Yatha Pradiptam Jvalanam Patangah

A second simile, darker than the first. Moths do not know they are flying to their death. The flame draws them with irresistible force, and they rush in at full speed — 'samriddha-vegah' — not slowing, not hesitating. In exactly the same way, beings pour into Krishna's mouths to their destruction.

The river simile in the previous shloka carried a hint of return — water merging into the ocean. The moth simile carries no such softness. A moth that enters the flame is consumed. Arjuna's second comparison strips away any comfort and lays bare the raw fact: these beings are heading for annihilation, and they do not even know it.

Together, these two similes — the river and the moth — capture both faces of Time. One face receives everything back into itself. The other face burns. Both are true at once. Arjuna, standing between them, can only watch.

This shloka is in the Trishtup meter. The moth-and-flame image appears throughout Indian poetry to describe the helpless attraction toward something that destroys. Here it applies not to desire but to Time itself — the universal pull toward dissolution.

In the next shloka (11.30), Arjuna describes the cosmic form licking and devouring all worlds with its flaming mouths, filling the entire universe with fierce radiance.