Essays on the Gita

380 <strong>Essays</strong> on the Gitaand moons, has a face of blazing fire and is ever burning upthe whole universe with the flame of his energy. The form ofhim is fierce and marvellous and alone it fills all the regionsand occupies the whole space between earth and heaven. Thecompanies of the gods enter it, afraid, adoring; the Rishis andthe Siddhas crying “May there be peace and weal” praise it withmany praises; the eyes of Gods and Titans and Giants are fixedon it in amazement. It has enormous burning eyes; it has mouthsthat gape to devour, terrible with many tusks of destruction;it has faces like the fires of Death and Time. The kings andthe captains and the heroes on both sides of the world-battleare hastening into its tusked and terrible jaws and some areseen with crushed and bleeding heads caught between its teethof power; the nations are rushing to destruction with helplessspeed into its mouths of flame like many rivers hurrying in theircourse towards the ocean or like moths that cast themselves ona kindled fire. With those burning mouths the Form of Dreadis licking all the regions around; the whole world is full of hisburning energies and baked in the fierceness of his lustres. Theworld and its nations are shaken and in anguish with the terrorof destruction and Arjuna shares in the trouble and panic aroundhim; troubled and in pain is the soul within him and he finds nopeace or gladness. He cries to the dreadful Godhead, “Declare tome who thou art that wearest this form of fierceness. Salutationto thee, O thou great Godhead, turn thy heart to grace. I wouldknow who thou art who wast from the beginning, for I knownot the will of thy workings.”This last cry of Arjuna indicates the double intention in thevision. This is the figure of the supreme and universal Being, theAncient of Days who is for ever, sanātanaṁ puruṣaṁ purāṇam,this is he who for ever creates, for Brahma the Creator is one ofthe Godheads seen in his body, he who keeps the world alwaysin existence, for he is the guardian of the eternal laws, but whois always too destroying in order that he may new-create, whois Time, who is Death, who is Rudra the Dancer of the calm andawful dance, who is Kali with her garland of skulls tramplingnaked in battle and flecked with the blood of the slaughtered