In the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna to show him his true, divine form, if Krishna considers him able to see it. Krishna grants a special vision, a divine eye, without which the sight would be impossible, and then reveals his vishvarupa, his universal or all-encompassing form. What Arjuna sees is not a larger version of the graceful figure who has been his charioteer and friend, but something categorically different: a form with countless mouths and eyes, countless wondrous aspects, countless divine ornaments and weapons, blazing like a thousand suns risen at once in the sky.
In this form Krishna contains everything: all the gods, all the sages and serpent beings, the whole universe with its many divisions, moving and unmoving, gathered together in one body. Arjuna sees the past, present, and future all at once, sees warriors from both armies rushing into Krishna’s blazing mouths to be devoured, sees time itself as a force that consumes all beings regardless of what any individual chooses to do. The vision does not console; it overwhelms. Arjuna’s hair stands on end, his body trembles, and he can no longer find steadiness or peace.
Terrified, Arjuna begs Krishna to return to his familiar, gentle, human form, the form he recognizes as his friend and teacher. Krishna obliges, explaining that this cosmic form is exceedingly difficult to see, that even the gods long to see it, and that it cannot be attained through study, ritual, or austerity alone, only through single-minded devotion. Vishvarupa remains one of the most striking teachings in the Gita: that the divine one worships as a personal, approachable form is also, simultaneously, the vast, terrible, all-devouring totality of time and the cosmos, and that ordinary human awareness can bear only glimpses of what is always, in truth, the whole.
Explore the interactive Living Sanatan Timeline
Related reading
- Virat Purusha — the cosmic body Arjuna was shown
- Trimurti — creation, sustenance and dissolution held at once
- Shakti — the power the vision discloses
More essays and notes in the blog.