Anadi-madhyantam Ananta-viryam

Arjuna returns to the visual, but now his descriptions carry the weight of what he declared in the previous verse. Without beginning, middle, or end — he said this before, but repeats it with greater force. Infinite strength. Innumerable arms. The sun and moon serve as your two eyes. Fire blazes from your mouth. And your own radiance heats the entire universe.

The image of the sun and moon as eyes comes from ancient Vedic hymns — the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda describes the cosmic being whose eye became the sun. Arjuna is seeing that primordial vision alive and present before him on the battlefield. The sun that lights the day and the moon that lights the night are not separate celestial objects. They are the gaze of this one being.

And then the final image: 'sva-tejasa vishvam idam tapantam' — with your own radiance you heat this entire universe. Not a distant, detached warmth. The same fire that blazes from the mouth of the cosmic form is the energy that sustains every living thing. The warmth that ripens grain, that drives the seasons, that keeps life moving — it originates here.

This shloka echoes the Purusha Sukta (Rig Veda 10.90), which describes the cosmic Purusha whose eyes became the sun and moon, whose breath became the wind. Arjuna is witnessing in person what the Vedic seers described in hymn.

The word 'tapantam' (heating/illuminating) connects to the Gita's own teaching in Chapter 15 (15.12), where Krishna says: 'The radiance in the sun that illumines the whole world, that is in the moon and in fire — know that radiance to be mine.'