The Holy Lord said:
Now hear from Me the supreme word
Which I speak to you, Mighty-Armed,
For you are beloved to Me.
I speak desiring your welfare. (1)
Neither the multitude of gods
Or great seers know My origin.
In truth I am the source of the
Gods, as well as of the great seers. (2)
He who knows Me as birthless and
Beginningless, the world’s Great Lord–
He alone among mortals is
Undeluded and freed from sins. (3)
Reason, knowledge, non-delusion,
Forbearance, truth, restraint of sense,
Calmness, happiness, misery,
Birth, death, fear, also fearlessness, (4)
Non-injury, and contentment,1
Austerity, benevolence,
Both good repute and ill repute–
All these arise from Me alone. (5)
The ancient Seven Great Rishis2
And Four Manus,3 with pow’rs like Me,
Were born of My mind, and from them
Are all the creatures in this world. (6)
He who knows all these manifold
Manifestations of My pow’r
And glory, becomes established
In yoga–there can be no doubt. (7)
I am the origin of all,
And from Me ev’rything evolves–
Thinking thus, the wise worship Me
With consciousness all filled with love. (8)
With minds and lives intent on Me,
Enlightening4 one another,
And speaking of Me constantly,
They are content and do rejoice. (9)
To them, the constantly steadfast,
Worshipping Me with affection,
I bestow the buddhi-yoga
By which they shall come unto Me. (10)
Out of compassion for them, I,
Abiding in their hearts, destroy
The darkness born of ignorance
By the shining lamp of knowledge. (11)
Arjuna said:
Supreme Brahman, Supreme Abode,
Supreme Purifier, Divine,
Eternal Person, the First God,
The Birthless and All-pervading– (12)
Thus all the sages declare You:
Narad’,5 Asita Devala,6
And Vyasa7–and now do You, too,
Yourself declare it unto me. (13)
I regard all this that You say
To me as true, O Keshava.
In truth, neither gods nor demons
Know of Your manifestation. (14)
For You know Yourself by Yourself,
O You, the Supreme Purusha8:
Source of beings, Lord of beings,
God of gods, Ruler of the world. (15)
You should now describe completely
Your divine manifestations
By which, pervading all these worlds,
You do abide within all things. (16)
How may I know You, O Yogi,
Always meditating on You?
In what aspects of Your BeingAre
You to be thought of by me? (17)
Explain to me in more detail
Your pow’rs and manifestations.
I am never satiated
In hearing Your amrit-like9 words. (18)
The Holy Lord said:
Listen! I shall tell you of My
Divine Self-manifestations;
But only the chief ones, because
There is no end to My expanse. (19)
I am the Self abiding in
The heart of all beings; I am
The beginning, the middle, and
Also the end of all beings. (20)
I am Vishnu10 of Adityas;11
The Sun among luminaries;
I am Marichi of Maruts;12
Among the stars I am the Moon. (21)
Of Vedas, the Sama Veda;13
I am Indra14 among the gods;
Of the senses I am the mind;
Intelligence in all beings. (22)
Among the Rudras,15 Shankara;16
Kuber17 of yakshas,18 rakshasas;
Of Vasus19 I am Pavaka;20
And of mountains Meru21 am I. (23)
And of priests, O son of Pritha,
Know Me the chief, Brihaspati;22
Of generals I am Skanda;23
Among the waters, the ocean. (24)
Of great Rishis24 I am Bhrigu;25
Of words, the one-syllabled OM;
Of Yajñas,26 the Japa27 Yajña;28
Of immovables: Himalayas. (25)
Of trees I am the Ashwattha;29
Of Deva-rishis, Narada;
Of Gandharvas,30 Chitraratha;31
Among siddhas,32 Sage Kapila.33 (26)
Among horses, Uchchaishravas34
Who was born of the Amrita;
Of elephants, Airavata;35
And among men I am the king. (27)
Among weapons, the Thunderbolt;36
Among cows I am Kamadhuk;37
The cause of offspring, Kandarpa;38
Of serpents I am Vasuki.39 (28)
Of Nagas40 I am Ananta;41
Of water beings, Varuna;42
Of pitris43 I am Aryaman;44
Of controllers I am Yama.45 (29)
Of demons46 I am Prahlada;47
Among measurers I am Time;
Among beasts I am the lion;
Among birds I am Garuda.48 (30)
Of purifiers I am Wind;
Among warriors I am Rama;49
Of fishes I am the dolphin;
Of rivers I am the Ganges.50 (31)
Of manifestations I am
Beginning, middle, and the end;
Of knowledge, knowledge of the Self;
Of disputants I am logic. (32)
Among letters, the letter A;
Of compounds I am the dual;
I am inexhaustible Time;
I the Sustainer, the All-formed. (33)
I am all-destroying death and
Origin of all that shall be.
