Chapter 10 · Verse 18·Spoken by Arjuna
विस्तरेणात्मनो योगं विभूतिं च जनार्दन। भूयः कथय तृप्तिर्हि श्रृण्वतो नास्ति मेऽमृतम्
vistareṇātmano yogaṁ vibhūtiṁ cha janārdana bhūyaḥ kathaya tṛiptir hi śhṛiṇvato nāsti me ’mṛitam
Tell me again, in detail, of your power and your glory, Krishna. I am not satisfied hearing your nectar-like words.
Word by Word
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
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Convergence
rjuna asks Krishna to tell him once more, and this time at length ('vistarena' means 'in detail' or 'in full expanse'), about two things: His 'yoga' and His 'vibhuti'. 'Yoga' here is the Lord's mysterious power of sovereignty, the lordly capacity marked by omniscience (knowing all) and omnipotence (being able to do all); 'vibhuti' is His glory, His manifestations, the array of things in the world worthy of being meditated upon as forms of Him. The two words are deliberately paired: the inner power that makes Him Lord, and the outer expanse where that power shows itself.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Rāmānujācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Arjuna is asking again for something Krishna has already given. Several commentators note that the divine power and the glories were already set out, in brief, in the seventh and ninth chapters, which raises the obvious objection: why ask once more for what has been said? The verse itself is framed as the answer to that objection. Arjuna wants it again, and this time expanded, not because the earlier telling was deficient but because his hunger to hear it has no limit.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrīla Baladeva · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Swami Sivananda · Swami Ramsukhdas · Rāmānujācārya
The reason Arjuna gives is that he cannot get enough. 'There is no satiety ('triptih na asti') for me as I listen,' he says, because the Lord's speech is 'amrita', nectar, the deathless drink. The point is not merely that the words are pleasant; the words are themselves the immortal substance the soul lives on. Hearing them is like drinking nectar, and the more one drinks the more one wants. The 'me' is emphatic: this unsated longing is Arjuna's own state, and it is offered to Krishna as the real motive behind the renewed request.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Baladeva · Swami Sivananda · Sant Jñāneśvar · Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Puruṣottama · Lokmanya Tilak
For the devotional and Vishishtadvaita readers especially, this unfillable hunger is not a weakness but the very mark of a true devotee. The bhakta in whom love has begun to mature is by nature one who is never satisfied by the Lord's self-disclosure; the asking-for-more is the natural breath of ripening devotion. So the verse, read this way, is as much a praise as a request: Arjuna's perpetual hunger for the Lord's word is itself the sign of his fitness, and the only fitting response to such an ear is for the Lord to keep speaking.
Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Sant Jñāneśvar
The address 'Janardana' is read by many as carrying its own hint. Built from the root 'ard' (motion), the name is taken in two ways. First, He is the one who drives the demons, the enemies of the gods, to their destruction; some apply this to Arjuna's situation, suggesting Krishna can likewise destroy his inner enemies such as passion ('raga') and aversion ('dvesha'). Second, He is the one whom all people entreat for both worldly prosperity and the highest good; on this reading, since everyone rightly asks things of Janardana, Arjuna's own asking is fitting too.
Braided from 6 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Swami Sivananda · Śrī Puruṣottama
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
Within the non-dual reading, the nectar-imagery is unpacked with unusual care. One commentator dwells on why no satisfaction comes by analyzing each word: 'amrita' (nectar) rules out the dissatisfaction one feels with insipid things, since this drink is never insipid; 'me' rules out the idea that mere taste-knowledge satisfies; 'as I listen' rules out the gross fullness of a filled belly. The ear, being of the nature of space ('akasha'), is filled by sound, which is space's own quality, and yet even so no satiety arises. Another voice gives terse equations that pull the verse toward liberation: the 'yoga' is the cosmic form, the 'vibhuti' is the support for meditation, and the 'amrita' is the very means to liberation.
