📿 Shloka Collection

Yatha Nadinam Bahavombuveghah

Gita 11.28 Bhagavad Gita
📖 Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11 — Vishwarupa Darshana Yoga
यथा नदीनां बहवोऽम्बुवेगाः समुद्रमेवाभिमुखा द्रवन्ति ।
तथा तवामी नरलोकवीरा विशन्ति वक्त्राण्यभिविज्वलन्ति ॥
Yatha nadinam bahavombuveghah samudramevabhimukha dravanti
Tatha tavami naralokavira vishanti vaktranyabhivijvalanti
नदीनाम् अम्बुवेगाः
the rushing currents of rivers
समुद्रम् अभिमुखाः
facing toward the ocean
द्रवन्ति
they flow, they rush
नरलोकवीराः
heroes of the mortal world
अभिविज्वलन्ति
blazing, ablaze

Arjuna finds his first simile, and it is perfect. Rivers do not choose to flow into the ocean. They do not debate. They do not resist. The current carries them, and the ocean receives them. That is simply how water works. In exactly the same way, the heroes of the mortal world rush into Krishna's blazing mouths.

There is a strange comfort hidden inside this terrifying image. A river that merges into the ocean does not cease to exist. Its water becomes the ocean. The river's identity dissolves, yes — but what remains is something far vaster. The warriors pouring into the cosmic form are not being annihilated. They are returning to the source from which everything comes.

But Arjuna is not in a state to see that comfort yet. What he sees is the inevitability — the sheer, unstoppable pull. No river has ever turned around and flowed back to the mountains. And no warrior on that field will escape the mouths of Time.

This shloka is in the Trishtup meter. The river-ocean simile is one of the oldest in Indian philosophical tradition, appearing in the Upanishads to describe the merging of the individual self into Brahman. Here, Arjuna draws on it instinctively.

The next shloka (11.29) offers a second simile — moths rushing into a blazing fire — which emphasizes the speed and destruction rather than the merging.

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