I am fame, prosperity, speech,
Mem’ry, wisdom, courage, patience. (34)
Of chants I am Brihatsaman;51
Of meters I am Gayatri;52
Of months I am Margashirsha;53
Of seasons, the season of flow’rs.54 (35)
The gambling of the fraudulent,
The splendor of the splendorous;
I am victory and effort;
I am sattwa of the sattwic. (36)
Among Vrishnis,55 Vasudeva;56
Of Pandavas, Dhananjaya;
Among sages I am Vyasa;
Among the rishis, Ushanas.57 (37)
The sceptre of authorities,
Strategy of the ambitious,
Of secret things I am silence;
The knowledge of knowers am I. (38)
Whate’er the seed of all beings,
That also am I, Arjuna.
No thing, moving or unmoving,
Can e’er exist apart from Me. (39)
Arjuna, there is no end of
My divine manifestations.
What I have spoken unto you
Is but an example of them. (40)
Whatever is glorious or
Prosperous or yet powerful,
Understand that springs from but a
Fraction of My radiant Pow’r. (41)
Of what value is it for you
To know all this, O Arjuna?
I ever support this whole world
By just one portion of Myself. (42)
Om Tat Sat
Thus in the Upanishads of the glorious Bhagavad Gita, the science of the Eternal, the scripture of Yoga, the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, ends the tenth discourse entitled: The Yoga of Divine Glories.
Read the next Chapter of the Bhagavad Gita: The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic Form
1) I had to leave out “impartiality” in this line to keep the meter. [Go back]
2) The Seven Rishis are great Beings who exist at the top of creation and supervise it. [Go back]
3) The Manus were the progenitors of the human race. [Go back]
4) This can also mean “awakening” spiritually. [Go back]
5) Narada: A primeval sage to whom some of the verses of the Rig Veda are attributed. [Go back]
6) Another ancient sage, composer of some of the hymns of the Rig Veda. [Go back]
7) Vyasa: One of the greatest sages of India, commentator on the Yoga Sutras, author of the Mahabharata (which includes the Bhagavad Gita), the Brahma Sutras, and the codifier of the Vedas. [Go back]
8) Purushottama. Purusha means “person” in the sense of a conscious spirit. Both God and the individual spirits are purushas, but God is the Adi (Original, Archetypal) Purusha, Parama (Highest) Purusha, and the Purushottama (Best of the Purushas). [Go back]
9) Amrita: That which makes one immortal. [Go back]
10) Vishnu: “The all-pervading;” God as the Preserver. [Go back]
11) Adityas: Solar deities. [Go back]
12) The Maruts are the presiding deities of winds and storms, and Marichi is their chief. [Go back]
13) The Sama Veda is a compilation of Rig Veda hymns that have been pointed for singing. [Go back]
14) Vasava: Indra, the king of the lesser “gods” (demigods). [Go back]
15) The Rudras are Vedic deities of destruction for renewal. [Go back]
16) “The Auspicious One.” A title of Shiva. [Go back]
17) Vittesha: Kubera, the god of wealth. [Go back]
18) Yaksha: There are two kinds of yakshas: 1) semidivine beings whose king is Kubera, the lord of wealth, or 2) a kind of ghost, goblin, or demon. [Go back]
19) The Vasus are eight Vedic deities characterized by radiance. [Go back]
20) Agni: The Vedic god of fire. [Go back]
21) Meru: The mountain, of supreme height, on which the gods dwell, or the mountain on which Shiva is ever seated in meditation. Said to be the center of the world, supporting heaven itself. Obviously a yogic symbol. [Go back]
22) Brihaspati: The guru–priest and teacher–of the gods. [Go back]
23) Also known as Subramanya or Karttikeya, the god of war and son of Shiva and Parvati. [Go back]
24) Rishi: Sage; seer of the Truth. [Go back]
25) Bhrigu: An ancient sage, so illustrious that he mediated quarrels among the gods. [Go back]
