Gita 11.31 Encountering the fearful kala rupa in the vishva-rupa is disconcerting
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Bhagavad Gita 11.31 Krishna is speaking and he says over here sorry Arjuna is speaking and he says please explain we have aakhya, explanation is aakhya so aakhya hi me ko bhavan ugra roopo ko who are you oh lord please certainly explain this to me ugra roopo is ferocious form of fears of form as Prabhupada translated poetically bhavan there is a respectful second person there is tvam and there is bhavan please explain to me who you are namostu te devavara prasida namostu te I offer obeisances to you who are the lord of the gods devavara the best of the gods prasida please be pacified please be peaceful please be pleased with me so now there might seem to be a contradiction here he is asking who are you aakhya hi me ko who are you bhavan ugra roopo and at the same time he is saying devavara you are the best of the gods so if Arjuna knows that Krishna is the best of the gods and the question comes up why is he asking such a question that is indicated in the next two lines vijnata micchami bhavantamadhyam vijnata micchami I desire to know bhavantamadhyam from you oh lord I want to know again there is a respectful second person so adhyam you are the original person it also indicates that Krishna Arjuna is aware of the position of the universal form of the vision that he is seeing over here nahi prajanami tava pravrttem nahi prajanami I do not know your this is mission pravrtti inclination intention mission all similar here now it is Arjuna only who has asked Krishna to show the universal form and Krishna has said that I will show the universal form so then why is there confusion about identification for Arjuna why is he asking that who are you he has already identified in fact he himself has identified earlier vishweshwara vishwaroopam thus I see you oh lord who are the vishwaroopam so if he has identified the form before him as the vishwaroopam then why is he asking again that same form who are you so the answer is that actually he has identified the form no doubt as a vishwaroopam but he had certain expectation when he saw the vishwaroopam and that expectation is not being fulfilled here rather he is seeing something else he knows that vishwaroopam is extremely powerful the whole universe is present in it the whole cosmos is there from up to down that was what was expected but then when he sees in that universal form the ferocious being with the mouth open fire coming out and all living beings and the Kauravas entering into the fire even his own soldiers entering into fire into that fiery mouth so in text 26 and 27 he stated that actually they have all entered into the vishwaroopam and they are dying their heads are getting smashed against their teeth which are ferocious and they are meeting a terrible death and in the previous verse he says that not only are they smashing their heads and losing their lives but actually when they smash their heads and their blood gets spread all over the vishwaroopam is actually licking the blood and thus it's a ghastly sight so naturally this disconcerts Arjuna even a person who goes regularly to forests and sees tribes if there the tribal sees if we see that tribals are actually cannibals then even a person who is habituated to seeing tribals even that person may get disconcerted so Arjuna knows that this is the vishwaroopam but what is this feature that he is seeing he is not able to identify this ghastly feature he is not able to identify therefore he says at one level identify that you are devavara you are aadyam so you understand that you are the supreme being but then still he asks who are you exactly I am not able to understand I am not able to understand your mission Krishna while revealing the vishwaroopam had told Arjuna that you will see what you have desired and you will see more over here so now here that same point being stressed it is stated that beyond that also you will see something so Krishna has shown Arjuna his kaalaroopam and that was a revelation which has not been seen before and because of that now when it is seen Arjuna is not able to identify that and in response to Arjuna's question Krishna will tell in future verses that actually I am the form of time time I am the destroyer of all the worlds but at this stage in this verse the sight of the scarily unfamiliar in the majestically familiar so familiar is not exactly in the sense of very close familiarity but Arjuna was aware of what the vishwaroopa is in a broad sense and he was expected to see something but when he sees something entirely different he is disconcerted as he says he becomes fearful and thus he is asking that what is your intention I am not able to so in one sense we know that God the absolute has many forms so that lord who is advaita who is achuta brahma samhita says who is anadi he has anantaroopa this verse from brahma samhita has alliteration of the a sound in all the four words advaita machuta manadi manantaroopam so he has unlimited forms and now he manifests different forms for different purposes at a spiritual level it is to reciprocate love in different moods with different devotees who would like to worship him in different forms at the material level he may have different missions maybe to kill particular demons and different demons may have different benedictions because of which the lord may be required to manifest in a particular form for going around circumventing the obstacles created by those benedictions and to kill him just like the lord manifested in Narasimha and even the gods were fear struck because even Lakshmidevi was fear struck because she felt I have never seen my lord in such a ferocious form such a ferocious mood so here he understands Arjuna understands that this is the supreme lord this is the devavara, this is the adhyam but he is not able to understand which particular form is this and for what particular mission has this form been manifested so thus the question is about who is this, which form and for what purpose and that will be answered in the next verse.