The Bhagavad Gita · 2 of 4 · tr. Kashinath Trimbak Telang
Chapter XI, Section 1b
Some being afraid are praying with joined hands, and the groups of great sages and Siddhas are saying 'Welfare !' and praising you with abundant (hymns) of praise.
The Rudras, and Âdityas, the Vasus, the Sâdhyas, the Vi s vas, the two A s vins, the Maruts, and the Ushmapas, and the groups of Gandharvas, Yakshas, demons, and Siddhas are all looking at you amazed.
Seeing your mighty form, with many mouths and eyes, with many arms, thighs, and feet, with many stomachs, and fearful with many jaws, all people, and I likewise, are much alarmed, O you of mighty arms!
Seeing you, O Vish n u!
touching the skies, radiant, possessed of many hues, with a gaping mouth, and with large blazing eyes, I am much alarmed in my inmost self, and feel no courage, no tranquillity.
[paragraph continues] And seeing your mouths terrible by the jaws, and resembling the fire of destruction, I cannot recognise the (various) directions, I feel no comfort.
Be gracious, O lord of gods!
who pervadest the universe.
And all these sons of Dh ri tarâsh t ra, together with all the bands of kings, and Bhîshma and Dro n a, and this charioteer's son likewise, together with our principal warriors also, are rapidly entering your mouths, fearful and horrific by (reason of your) jaws.
And some with their heads smashed are seen (to be) stuck in the spaces between the teeth.
As the many rapid currents of a river's waters run towards the sea alone, so do these heroes of the human world enter your mouths blazing all round.
As butterflies, with increased velocity, enter a blazing fire to their destruction, so too do these people enter your mouths with increased velocity (only) to their destruction.
Swallowing all these people, you are licking them over and over again from all sides, with your blazing mouths.
Your fierce splendours, O Vish n u!
filling the whole universe with (their) effulgence, are heating it.
Tell me who you are in this fierce form.
Salutations be to thee, O chief of the gods!
Be gracious.
I wish to know you, the primeval, one, for I do not understand your actions.
The Deity said: I am death, the destroyer of the worlds, fully developed, and I am now active about the overthrow of the worlds.
Even without you, the warriors standing in the adverse hosts, shall all cease to be.
Therefore, be up, obtain glory, and vanquishing (your) foes, enjoy a prosperous kingdom.
All these have been already killed by me.
Be only the instrument, O Savyasâ k in !
Dro n a, and Bhîshma, and G ayadratha, and Kar n a, and likewise other valiant warriors also, whom I have killed, do you kill.
Be not alarmed.
Do fight.
And in the battle you will conquer your foes.
Sañ g aya said: Hearing these words of Kesava, the wearer of the coronet , trembling, and with joined hands, bowed down; and sorely afraid, and with throat choked up, he again spoke to K ri sh n a after saluting him.
Ar g una said: It is quite proper, O H ri shîke s a!
that the universe is delighted and charmed by your renown, that the demons run away affrighted in all directions, and that all the assemblages of Siddhas bow down,(to you).
And why, O high-souled one!
should they not bow down to you (who are) greater than Brahman, and first cause?
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
Krishna explicitly states that the warriors were already killed by him and that Arjuna is merely an instrument, asserting total divine control over the unfolding of events.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
The deity is portrayed as an active, dynamic agent who speaks, swallows warriors, and directly intervenes in the battle, rather than an abstract principle.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
Krishna reveals a cosmic form vastly different from his human charioteer appearance, demonstrating the divine capacity to alter form and reveal hidden aspects.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The vision reveals the deity pervading the entire universe and containing all beings within his form, suggesting a non-dual reality where the divine encompasses all existence.