Sanskrit
आख्याहि मे को भवानुग्ररूपो नमोऽस्तु ते देववर प्रसीद । विज्ञातुमिच्छामि भवन्तमाद्यम् न हि प्रजानामि तव प्रवृत्तिम् ॥
ākhyāhi me ko bhavān ugrarūpo namo'stu te devavara prasīda vijñātum icchāmi bhavantam ādyaṃ na hi prajānāmi tava pravṛttim
Translation
Reveal Thy Self; what awful Form art Thou? I worship Thee! Have mercy, God supreme! Thine inner Being I am fain to know; This Thy forth-streaming Life bewilders me.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Sixteen verses of pure description (15 through 30) finally give way to a direct question — “ākhyāhi me ko bhavān,” tell me who you are. It’s a striking admission: Arjuna has been narrating an overwhelming vision in precise, vivid detail this whole time without actually knowing what it is he’s looking at. The request is answered immediately and without any of the riddling the Gita sometimes favors — Krishna’s reply in the very next verse is as direct as the question. Sixteen verses of vivid description, and Arjuna still does not know what he is looking at — ākhyāhi me ko bhavān, “tell me who you are.” The reply comes in the very next verse, as direct as the question.
Study deeper
Word by word
- ākhyāhi me ko bhavān ugrarūpoआख्याहि मे को भवान् उग्ररूपो
- tell me who you are, of fierce form (ākhyāhi + me + kaḥ + bhavān + ugra-rūpaḥ)
- namo'stu te devavara prasīdaनमोऽस्तु ते देववर प्रसीद
- homage to you, O best of gods; be gracious (namaḥ + astu + te + deva-vara + prasīda)
- vijñātum icchāmi bhavantam ādyaṃविज्ञातुं इच्छामि भवन्तं आद्यं
- I wish to know you, the primal one (vijñātum + icchāmi + bhavantam + ādyam)
- na hi prajānāmi tava pravṛttimन हि प्रजानामि तव प्रवृत्तिं
- for I do not comprehend your working (na + hi + prajānāmi + tava + pravṛttim)
Commentary
Site Commentary
It would have been easy for Arjuna to keep performing comprehension — his description in verses 15 through 30 is detailed enough to sound like understanding. Instead he explicitly names the gap: he has been looking without knowing. The question costs him nothing rhetorically because the text has already shown, at length, that his ignorance was never a failure of attention.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- Detailed, articulate description of a situation is not the same as understanding it — you can narrate something precisely and still not know what it is. Naming that gap out loud, as Arjuna does here, costs less than pretending the details already added up to comprehension.
Professional
- In a meeting, giving a thorough, well-observed status update doesn't mean you've actually diagnosed the problem — if you don't yet know what's driving what you're describing, say so plainly rather than letting fluent detail stand in for a conclusion you haven't reached.
Family & Social
- You can describe a loved one's behavior in vivid, accurate detail for years without ever asking what's actually driving it — the honest move, like Arjuna's here, is admitting the gap and asking directly instead of substituting more observation for understanding.
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