents.

 

What did Arjuna see? The Lord has said yaScha anyath dhrashtum icchasi (sloka7) meaning that Arjuna would be able to see what ever he wished. Arjuna has already been told about the divine manifestations and that the Lord is in all entities. Hence when Krishna showed the cosmic form Arjuna was seeing the vyashti, microcosm in the samashti macrocosm. He could not go beyond the manifestations to see the transcendent form of the Lord. Therefore he says that he was able to see all the beings right from the Brahma down to the divine serpents in the nether world, like Vasuki, Sesha and others which included all the devas, rshis and other mortal beings. This is just the reflection of his understanding of the description in the last chapter.

 

16.aneka baahoodhara vakthra nethram

paSyaami thvaam sarvatho anantha roopam

 

naantham na maDhyam na punaH thava aadhim

 

paSyaami vivesvara viSvaroopa

 

I see you with multitudes of arms, stomachs, faces and eyes and as an infinite form everywhere. Oh Lord, Master of the Universe, who has the cosmic form, I do not see the beginning, middle or the end of you.

 

But slowly Arjuna is able to cross the individual entities and sees the cosmic form. Yet he is not wholly free from the concept of the particular and hence he sees the Lord with various, arms, faces, eyes but at the same time he is aware of the infinitude of the forms and says that he could not see neither the beginning nor the middle nor the end of the forms. Wherever he turned the cosmic form was visible in its entirety which is impossible to comprehend as expressed by him in the next sloka.

 

17. kireetinam gadhinam chakrahastham

 

tejo raaSim sarvatho dheepthimantham

 

pasyaami thvaam dhurnirekshyam samnthaath

 

dheepthaanalaarkadhuthim aprameyam

 

I see you adorned with crown, wielding the mace, discus in your hands. You are a mass of light on all sides radiant and impossible to see like the blazing brilliance of the fire and sun and incomprehensible.

 

God is one but appears to us as we wish to see Him or as we imagine Him to be. The concept of Arjuna of the Lord is as Narayana with His divine weapons and he sees just that, the Lord with His divine weapons in His hands.

 

But Arjuna also becomes aware of the cosmic form by the effulgence and reiterates the statement of Sanjaya that it was like a thousand suns rising all at once. Arjuna sees light everywhere the brilliance of which is dazzling and impossible to see. The vision is like that of fire and sun everywhere.