Chapter 18 · Verse 77·Spoken by Krishna
तच्च संस्मृत्य संस्मृत्य रूपमत्यद्भुतं हरेः। विस्मयो मे महान् राजन् हृष्यामि च पुनः पुनः
tach cha sansmṛitya saṁsmṛitya rūpam aty-adbhutaṁ hareḥ vismayo ye mahān rājan hṛiṣhyāmi cha punaḥ punaḥ
And recalling again and again that most wonderful form of Krishna, O King, I am struck with great wonder, and I rejoice over and over.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
anjaya is still speaking to the blind king Dhritarashtra, and here he turns from the dialogue to the single thing he cannot get over: the cosmic form of Krishna. The Sanskrit calls it the rupa aty-adbhuta hareh, the exceedingly wonderful form of Hari (Krishna). The commentators agree that 'that form' (tat) points specifically back to the universal or all-encompassing form (the vishva-rupa) that Krishna revealed in Chapter 11. So this verse is not introducing a new vision; it is Sanjaya looking back on that one moment of cosmic disclosure and naming it as the high point of everything he witnessed.
Braided from 14 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Sivananda · Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Sant Jñāneśvar
The verb is doubled on purpose: samsmritya samsmritya, recalling and recalling again. Sanjaya does not remember the vision once; it returns to him over and over, and each return is fresh. Several commentators stress that the body of Sanjaya is back in Hastinapura beside Dhritarashtra, but his mind is still on the battlefield, fixed on the form he saw. The memory will not leave him; he tries to hold it, and it keeps coming back.
Braided from 9 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Sant Jñāneśvar · Lokmanya Tilak
Out of that repeated recollection come two responses, and they too repeat. First, vismaya, wonder or astonishment, which Sanjaya calls mahan, great. Second, joy: he says hrishyami punah punah, I rejoice again and again. The commentators read these as bound together. The wonder is great because the form itself is beyond this world, and from that wonder the joy follows; as the memory returns again and again, so does the delight. The vision keeps producing both awe and gladness, not just once but each time it surfaces.
Braided from 11 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Śrī Ānandagiri · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Dhanapati Sūri · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak · Sant Jñāneśvar
Two of the commentators read Sanjaya's wonder as more than a personal reaction: it is a kind of seal or evidence. The point is that the vision was real and rightly received. One holds that the form was beheld directly by Sanjaya himself, by the grace of the sage Vyasa, which is why he can vouch for it. Another adds that this joy belongs to one who has actually been touched by the vision and not to just anyone, so Sanjaya's standing wonder marks him as a soul that genuinely met the divine form.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
One Advaita commentator turns Sanjaya's remembered vision into an argument about the unreality of the world. He notes that in the cosmic form Sanjaya saw things far apart in space (Brahma and the Lord) and far apart in time (warriors like Bhishma already destroyed) all at once, as if holding a single fruit in the palm. He argues this all-at-once seeing of past and future cannot be explained if the world is solidly real; it works only if the world is like a magician's display (jugglery), appearing without a fixed substrate. He cites verses to the effect that for the yogi such things arise from a kind of vision, and that the same logic that lets a yogi grasp distant times and places must apply to the Lord's seeing of all arising. The conclusion is that the world is real for the bound eye but vanishes for the purified eye, so the cosmic form is read through the lens of maya and the world's non-ultimacy.
Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha
Śuddhādvaita
These commentators load the description of the form with the fullness of the supreme person, Purushottama Krishna. They expand the verse to call him the support of all dharmas, imperishable, beyond time, beyond maya, of unmatched greatness, the remover of every sorrow and destroyer of the wicked. One reads Sanjaya's wonder as humble amazement at being granted the vision at all ('how am I, a trivial soul, set face to face with that?'), made possible by grace. Both treat the verse as certifying that the cosmic form was received rightly, and that the joy at seeing the Lord is something won through grace and through real experience, not available to everyone.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Modern
This commentator builds the verse on a careful contrast of two words. In the previous verse Sanjaya called the dialogue itself adbhuta, wonderful; here he calls the cosmic form aty-adbhuta, exceedingly wonderful. The reason for the stronger word is that the dialogue can still be read and reflected on by anyone today, but the actual seeing of the cosmic form can never be had again; it was given to Arjuna alone in one moment, and to Sanjaya only by Vyasa's grace. So the form earns the higher praise because it was a unique and unrepeatable gift, while its memory keeps returning and bringing its joy back with it.
Swami Ramsukhdas
Bhakti
This devotional commentator dramatizes the verse into a scene. Sanjaya, overwhelmed, asks how anyone could stay unmoved after a vision of the Omniform of Hari, a form discernible without seeing, existing in non-existence, forcing its way into memory even when one tries to forget. He is pictured as bathing in the holy confluence of the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue, shedding his ego, and breaking into rapture, repeating 'Krishna, Krishna' in vehement devotion. The verse becomes a portrait of bhakti overflowing, with the dialogue itself flooding over him like the Ganges and carrying him away.
Sant Jñāneśvar
A Seeker Asks
Why does a vision Sanjaya saw only once keep returning to him and producing fresh wonder and joy every single time, rather than fading like an ordinary memory?
The commentators point to the doubled verb, samsmritya samsmritya, recalling and recalling. Sanjaya does not remember once and move on; he returns to the vision over and over, and the verse says the joy returns each time too. An ordinary memory thins with repetition, but this one renews itself, because what he is recalling is not an ordinary object.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas · Lokmanya Tilak
The reason given is in the form itself: it is aty-adbhuta, exceedingly wonderful, a form not of this world. One commentator sharpens this by contrast: the dialogue can still be read by anyone, but the actual seeing of the cosmic form can never be had again, so its memory carries a weight the dialogue does not. The wonder stays great because the thing remembered is genuinely beyond the ordinary, and from that standing wonder the joy keeps flowing.
Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Some add that this is not just Sanjaya's private psychology but a sign that the vision was real and rightly received: the form was beheld directly, by grace, and the lasting joy marks the soul that has truly been touched by it. So the memory does not fade because it was a true contact with the divine, and such contact keeps giving.
Rāmānujācārya · Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama · Swami Ramsukhdas
Contemplation
Notice where Sanjaya is sitting. His body is in the palace at Hastinapura, beside the blind king, in the middle of war news; but his mind is wholly elsewhere, fixed on the form he was once allowed to see. The vision does not stay in the past because he keeps turning back to it, recalling and recalling, and each return brings the joy back with it. There is a quiet instruction in this. What we have truly seen of the divine is not meant to be filed away as a single past event. It is meant to be remembered again and again, and the remembering is itself the practice; the wonder and the gladness renew themselves each time we let the mind rest there.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
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