ELEVENTH CHAPTER

I. TIME THE DESTROYER

1. Arjuna said: This word of the highest spiritual secret of existence, Thou hast spoken out of compassion for me; by this my delusion¹is dispelled.

2. The birth and passing away of existences have been heard by me in detail from Thee, 0 Lotus-eyed, and also the imperishable greatness of the divine con- scious Soul.²

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1 The illusion which so persistently holds man's sense and mind, the idea that things at all exist in themselves or for them- selves apart from God or that anything subject to Nature can be self-moved and self-guided, has passed from Arjuna,—that was the cause of his doubt and bewilderment and refusal of action.

2 All is a Yoga of this great eternal Spirit in things and all happenings are the result and expression of that Yoga; all Nature is full of the secret Godhead and in labour to reveal him in her. But Arjuna would see too the very form and body of this Godhead, if that be possible. The vision of the universal Purusha is one of the best known and most powerfully poetic passages in the Gita, but its place in the thought is not altogether on the surface. It is evidently intended for a poetic and revelatory symbol and we must see how it is brought in and for what purpose and discover to what it points in its significant aspects before we can capture its meaning. It is invited by Arjuna m his desire to see the living image, the visible great- ness of the unseen Divine, the very embodiment of the Spirit and Power that governs the universe. For this greatest all-comprehending vision he is made to ask because it is so, from the spirit revealed in the universe, that he must receive the command to his part in the world-action.

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3. So it is, as Thou hast declared Thyself, 0 Supreme Lord; I desire to see Thy divine form and body, 0 Purushottama.

4. If Thou thinkest that it can be seen by me, 0 Lord, 0 Master of Yoga, then show me Thy imperishable Self.

5. The Blessed Lord said: Behold, 0 Partha, my hundreds and thousands of divine forms, various in kind, various in shape and hue.

6. Behold the Adityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the two Aswins and also the Maruts ; behold many wonders that none has beheld, 0 Bharata.

7. Here, to-day, behold the whole world, with all that is moving and unmoving, unified¹ in my body, 0 Gudakesha, and whatever else thou wiliest to see.

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1 This then is the keynote, the central significance. .It is the vision of the One in the Many, the Many in the One,—and all are the One. It is this vision that to the eye of the divine Yoga liberates, justifies, explains all that is and was and shall be. Once seen and held, it lays the shining axe of God at the root of all doubts and perplexities and annihilates all denials and oppositions. If the soul can arrive at unity with the Godhead in this vision,—Arjuna has not yet done that, therefore we find that he has fear when he sees,—all even that is terrible in the world loses its terror.

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8. What thou hast to see, this thy human ¹ eye cannot grasp; but there is a divine eye (an inmost seeing) and that eye I now give to thee. Behold Me in My divine Yoga.

9-14. Sanjaya said: Having thus spoken, 0 King. the Master of the great Yoga, Hari, showed to Partha His supreme Form. It is that of the infinite Godhead whose faces are everywhere and in whom are all the wonders of existence, who multiplies unendingly all the many marvellous revelations of His being, a world-wide divinity seeing with innumerable eyes, speaking from innumerable mouths, armed for battle with numberless Divine uplifted weapons, glorious with divine ornaments 01 beauty, robed in heavenly raiment of deity lovely with garlands of divine flowers, fragrant with

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1-For the human can see only the outward appearances of things or make out of them separate symbol forms, each of them significant of only a few aspects of the eternal Mystery

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divine perfumes. Such is the light of this body of God as if a thousand suns had risen at once in heaven. The whole world multitudinously divided and yet unified is visible in the body of the God of Gods. Arjuna sees him (God magnificent and beautiful and terrible, the Lord of souls who has manifested in the glory and greatness of his spirit this wild and monstrous and orderly and wonderful and sweet and terrible world) and overcome with marvel and joy and fear he bows down and adores with words of awe and with clasped hands the tremendous vision.

15. Arjuna said: I see all the gods in Thy body, 0 God, and different companies of beings, Brahma the creating Lord seated in the Lotus, and the Rishis and the race of the divine Serpents.

16. I see numberless arms and bellies and eyes and faces, I see Thy infinite forms on every side, but I see not Thy end nor Thy middle nor Thy beginning, 0 Lord of the universe, 0 Form universal.

17. I see Thee crowned and with Thy mace arid Thy discus, hard to discern because Thou art a luminous mass of energy on all sides of me, an encompassing blaze, a sun-bright fire-bright Immeasurable.

18. Thou art the supreme Immutable whom we have to know, Thou art the high foundation and abode of the universe, Thou art the imperishable guardian of the eternal laws, Thou art the sempiternal soul of existence.

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19. I behold Thee without end or middle or beginning. of infinite force, of numberless arms, Thy eyes are suns and moons, Thou hast a face of blazing fire and thou art ever burning¹ up the whole universe with the flame of Thy energy.

20. The whole space between earth and heaven is occupied by Thee alone; when is seen this Thy fierce and astounding form, the three worlds are all in pain and suffer, 0 Thou mighty Spirit.

21. The companies of the gods enter Thee, afraid, adoring; the Rishis and the Siddhas crying "May there be peace and weal" praise Thee with many praises.

22. The Rudras, Adityas, Vasus, Sadhyas, Vishvas, the two Aswins and the Maruts and the Ushmapas, the Gandharvas, Yakshas, Asuras, Siddhas, all have their eyes fixed on Thee in amazement.

23. Seeing Thy great form of many mouths and eyes, O Mighty-armed, of many arms, thighs and feet and bellies, terrible with many teeth, the world and its nations are shaken and in anguish, as also am I.

