Sanskrit
अनेकवक्त्रनयनमनेकाद्भुतदर्शनम् । अनेकदिव्याभरणं दिव्यानेकोद्यतायुधम् ॥
anekavaktranayanam anekādbhutadarśanam anekadivyābharaṇaṃ divyānekodyatāyudham
Translation
With many mouths and eyes, with many visions of marvel, with many divine ornaments, with many upraised divine weapons;
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The description proper begins, and it opens on repetition as a technique, not just a content choice: “aneka” (many) appears four times in two lines. Sanskrit description of the divine ordinarily reaches for infinite qualities in the abstract; here it’s doing something more visceral — piling up countable-but-uncountable body parts and weapons until the cumulative effect is closer to sensory overload than to reverent cataloguing. Aneka, “many,” lands four times in two lines — repetition as sensory overload, not reverent cataloguing. The Gita’s usual mode for the divine (infinite qualities in the abstract) is set aside for a pile-up of countable-but-uncountable parts.
Study deeper
Word by word
- anekavaktranayanamअनेकवक्त्रनयनं
- with many mouths and eyes (aneka-vaktra-nayanam)
- anekādbhutadarśanamअनेकाद्भुतदर्शनं
- of many wondrous aspects (aneka-adbhuta-darśanam)
- anekadivyābharaṇaṃअनेकदिव्याभरणं
- with many divine ornaments (aneka-divya-ābharaṇam)
- divyānekodyatāyudhamदिव्यानेकोद्यतायुधं
- with many divine weapons upraised (divya-aneka-udyata-āyudham)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This is the establishing shot before any close-up: no single image dominates verse 10, just an accumulating list of mouths, eyes, ornaments, weapons, each modified by “many.” The sharper individual images — the thousand suns of verse 12, the fire-mouth of verse 19 — don’t arrive until the wide, undifferentiated overwhelm has already been laid down first. Description here moves from breadth to focus, not the other way around.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you're trying to convey the scale of something overwhelming that happened to you, it's fine to start broad and undifferentiated before you find the one sharp image that captures it — the vague accumulation often has to come first before the precise metaphor can land.
Professional
- When presenting a large, messy problem to stakeholders, resist opening with your sharpest single data point — establish the breadth of the issue first, then narrow to the most striking individual metric once the scope is understood.
Family & Social
- When trying to help someone grasp how much is going on for you, it's okay to start with a broad, unfiltered account before you can find the one image or example that really captures it — clarity is allowed to come second.
Ask yourself
A few ways to take this verse past reading. Ticks and the note stay in this browser.