Dhanapati Sūri · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Viśiṣṭādvaita
For this school the request is read against Krishna's own earlier words that He is the origin of all and that from Him everything proceeds; what Arjuna now asks to hear expanded is precisely that being-the-creator, that glory, that governing. The accent falls on the relationship: Arjuna's unsatedness is itself something the Lord already knows ('my unsatedness is itself known to you'). The verse is taken as the standing posture of the candidate before the Lord's word: the deathless 'amrita' is the substance of that word, and the never-arising satisfaction is the devotee's perpetual hunger, which is the very mark of his qualification.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Dvaita
This school reads the name 'Janardana' through its own scriptural lens and explicitly rejects the usual etymologies. The name is parsed as 'ja-na-ardana': 'He is unborn ('ja' from 'jata', and 'na', not) and yet He afflicts ('ardayati') transmigration.' Citing the Bhabhravya branch ('He indeed was, He was not, He afflicts'), the meaning drawn out is that He has existed from beginningless time, He was never non-existent, He is not subject to birth, and He drives or torments the round of rebirth; therefore He is Janardana. The reading that He merely drives demons to hell or is entreated by people is judged to be without scriptural authority and is set aside in favor of this birth-denying, samsara-afflicting sense.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
One voice in this school treats the previous verse and this one as a single passage, with the grammatical construction standing in the previous verse, and reads Arjuna's hunger as a 'pushti' sign, a mark of the soul nourished by grace: the devotee in whom love is rightly set never has enough, for the hearing is itself the 'amrita' by which the soul lives. Another voice glosses the contemplation as the means by which Arjuna attains and truly knows the Lord, calls the 'yoga' a play-formed ('lila') yoga set within the substances of the world, and reads 'Janardana' as the destroyer of all ignorance, so that the nectar-word is moksha-formed and death-removing, bliss itself.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
The devotional commentators stress the savoring of the word and the Lord's role in stirring the hunger. One reads the request as Arjuna asking that, even though his mind runs outward toward this object and that, the Lord teach the vibhutis in such a way that in every object only the thought of Him alone arises; the verse becomes a praise wearing the shape of a request, an ear that cannot be filled. Another says the Lord, by the sweetness of His beneficial instruction, deliberately stirs up longing and so makes devotees beg, and that the nectar is tasted 'with the tongue of hearing.' A third notes the literary figures at work: by not saying 'your words' outright there is the ornament of concealment, with hyperbole blended in. The fourth, in an extended Marathi meditation, contrasts the churned nectar of the gods, which even the gods drank only out of fear of death and which is finally a deluding extract, with Krishna's word, which is self-existent, unchurned, beyond taste or smell, within reach of anyone who yearns, and which dissolves worldly life and raises the hearer to the Divine itself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Modern
Among the modern voices, one emphasizes the purpose behind the request: Arjuna asks about the manifestations not in order to meditate on them as separate deities but in order to see all of them as the one all-pervading Supreme, since the Lord has already taught that there is a world of difference between worshipping the one Supreme everywhere and worshipping His manifestations as different gods. Another reads the verse as the natural continuation of an already-generous teaching: the matter of knowledge ('jnana-vijnana') had been set out fully in chapters seven and nine, and not satisfied even with that, Arjuna pressed on, while the Lord on His own opened this tenth chapter to give yet more of His supreme word. A third keeps the plain devotional sense: Arjuna prays to the Lord for his own salvation, and however much of the ambrosial speech he hears, he is simply never satisfied, for it is truly the nectar of immortality for him.
Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
A Seeker Asks
Why does Arjuna keep asking for the same teaching, and is this restless hunger to hear more about God a flaw or a sign of something good?
Arjuna himself names the reason: there is no satiety for him as he listens, because the Lord's speech is nectar, the deathless drink, and one never tires of nectar. He is not asking again because the first telling failed; he is asking because the hearing is itself the immortal substance the soul lives on, and the more one drinks the more one wants.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Rāmānujācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda
Far from being a flaw, this unfillable hunger is read by the devotional and Vishishtadvaita commentators as the very mark of a true and maturing devotee. The bhakta in whom love is rightly set is by nature one who is never satisfied by the Lord's self-disclosure; the asking-for-more is the natural breath of ripening devotion, and Arjuna's perpetual hunger is itself the sign of his fitness.
Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
One commentator goes so far as to say the Lord deliberately awakens this longing: by the sweetness of His instruction He stirs people up and makes them beg for more. So the restlessness you feel is the relationship working as designed, not a defect in you; the proper response is not to suppress the hunger but to return to the source and keep drinking.
Śrīla Viśvanātha
Contemplation
There is a tender invitation hidden in how this commentator hears the verse. The Lord, he says, by the very sweetness of His beneficial instruction, deliberately stirs up longing in people and so 'afflicts' us, making us beg for more. That hunger you feel for the sacred word is not an accident and not a failing; it is something the divine teaching itself awakens in you on purpose. So when you sit with scripture or with the holy name and find that you are not satisfied, that you want to hear it again, take that very dissatisfaction as a good sign. Listen, as he puts it, by tasting the nectar of the teaching 'with the tongue of hearing,' letting the word be savored rather than merely registered. The unfillable longing is the relationship working as it should; the right response is simply to keep returning to the source and drinking again.
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