Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Verse 11 (BG 11.11) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

When a painter endeavors to express his artistic vision through colors, he first sketches an indistinct outline of his subject upon a canvas. Thereafter, inch by inch, he fills in the colors, rendering the image progressively clearer. At last, the completed painting seems to sing forth the painter's message. In like manner, this verse—a word-painting composed by Vyasa, the master artist of literature—traces the outline of the Lord's universal form through the words of Sanjaya. The vision that presented itself before Sanjaya is not something that an ordinary person of common understanding could readily grasp. Upon witnessing this magnificent and powerful spectacle, the common person would be left bewildered and awestruck by fear and wonder. The entire cosmos is not a subject that the mind can conceive, nor can the intellect comprehend it. Therefore, when this vision appears in the midst of the Gita's teaching, even Sanjaya begins to falter in his narration. The words "adorned with divine garlands and celestial garments, anointed with divine fragrance, infinitely wondrous, the Lord facing all directions"—and such phrases—are like the curved strokes of the painter's brush, which, when applied, complete the portrait of the cosmic form within its outline. Sanjaya continues his narration: