Gita 11.16 – Description of vision stimulates identification of the source of that vision

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in our future talks bhagavad gita 11.16 vishwaroopam so this is the verse in which arjuna identifies what he is seeing so he says that what he is seeing is vishwaroopam its a universal form roopam vishwaram earlier the word had been used to to describe this describe the glory of this form but specifically it had not been named so in this verse the narration moves from description to identification just like when we see some person then say we are not very familiar with that person but we have heard of that person then we may start we may start describing oh this person is so tall this person has black hair fair complexion a prominent nose a strong build pointed round eyes chubby cheeks or whatever and then as we describe are you so and so isn't it so as there is description then the description also causes some recollection oh there was so and so person and this is how this person is looking this person must be that person so we put two and two together and thus we understand who it is so this verse moves from description to identification the description is going on we see that there are three times description is happening in the 11th chapter first is that there is a description which Krishna himself gives to Arjuna and there is a description which Sanjay gives to Dhritarashtra and there is a description which Arjuna himself gives so description makes perception intelligible otherwise sometimes if we see something unfamiliar and there is no description of what it is then we just can't make sense of anything in it suppose we see the map of a country but then it is it is at a particular focus or it is describing, it is maybe a cartographic map or whatever it is, it is in such a way that it doesn't make sense to us immediately but then somebody starts identifying can you see this feature, this feature, this feature then slowly we start identifying we start making sense of it and we start identifying is this this part of the city is that part of the city we start identifying like that similarly over here it is described that Krishna starts as Arjuna describes he identifies over here so pashyami vishweshwara vishwaroopa ho vishweshwaroopa what I am seeing is vishwaroopa now and this is again a poetic alliteration over here vishwa vishwa comes twice vishweshwara in fact we could say the v sound comes twice thrice and vishwa ishwara and vishwa again so pashyami lot of times there is a stress on seeing because the whole vishwaroopa is a form to be seen pashyami vishweshwara vishwaroopa it is to be seen with the eyes and that is what is happening aneka bahudhara vaktranetram this is the most striking feature so Sanjay describes it as soon as he talks about the universal form when he describes it 11.11 11.10 and 11 aneka vaktranayanam so namadhyam napunastavadim there is no end, no middle, no beginning in this way this form just simply pervades everything nantam namadhyam napunastavadim and thus pashyami vishweshwara vishwaroopa oh lord thus the thus your form is pervading everything now normally we make sense of a form or we get a sense of a form by its dimensions the very idea of a form conveys some kind of finiteness when we say a building is huge then huge also although it may be, suppose a skyscraper may be so tall that we just look up, look up, look up and we may not even see where it ends but even then we know it ends even if we can't see the upper end of it then we can see the, we can see it laterally ok it goes this far, on the left it goes this far on the right so normally we make sense of form by considering dimensions that even if the dimensions are huge still the dimensions are finite and if there is if something just pervades everywhere all around with no end at all then how do we conceive of that in terms of a shape or a form so here when Krishna is being referred by Arjuna as a rupa, as a form and yet this form pervades everywhere it's saying I am not able to see any end, any middle, any beginning so what is going on over here so something is just all pervading, something has unlimited dimensions then how can it be considered actually to be a form what does it mean for it to be called a form, it simply means that it is a form which we ourselves cannot pursue very easily so as far as the eye can go till that the form is simply extending extending, extending, extending but still there is a background along which the form is being seen and thus he is calling it as a form, for example if we are in the middle of an ocean and all sides as far as the eye can see, what we see is the ocean, so that means that is the ocean unlimited it is that is there any beginning, is there any middle, any end we can't perceive when we are in the middle of the ocean, it just seems everywhere so the idea of a form and the idea of unlimitedness they can be reconciled when we consider the nature of human perception, that by human perception we cannot see everything, so because we cannot see everything, we cannot know for sure that something is all pervading now to know for sure that something is all pervading, we ourselves will have to be all pervading and if we are not all pervading then we cannot know for sure that it is all pervading but what we can know is that if something just pervades our vision and extends as far as our vision goes and as far as we can see it just goes further and further, then it is a fair inference to say that it is all pervading, but when we say at the same time it is all pervading, it doesn't mean that it is just amorphous that within that all pervading form Arjuna is able to see specific forms specific shapes, specific as I said in this verse itself he says that there are faces there are mouth, there are hands there are bellies, so he is able to discern forms and this various forms are just going on and on and on and on in all directions so the universal form Vishvarupa which Arjuna identifies over here is thus both both specific in terms of having a form and also unlimited in terms of extending far beyond the limits of the extent of.