​Gita 11.15 – Arjuna’s vision encompasses the whole universe from top to bottom

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Bhagavad Gita 11.15 Arjuna Vacha pashyami devam sthavadev dehe sarvam satha bhuta vishesh sasanghan brahmaanamesham kamala samastham vishimscha sarvaanurugamscha divyan pashyami devams pashyami devams so pashyami I shall see devams or I am able to see rather O Divine being sthavadev dehe so here we see there is alliteration of the sound of devams devadehe pashyami devams sthavadev dehe O Divine being in your form I am seeing sarvam satha bhuta vishesh sasanghan all kinds of beings I am seeing vishesh sasanghan, special beings so normally say if we see a crowd say on the on a railway station in Mumbai that's not unusual but if in the crowd normally we will see Indians, mostly we will see Maharashtrians but Indians basically but if suddenly in the crowd we start seeing people who are Africans we are seeing certain people who are Chinese, who are Americans who are Australian, basically when we start seeing people from various parts of the world within that crowd we will be surprised so just a crowd is not unusual but a crowd comprised of people of vishesh sasanghan with special characteristics that are not usually found in the same place then that will be surprising so as Arjuna is describing here what he is seeing so he states vishamidevam stavadevadehe sarvamsatha bhutavishesh sasanghan sarvamsatha I am able to see in this form bhutavishesh sasanghan I am able to see a wide variety of beings over there brahmanam isham kamala sanastham brahmanam isham oh lord oh deva I am seeing brahmanam brahma isham there I am seeing isham who is the one who is the controller so usually the word isha is used to refer to shiva often in the name keshava so there also it is said that the one who is the lord of brahma and shiva so in that also the word isha refers to shiva so here it is brahmanam isham kamala sanastham kamala sanastham situated on the seat of a lotus this refers to brahmaji who is famously seated on a lotus in fact he is born itself on a lotus at the start of the universal manifestation a primeval lotus emanates from the navel of garbhodaksha vishnu and it is on that navel that brahmaji appears kamala sanastham so here it is said that I am seeing brahmaji on a lotus flower now you have to understand here that this lotus flower which he is seeing it is not exactly that he is seeing the whole lotus body going down to the form of garbhodaksha vishnu at the bottom of the universe and lotus is the thing on which lotus is the thing on which brahmaji is born and lotus is also his normal sitting place it is like a king has a throne where the king normally sits the king can sit at other places also so it is not that brahmaji is motionless throughout all his life not doing anything or going anywhere but there is a default sitting place which defines a person and it is like a king is defined by the default sitting place of the throne so like that brahmaji is defined characterized we could say more precisely rather than defined brahmaji is characterized by the default sitting place of the kamala sanastham so here brahma and shiva both are seated so now brahmaji is situated right at the top of the universe shiva is in kailash which is also in the higher parts of the universe rishi refers to the higher beings, the sages so sages exist sages exist on the earth also but sages are people who are living in goodness or at least striving to live in goodness and thus often the sages are situated in the higher planets especially the top three planets sattva loka, jan loka, tap loka that is why sages are there so urugam urugam it can refer to serpents and we could say that serpents are lower beings somewhere in the lower parts of the universe but it is also said over here divyan the serpents are not ordinary, they are transcendental so these transcendental serpents are this refers actually to, it can at one level refer to the serpent who is at the bottom of the cosmic universe at the bottom so the serpent that is the bed of garbhodakshay vishnu so basically he is, arjuna is getting a vision of the whole universe in terms of its whole, we could say vertical scope right from the highest planetary systems to the lowest or from the top of the universe to the bottom later on he will describe how various prominent persons in the universe are also seen by him rudra, aditya, vaso, ecchi, sadhya so different beings will be described later how arjuna is seeing all of them but here primarily the focus is on describing how arjuna is getting to behold the whole scope of the universe and arjuna is describing that shyamidevam sthavadevadehe the word deha or sharira that is coming again and again because this form is not just an abstract vision in the sense that it is not a formless amorphous coagulation of things it's a concrete revelation within a concrete dimension that is the form so we had the word sharira or deha coming again and again in the previous verse it was there two verses ago sanjay when describing this in the 13th text he said that so in the sharira pandava saw in one place the astonishing variety of the universe and before that also krishna had also told arjuna that shyamidevam sthavadevadehe in the 7th text said that so deha and sharira are synonyms they have come twice each of them has come once earlier and here arjuna when he is describing also shyamidevam sthavadevadehe and your form oh lord i am seeing all this arjuna will continue his description in the future verses actually almost for 17-18 verses he will continue his description and we will discuss that.