Arjuna Sees the Universal Form

The story

On the field of Kurukshetra, Krishna had been teaching Arjuna for a long time: about the Self that never dies, about doing one's duty without clinging to the reward, and about how everything in the world comes from God and returns to God. In the tenth chapter of the Gita, Krishna named some of his glories: among lights he is the sun, among rivers the Ganga, among things that never move, the Himalaya.

Arjuna listened, and then he said: "My confusion has gone. I have heard you speak of your greatness. Now, if you think it is possible for me, I wish to see that form of yours with my own eyes."

"See my forms by the hundred and the thousand," said Krishna, "of every colour and shape. See the whole universe, everything that moves and everything that does not, gathered in one place in my body. But you cannot see me with these ordinary eyes. I will give you divine sight."

Sanjaya, describing the scene to the blind king, could hardly find words. If a thousand suns rose in the sky at once, he said, their light might be like the light of that form. Arjuna saw countless faces and eyes, countless arms, divine garlands and jewels, and inside that one body, the whole universe in all its parts.

Arjuna's hair stood on end. He folded his hands and bowed. "I see the gods in your body," he said, "and Brahma on his lotus, and all the sages. I see no end to you, no middle and no beginning. The sun and the moon are your eyes."

But the form was also terrible. Arjuna saw time itself in it, the time that brings every life to its end, and he saw the warriors of both armies streaming into it like rivers rushing to the sea. He was afraid. "Who are you, in this fierce form?" he asked. Krishna answered that he was Time, which ends all things, and that what was coming would come whether Arjuna fought or not; Arjuna should be only the instrument.

Arjuna bowed again and again. "Forgive me," he said, "for every time I called you 'Krishna' or 'friend' without knowing who you were, joking with you, sitting and eating with you. Forgive me as a father forgives a son, a friend a friend. I am glad I have seen this, but my heart is shaking. Please show me your gentle form again."

So Krishna became gentle again, first with four arms, holding the mace and the discus, and then simply himself, Arjuna's friend and charioteer. "Do not be afraid," he said. "No one has seen this form through study of the Vedas, or sacrifices, or gifts, or hard penance. It can be known only through loving devotion."

Teachers of different schools have read this chapter in their own ways: as showing that the whole world is God's body, or that all forms are one reality appearing as many, or that God is far greater than the world he holds. The Gita itself leaves Arjuna where many readers find themselves: amazed, a little afraid, and glad to see his friend's face again. Families who read it together often take from it that the One beyond all imagining can also be close enough to call a friend.

Something to do together

On a clear night, or with a picture of the Milky Way, try to imagine "the light of a thousand suns". Then make a family vishvarupa: each person draws one thing from the world they love, and you put all the drawings together inside one big outline.

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