|| 11.5 ||

श्री भगवानुवाच पश्य मे पार्थ रूपाणि शतशोऽथ सहस्रशः। नानाविधानि दिव्यानि नानावर्णाकृतीनि च।।

śrī-bhagavān uvāca paśya me pārtha rūpāṇi śataśo ’tha sahasraśaḥ nānā-vidhāni divyāni nānā-verṇākṛtīni ca

śrī-bhagavān uvāca (the Supreme Personality of Godhead said) paśya (behold) me (My) pārtha (O Arjuna) rūpāṇi (forms) śataśaḥ (hundreds) atha (and) sahasraśaḥ (thousands) nānā-vidhāni (variegated) divyāni (divine) nānā (various) varṇa (colors) ākṛtīni (shapes) ca (and).

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, O son of Prith, see now My opulences, hundreds of thousands of varied divine and multicolored forms.

Kṛṣṇa immediately grants Arjuna’s request. He tells him to behold His hundreds and thousands of divine forms. He describes the upcoming vision as variegated and multicolored, filled with shapes and sizes that exceed human imagination. The Lord is about to explode into a kaleidoscopic display of cosmic power. By saying ‘Paśya’ (Behold), Kṛṣṇa invites Arjuna to become a witness. The Lord doesn’t hesitate because Arjuna is a pure devotee. He is about to reveal that His human-like form is just the tip of an infinite iceberg of divinity. The vision will be ‘Divyāni’—not of this material world. This marks the transition from the Gītā’s philosophy to its most graphic imagery. Kṛṣṇa is about to show that He is not just ‘in’ the universe, but the universe is ‘in’ Him. The sheer variety of forms He mentions suggests a sensory overload that no human has ever experienced before.