Verse 11.23

Verse 11.23: “Beholding Thy prodigious Form with many mouths and eyes, O Thou of mighty arms, with many arms and thighs and feet, with many bellies, and gruesome with many Jaws, the worlds are in trepidation, and so also myself. (338)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

Good luck seems to have propitiously smiled on them with this vision for the eyes to feast on, by which the mind sights a new dawn of bliss in beholding thine unfathomed all-filling Presence. That Presence, pervading all the worlds, makes even the Gods awe-struck, and yet now the merest of mortals is blessed with a face to face Vision of it. One single Presence it is, and yet opens up with myriads of dreadful mouths, glances with many eyes, and wields weapons in countless arms. Bearing innumerable thighs, feet, and many bellies and different colours, savage vehemence seems to burst out from each single mouth, as if the wrathful Yama (God of death), at impending world-destruction, is hurling all round fire jets, or as if the destructive missiles of the world-destroying Rudras, are being flung on all sides, or as if, the bands of Bhairavas (inferior manifestations of God Shiva), are being rushed forward, or as if, guns of world-destroying power are hurling cannonballs for the carnage of all living creatures; in this wise, O Lord, these thy dreadful mouths are gaping on all around, and like the ferocious lions that are crammed out of their dens which cannot hold them thy teeth flashing their fury are sticking out of the mouth.

And these jaws in thy mouths: these have turned pitch-black with the blood of world-destruction and verily seem to be the very night-spirits and demons—that move out in the dark night of destruction in their wicked glee. And as if this is not enough, thy mouth is yawning that terror that spreads when the universal destroyer Time is out for a ravaging war, and envelopes all creations in destruction. The poor created universe in its entire variety, at the merest touch of thy vision, shrivels like the trees on the banks of the Jumna that were scorched by poison of Kaliya.

In this great ocean of thine all-pervading being that appears strewn with universal wrecks, the life of the created universe is verily like a tiny boat that is perpetually tossed and swung on the waves of agony and distress. Oh! Lord of Vaikuntha, pray do not tax me in wrath, not to bethink myself on the world’s agony, and to rest myself in the peaceful enjoyment of the meditation on thy divine all-pervading life. I am indeed offering, on behalf of the world, my prayers which are only a mask for my own helplessness with fright. I am praying for my own life. Meeting me face to face in all thine awful vision, thou hast brought me (both inside and outside) to an utterly pitiful plight, though I held even the world-destroying Rudra terror-stricken and have defied Death Himself. But the strangest of miracles, Oh Lord, is this All-pervading divine vision as it is named; it is yet the great destroyer (mahāmārī), and has with its awful dread foiled and baffled terror itself.