Lelihyase Grasamanah Samantat

The verbs in this shloka land like hammer blows. Licking. Devouring. From all sides. With flaming mouths. Filling the universe with radiance. Scorching everything with fierce rays. Arjuna is no longer searching for similes. He is simply reporting what he sees, and the directness makes it more terrifying than any metaphor could.

The word 'lelihyase' — licking, lapping — is startling. It brings to mind a flame that does not simply consume but tastes its fuel, that moves with a living, searching hunger. This is not passive destruction. This is an active, all-encompassing devouring that reaches into every corner of existence.

And yet Arjuna still says 'Vishno' — O all-pervading one. Even at the peak of horror, he does not abandon recognition. The one who pervades all things is the same one who devours all things. Creation and dissolution share the same face. Arjuna can see both at once, and neither cancels the other.

This shloka is in the Trishtup meter. The address 'Vishno' appears again, linking this moment to 11.24 where Arjuna first used it. Both times, the address carries a mixture of awe and surrender — acknowledging the all-pervading nature of the one who also destroys.

In the next shloka (11.31), Arjuna can bear it no longer. He will ask the question that drives the rest of the chapter: 'Tell me — who are You in this terrible form?'