Verse 11.30

Verse 11.30: “Ever and anon dost Thou lick up (Thy lips) all around, as Thou devourest with Thy blazing mouths the entire worlds. With Thy radiances filling to brim the entire universe, Thy fierce rays cause excessive burnings, O Vishnu. (427)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

And what an uncommonly ravenous hunger has been stirred up here, that is not appeased with so much victuals. See how the tongues are seen lolling out to smack the lips, as though a patient, recovering from illness, is glutting himself with food, or as though a starving beggar were faring in a famine-stricken land. What a voracious appetite it must be that is gorged with food from which nothing is excepted. How unquenchable is this greed of thine on all sides that is impatient to suck the ocean dry in a single draught, or make but a single morsel of a whole mountain, or grind the whole frame of heaven and earth (brahmakaṭāha) under the jaws, or gulp down all the four quarters (of the compass) or lick off the starry vault above? Indulgence inflames passions, or as fire blazes up with fuel, so the ravenous hunger is glutting the mouths the more voraciously, the more they are devouring the victims.

Behold, how a single mouth yawning to make the entire universe rest on the tip of its tongue, as if it were a wood-apple (kavaṭha) thrown into the submarine fire. And myriads of such mouths are opening in this Omnipresent Deity; but where are the universes to feed them? And one knows not why they are so many with no food to feed them!! Oh Lord, the entire mass of created beings is caught up in the flames of these mouths, as if flocks of deer are trapped in forest fires. The entire universe is for the present brought to this wretched plight. This indeed, is not Omnipresent Lord God, but in truth, relentless Destiny, as though, like fish, in the net of the world-destroyer, are caught the created beings. How are these poor created beings to come out of the meshes of the lustre of this Divine Body? Indeed these are not the mouths of the Divine Person; rather, they are so many burning lac-made houses hurled at the world.

The fire knows not the pangs of being burnt alive; Yet whatever creature is touched by fire, cannot but lose life. Oh, the sharp weapon is hardly aware of its lethal power, nor indeed, the deadly poison of its baneful work; in that way, Oh Lord, art thou unmindful of the fury raging in thy mouths, but the worlds in the mouths are simply burnt to ashes. Oh, thou art the unitary Being, the Great Soul, by which lives and moves the whole universe. Then how art thou raining death and destruction on us? I have now given up all hope of life, and thou too, I beseech thee, be pleased unshrinkingly to tell me all that is in your mind. Where indeed wilt thou withhold thy hand from this raging fury? I pray, thou remember thine abiding mercy as Protector; may Thy grace be turned at least to me.