Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Verse 29

Chapter 11 – Vishvarupa Darshana Yoga · Speaker: Arjuna

Sanskrit verse

यथा प्रदीप्तं ज्वलनं पतङ्गा
विशन्ति नाशाय समृद्धवेगाः ।
तथैव नाशाय विशन्ति लोकास्-
तवापि वक्त्राणि समृद्धवेगाः ॥

Transliteration

yathā pradīptaṃ jvalanaṃ pataṅgā viśanti nāśāya samṛddhavegāḥ .
tathaiva nāśāya viśanti lokāsa- tavāpi vaktrāṇi samṛddhavegāḥ ॥

Meaning

As moths rush with ever-growing speed into a blazing fire to their own destruction, so too do these beings rush with ever-growing speed into Your mouths, only to perish.

Word meanings

यथा – just as
प्रदीप्तम् – blazing
ज्वलनम् – fire, flame
पतङ्गाः – moths, winged insects
विशन्ति – enter
नाशाय – for destruction
समृद्धवेगाः – with great speed
तथा एव – in just the same way
लोकाः – beings, people
तव – Your
अपि – also
वक्त्राणि – mouths

Anvaya (word order)

यथा पतङ्गाः समृद्धवेगाः नाशाय प्रदीप्तम् ज्वलनम् विशन्ति, तथा एव लोकाः अपि समृद्धवेगाः नाशाय तव वक्त्राणि विशन्ति ।

Explanation

After the rivers, Arjuna gives a second image: moths hurling themselves into a flame. The two similes differ in a telling way. A river has no will; it simply follows the slope of the land to the sea. A moth is drawn by desire. It is fascinated by the very fire that will consume it and flies into it eagerly. The word ‘nashaya’, for destruction, appears twice: these beings are not seeking death, yet their own infatuation carries them straight to it.

Shankara suggests that the first simile describes those who enter Time helplessly, and the second those who run to ruin through lack of discrimination, driven by attachment. The march of Duryodhana and his allies into this war fits the second picture exactly: greed, pride and thirst for kingdom are pulling them into the fire where their end is certain. ‘Samriddha-vegah’, with mounting speed, shows that the attached mind does not drift slowly towards disaster; it races there with enthusiasm.

The picture belongs not only to Kurukshetra but to every age. The objects of the senses glitter like a lamp-flame, the mind is drawn to them like a moth, and in the end it reaps only sorrow. The chain described in Gita 2.62–63 — brooding on objects breeds attachment, attachment breeds desire, desire breeds anger, and finally discrimination is lost — is the moth’s story told at length. In the cosmic form Arjuna sees that even this fatal fascination unfolds within the vast order of the Lord.

Context

Following the river simile of verse 28, Arjuna offers a second image for the same scene. In the next verse he describes the Lord licking up all the worlds and scorching the universe with His radiance, and in verse 31 he finally asks who this fierce being is.

Life lesson

The glitter we chase without thinking is often a fire that will burn us. Discrimination means pausing at the moment of attraction to ask where the path actually leads.

Key terms

Patanga: moth — a symbol of the being drawn to ruin by attachment
Samriddha-vega: with swelling, ever-greater speed
Nashaya: for destruction, towards one’s own undoing