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1.In greatness of this vision there is too the terrific image of the Destroyer. This Immeasurable without end or middle or beginning is he in whom all things begin and exist and end. This Godhead embraces the worlds with his numberless arms and destroys with his million hands.

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24. I see Thee, touching heaven, blazing, of many hues, with opened mouths and enormous burning eyes; troubled and in pain is the soul within me and I find no peace or gladness.

25. As I look upon Thy mouths terrible with many tusks of destruction, Thy faces like the fires of Death and Time, I lose sense of the directions and find no peace. Turn Thy heart to grace, 0 God of gods! refuge of all the worlds !

26-27. The sons of Dhritarashtra, all with the multitude of kings and heroes, Bhishma and Drona and Kama along with the foremost warriors on our side too, are hastening into Thy tusked and terrible jaws and some are seen with crushed and bleeding heads caught between Thy teeth of power.

28. As is the speed of many rushing waters racing towards the ocean, so all these heroes of the world of men are entering into Thy many mouths of flame.

29. As a swarm of moths with ever-increasing speed fall to their destruction into a fire that some one has kindled, so now the nations with ever-increasing speed are entering into Thy jaws of doom.

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30. Thou lickest the regions all around with Thy tongues and Thou art swallowing up all the nations in Thy mouths of burning; all the world is filled with the blaze of Thy energies; fierce and terrible are Thy lustres and they burn us, 0 Vishnu.

31. Declare¹ to me who Thou art that wearest this form of fierceness. Salutation to Thee, 0 Thou great Godhead, turn Thy heart to grace. I would know who Thou art who wast from the beginning, for I know not the will of Thy workings.

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1 This last cry of Arjuna indicates the double intention in the vision. This is the figure of the supreme and universal Being, this is he who forever creates, for Brahma the Creator is one of the Godheads seen in his body, he who keeps the world always in existence, for he is the guardian of the eternal laws, but who is always too destroying in order that he may new- create, who is Time, who is Death, who is Rudra the Dancer of the calm and awful dance, who is Kali with her garland of skulls trampling naked in battle and flecked with the blood of the slaughtered Titans, who is the cyclone and the fire and the earthquake and pain and famine and revolution and ruin and the swallowing ocean. And it is this last aspect of him which he puts forward at the moment. It is an aspect from which the- mind in men willingly turns away and ostrich-like hides its head so that perchance, not seeing, it may not be seen by the Terrible. The weakness of the human heart wants only fair and comforting truths or in their absence pleasant fables; it will not have the truth in its entirety because there there is much that is ocear ^d pleasant and comfortable, but hard to understand and harder to bear.

To put away the responsibility for all that seems to us evil or terrible on the shoulders of a semi-omnipotent Devil, or to

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32. The Blessed Lord said: I am the Time-Spirit ¹ destroyer of the world, arisen huge-statured for the destruction of the nations. Even without² thee all

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put it aside as part of Nature, making an unbridgeable opposition between world-nature and God-Nature, as if Nature were independent of God, or to throw the responsibility on man and his sins, as if he had a preponderant voice in the making of this world or could create anything against the will of God, are clumsily comfortable devices in which the religious thought of India has never taken refuge. We have to look courageously in the face of the reality and see that it is God and none else who has made this world in his being and that so he has made it. The torment of the couch of pain and evil on which we are racked is his touch as much as happiness and sweetness and pleasure. The discords of the worlds are God's discords and it is only by accepting and proceeding through them that we can arrive at the greater concords of his supreme harmony, the summits and thrilled vastnesses of his transcendent and his cosmic Ananda.

The problem raised by the Gita and the solution it gives demand this character of the vision of the World-Spirit. Why should it be thus that the All-Spirit manifests himself in Nature ? What is the significance of this creating and devouring flame that is mortal existence, this world-wide struggle, these constant disastrous revolutions, this labour and anguish and travail and perishing of creatures ? Arjuna here puts the ancient question and breathes the eternal prayer.

1 The Godhead does not mean either that he is the Time- Spirit alone or that the whole essence of the Time-Spirit is destruction.* But it is this which is the present will of his workings, pravritti.

* Indian spirituality knows that God is Love and Peace and calm Eternity,—the Gita which presents us with these terrible images, speaks of the Godhead who embodies him- self in them as the lover and friend of all creatures, suhndain sarvabhutanam.

2 I have a foreseeing purpose, says the Godhead in effect, which fulfils itself infallibly and no participation or abstention of any human being can prevent, alter or modify it; all is done by me already in my eternal eye of will before it can at all be done by man upon earth. I as Time have to destroy the old structures and to build up a new, mighty and splendid kingdom. Thou as a human instrument of the divine Power and Wisdom hast in this struggle which thou canst not prevent to battle for the right and slay and conquer its opponents. Thou too, the human soul in Nature, hast to enjoy in Nature the fruit given

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these warriors shall be not, who are ranked in the opposing armies.

33. Therefore arise, get thee glory, conquer thy enemies and enjoy an opulent kingdom. By me and none other already even are they slain, do thou become the occasion only, 0 Savyasachin.

34. Slay, by me who are slain, Drona, Bhishma, Tavadratha, Kama and other heroic fighters; be. Not pained and troubled. Fight, thou shalt¹ conquer the adversary in the battle.

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by me, the empire of right and justice. Let this be sufficient for thee,—to be one with God in thy soul, to receive his command, to do his will, to see calmly a supreme purpose fulfilled in the world.

1 The fruit of the great and terrible work is promised and Prophesied, not as a fruit hungered for by the individual,—for to that there is to be no attachment,—but as the result of the wine will, the glory and success of the thing to be done accomplished, the glory given by the Divine to himself in his Vibhuti. Thus is the final and compelling command to action given to the protagonist of the world-battle.

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