Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Verse 10

Chapter 11 – Vishvarupa Darshana Yoga · Speaker: Sanjaya

Sanskrit verse

अनेकवक्त्रनयनमनेकाद्भुतदर्शनम् ।
अनेकदिव्याभरणं दिव्यानेकोद्यतायुधम् ॥

Transliteration

anekavaktranayanamanekādbhutadarśanam .
anekadivyābharaṇaṃ divyānekodyatāyudham ॥

Meaning

The Lord showed a form with countless mouths and eyes, presenting countless wondrous sights, adorned with countless divine ornaments and bearing countless divine weapons raised aloft.

Word meanings

अनेक – many, countless
वक्त्र – mouths, faces
नयनम् – having eyes
अनेक – many
अद्भुत – wondrous, marvellous
दर्शनम् – having sights or aspects
अनेक – many
दिव्य – divine, celestial
आभरणम् – adorned with ornaments
दिव्य – divine
अनेक – many
उद्यत – uplifted, raised
आयुधम् – bearing weapons

Anvaya (word order)

(हरिः) अनेक-वक्त्र-नयनम् अनेक-अद्भुत-दर्शनम् अनेक-दिव्य-आभरणम् दिव्य-अनेक-उद्यत-आयुधम् (रूपम् दर्शयामास) ।

Explanation

Sanjaya has just announced that Hari, the great Lord of Yoga, revealed His supreme sovereign form to Arjuna. Here he begins to describe it, and the first thing we notice is the word aneka, ‘many’, repeated again and again: many mouths, many eyes, many wonders, many ornaments, many weapons. The repetition is deliberate. Language, built for finite things, can only gesture at the infinite by piling up plurals until the reader feels the edges of counting give way.

The countless mouths and eyes express a truth the Upanishads had long stated: the one Lord has eyes, faces and hands everywhere (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 3.3), and the Gita itself says of the knowable Brahman that its hands, feet, eyes and faces are on all sides (13.13). What the scriptures declared in words, Arjuna is now about to see. Every face in the world is, in this vision, a face of God.

The divine ornaments speak of beauty and majesty; the upraised weapons speak of power that protects and destroys. Already the vision holds both the lovely and the awesome together. Shankara reads the form as the Lord’s sovereign glory displayed through His divine power, visible only to the divine eye granted in 11.8. Ramanuja sees in it the Lord’s own auspicious divine form, with the whole universe as His body, while Madhva insists that this cosmic form is not a lesser appearance but fully the Lord Himself.

This verse thus sets the tone for everything that follows in the chapter: grace and terror, adornment and armament, are aspects of one and the same reality.

Context

Sanjaya, narrating to Dhritarashtra, begins describing the cosmic form announced in 11.9. This verse and the next (11.11) together form a single sentence-picture of the Vishvarupa before Sanjaya turns to its blinding light in 11.12.

Life lesson

The divine always exceeds our categories and our counting. When we learn to see one presence behind every face and every pair of eyes, reverence and compassion toward others follow naturally.

Key terms

Vishvarupa: the cosmic or universal form of the Lord containing the whole universe
Divya: divine, luminous, beyond ordinary sense perception
Ayudha: weapon; symbol of the Lord’s protecting and destroying power