Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Verse 40

Chapter 11 – Vishvarupa Darshana Yoga · Speaker: Arjuna

Sanskrit verse

नमः पुरस्तादथ पृष्ठतस्ते
नमोऽस्तु ते सर्वत एव सर्व ।
अनन्तवीर्यामितविक्रमस्त्वं
सर्वं समाप्नोषि ततोऽसि सर्वः ॥

Transliteration

namaḥ purastādatha pṛṣṭhataste namo.astu te sarvata eva sarva .
anantavīryāmitavikramastvaṃ sarvaṃ samāpnoṣi tato.asi sarvaḥ ॥

Meaning

Salutations to You in front and behind; salutations to You on every side, O All. You are infinite in strength and boundless in valour; You wholly pervade all things, and therefore You are all.

Word meanings

नमः – salutation
पुरस्तात् – in front
अथ – and also
पृष्ठतः – from behind
ते – to You
अस्तु – be
सर्वतः एव – indeed on all sides
सर्व – O All
अनन्तवीर्य – O You of infinite strength
अमितविक्रमः – of immeasurable valour
त्वम् – You
सर्वम् – all
समाप्नोषि – fully pervade
ततः – therefore
असि – are
सर्वः – everything, the All

Anvaya (word order)

सर्व, ते पुरस्तात् नमः, अथ पृष्ठतः (नमः), ते सर्वतः एव नमः अस्तु । अनन्तवीर्य अमितविक्रमः त्वम् सर्वम् समाप्नोषि, ततः (त्वम्) सर्वः असि ।

Explanation

The cosmic form is not located in one direction; wherever Arjuna turns, there is the Lord. So his salutation cannot be confined to one side either: in front, behind, on every side. This is the vision the Mundaka Upanishad puts into words: ‘Brahman alone, immortal, is in front; Brahman is behind; Brahman to the right and to the left.’

Commentators note a fine distinction between ananta-virya and amita-vikrama. Virya is inner strength, the capacity itself; vikrama is that capacity expressed in action, valour displayed. Both are without limit in the Lord. For Arjuna, himself a renowned warrior standing on a battlefield, the words carry weight: he now sees that all prowess, including his own, belongs to Krishna.

The closing reasoning is the philosophical summit of the hymn: You pervade all, therefore You are all. Shankara offers the image of gold and ornaments — gold pervades every bangle and ring, and the ornaments are nothing apart from gold; so the world is nothing apart from the Lord. Ramanuja explains it through the self-body relation: the Lord indwells everything as its self, and everything is His body; just as a person is named by the embodied whole, the Lord who has all as His body is rightly called ‘All’. Madhva takes ‘Sarva’ as a name of the Lord’s fullness, every perfection being complete in Him.

The verse thus gathers the earlier teaching of 7.19, ‘Vasudeva is all’, into a single act of worship.

Context

After bowing a thousand times in 11.39, Arjuna here bows in all directions and reaches the hymn’s philosophical peak: ‘therefore You are all’. Immediately afterwards, in 11.41, his tone changes as he begins to repent of his earlier familiarity with Krishna.

Life lesson

God is not confined to one direction, temple or hour. When we learn to see Him on every side, our whole life becomes an act of reverence.

Key terms

Ananta-virya: of infinite inner strength
Amita-vikrama: of immeasurable valour in action
Sarva: the All, because He pervades all