Sanskrit
सर्वतः पाणिपादं तत्सर्वतोऽक्षिशिरोमुखम् । सर्वतः श्रुतिमल्लोके सर्वमावृत्य तिष्ठति ॥
sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṃ tat sarvato 'kṣiśiromukham sarvataḥ śrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati
Translation
Everywhere That hath hands and feet, everywhere eyes, heads, and mouths; all-hearing, He dwelleth in the world, enveloping all,
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The description proceeds by deliberate paradox: hands, feet, eyes, heads, and mouths “everywhere,” hearing everything, enveloping the world. Read literally this is nonsensical — nothing has infinite bodies — which is exactly the point: the language strains to describe something that isn’t spatially localized the way objects in the field are, reaching for bodily imagery precisely to demonstrate its own inadequacy for the job. Read literally, “hands, feet, eyes everywhere” is nonsensical — which is the point. The language strains toward bodily imagery precisely to demonstrate its own inadequacy for something not spatially localized the way objects in the field are. Echoed as an actual vision at BG 11.16.
Study deeper
Word by word
- sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṃ tatसर्वतः पाणिपादं तत्
- with hands and feet everywhere (sarvataḥ + pāṇi-pādam + tat)
- sarvato 'kṣiśiromukhamसर्वतो ऽक्षिशिरोमुखं
- eyes, heads, and faces everywhere (sarvataḥ + akṣi-śiraḥ-mukham)
- sarvataḥ śrutimal lokeसर्वतः श्रुतिमल् लोके
- with ears everywhere, in the world (sarvataḥ + śruti-mat + loke)
- sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhatiसर्वं आवृत्य तिष्ठति
- it stands enveloping all (sarvam + āvṛtya + tiṣṭhati)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This is the same cosmic-body vocabulary chapter 11 rendered as a direct, overwhelming vision — hands, feet, eyes, and mouths everywhere was too much for Arjuna to bear seeing, and he begged Krishna to return to his familiar single form. Here the identical imagery arrives as calm doctrine instead of spectacle, and that’s the more usable form of the same truth: a reality can be too much to face directly and still be worth holding steadily as a description you return to on purpose.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- If a truth once overwhelmed you when you encountered it directly and vividly — grief, mortality, how small you are in the larger picture — you don't have to keep re-living it at that intensity to keep it real; returning to it as a calm, repeated statement can hold the same truth without the same overwhelm.
Professional
- A lesson that arrived overwhelming — a major incident that terrified the on-call team — doesn't have to stay locked in that intensity to keep doing its job; write it down calmly as a runbook or postmortem finding, so the team can hold the same truth on repeat without needing to relive the crisis.
Family & Social
- If a hard truth surfaced once in an intense family conversation — a health scare, an estrangement — don't leave it filed away as a single traumatic memory; revisit it occasionally in calm, plain conversation, so its lesson stays available without needing the original intensity to make it real.
Ask yourself
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