26) Yajna: Sacrifice; offering; sacrificial ceremony; a ritual sacrifice; usually the fire sacrifice known as agnihotra or havan. [Go back]
27) Japa: Repetition of a mantra. [Go back]
28) In the context of this verse, japa yajna is the offering or sacrifice of continually repeating Om. [Go back]
29) Ashwattha: The pipal (sacred fig) tree, the eternal tree of life whose roots are in heaven. The “world tree” in the sense of the axis of the earth and even of the cosmos. [Go back]
30) Gandharva: A demigod–a celestial musician and singer. [Go back]
31) Chitraratha: The chief of the gandharvas. [Go back]
32) Siddha: A perfected being, an adept, a seer, a perfect yogi. [Go back]
33) Kapila: The great sage who formulated the Sankhya philosophy which is endorsed by Krishna several times in the Bhagavad Gita. [Go back]
34) Uchchaishravas: The name of Indra’s horse (or the horse of the Sun god, Surya), that was born of the amrita that was churned from the ocean by the gods. The name means “high-sounding” and refers to the power of mantra. [Go back]
35) Airavata: The white elephant of Indra that was produced by the churning of the ocean. [Go back]
36) Vajra: the special weapon of Indra, king of the gods. [Go back]
37) Kamadhenu: Wishfulfilling cow produced at the churning of the milk ocean. [Go back]
38) A name of Kamadeva, the god of beauty and love. [Go back]
39) The king of the serpents. He assisted at the churning of the milk ocean. [Go back]
40) Nagas: Astral beings that often interact with human beings, usually taking the form of snakes. (In Sanskrit naga is the word for snake.) [Go back]
41) Ananta: The chief of the Nagas, whose coils encircle the earth and who symbolizes eternity (“ananta” means “without end”), and upon whom Vishnu reclines. [Go back]
42) Varuna: A Vedic deity considered the sustainer of the universe and also the presiding deity of the oceans and water. Often identified with the conscience. [Go back]
43) Pitri: A departed ancestor, a forefather. [Go back]
44) Aryaman: Chief of the Pitris. [Go back]
45) Yama: The Lord of Death, controller of who dies and what happens to them after death. [Go back]
46) Daityas: Demons who constantly war with the gods. Sometimes “races” or nationalities who acted contrary to dharma and fought against the “aryas” were also called demons (daityas or asuras). This was the case with the people among whom Prahlada was born. [Go back]
47) Prahlada: A daitya prince who rejected his daitya heritage and became a devotee of Vishnu. His father, the evil Hiranyakashipu, tortured him and attempted his life because of his devotion and his speaking to others of divine matters, yet he remained steadfast. [Go back]
48) Garuda: A great being who can assume bird form, and therefore considered the king of birds. Often depicted as an eagle, he is the vehicle of Vishnu. [Go back]
49) Rama: An incarnation of God–the king of ancient Ayodhya in north-central India. His life is recorded in the ancient epic Ramayana. [Go back]
50) Ganges: The sacred river–believed to be of divine origin–that flows from high up in the Himalayas, through the plains of Northern India, and empties into the Bay of Bengal. Hindus consider that bathing in the Ganges profoundly purifies both body and mind. [Go back]
51) A type of chant to Indra in the Sama Veda. [Go back]
52) The gayatri meter is found only in the Rig Veda and consists of three lines of eight syllables each. It is considered especially appropriate for mantric invocation of deities before worship. [Go back]
53) A lunar month, roughly the latter half of November and the first half of December. This is the time of ideal weather in India. [Go back]
54) Kusumakaras, “the season of flowers” is a term for Spring. [Go back]
55) The ancestral clan of Krishna. [Go back]
56) Son of Vasudeva–Krishna [Go back]
57) An ancient seer and poet. [Go back]