Bhagavad Gita Chapter 10 in English IAST: Vibhūti Yoga

oṃ tatsaditi śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṃ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṃvāde vibhūtiyogo nāma daśamo’dhyāyaḥ ||

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About Vibhuti Yoga

From the seventh chapter on, Krishna has been showing signs of his greatness here and there, ‘I am the taste in water’, ‘I am the rite’. The tenth chapter unfolds them. In Sridhara Swami’s words the purpose is one: to see the Lord everywhere.

The chapter has three parts. First Krishna declares that he is the source of all, and promises to give the yoga of understanding to those who worship him with love and to dispel the darkness in their hearts with the lamp of knowledge. Then Arjuna praises him and asks, ‘in what things am I to think of you?’ The last part is the answer: in every kind, the finest is I.

How the chapter moves

• Verses 1 to 3: The supreme word spoken again. His origin, unknown even to gods and sages, the unborn and beginningless great Lord of the worlds.
• Verses 4 to 7: The states of beings, understanding, forbearance, truth, joy, sorrow and the rest, the seven sages and the Manus, all from him.
• Verses 8 to 11: The chatuhshloki. The satsang of those who worship with understanding and love, and the yoga of understanding and the lamp of knowledge he gives them.
• Verses 12 to 18: Arjuna’s praise and request: tell your glories in detail, for I am never sated with hearing.
• Verses 19 to 39: The list of glories. It begins with the Self in the heart, passes through Adityas, Rudras, sages, rivers, mountains, trees, animals, letters and seasons, and ends with the seed of all beings.
• Verses 40 to 42: The glories have no end. Wherever excellence is seen it is a portion of his splendour, and the whole world is a single fraction of him.

What a glory is: three views

For Shankara a glory is the extension of his greatness and a support for meditation: those who cannot meditate on him as the inner Self may think of him in these things. For Ramanuja being a glory means being subject to his governance, and ‘pradhanya’ means excellence. He also notes that since Rama and Vasudeva are the Lord himself, the glory there is the bearing of weapons and being the son of Vasudeva. At verse forty-one Madhva distinguishes: forms such as Vishnu, Rama, Krishna, Vyasa and Kapila are his own very forms, and the rest are souls endowed with his splendour.

These pages do not decide between the readings. Wherever the acharyas part, each position is recorded in its own terms.

Surprises in the list

Some words in the list make the reader pause: among the daityas Prahlada (10.30), all-seizing death (10.34), among the deceitful the gamble (10.36), among the Pandavas Arjuna himself, the listener (10.37). The acharyas explain these by the principle of the most powerful of each kind. The explanations of words such as ‘rudranam shankaras chasmi’ (10.23) are recorded in each commentator’s own terms.

In the verses of the list, the ‘For life today’ box picks one glory and links it to daily life: the mind and attention, clean air and water, care of memory, treatment for gambling addiction. The health notes are for general understanding only, and for personal problems a doctor’s advice is what counts.

Sources: several.