sri-bhagavan uvaca
maya prasannena tavarjunedam
rupam param darshitam atma-yogat
tejo-mayam vishvam anantam adyam
yan me tvad anyena na drsta-purvam

"The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: My dear Arjuna, happily have I shown you, by My internal potency, this supreme universal form within the material world. No one before you has ever seen this primal form, unlimited and full of glaring effulgence."

The Lord pacifies Arjuna. Darshitam = showing [Viswaroopam ], tava = to you [Arjuna], prasannena = happily, maya = by Me [Sri Krishna], atma-yogat = with My [Sri Krishna's] sankalpam or will power. The Lord decides or resolves to grant a person a thing or His darshan. His resolution or will is atma-yogam. This is His sankalpam. We also resolve to do certain things; but we are not sure whether all would be carried out. Many obstacles might impede such resolutions. While, when the Lord resolves, there are no obstacles whatsoever. In this only, we also should try to come nearer God. In our case, out of Ten resolutions Eight are failures and only Two might get completed. But, when the Lord resolves it is 100% success. Why are yogam, bhakti, shastras, sampradhayam, etc., mentioned? Those are to progress us from making our sucess in our resolutions, say from 20% to higher. We can never be successful in 100%, as we are not God; but, we can appraoch near His level. Yogis and Alwars are great because they choose what to decide and mostly all of them are carried out. This is because of Bhakti and the feeling of servitude to the Lord. These themselves would take us near Him. By His resolution, Arjuna got to view His, param roopam = most supreme Image. That is His Viswaroopam was shown . How did Arjuna view that image? Tejo mayam = full of brightness [possessed by various things in this Universe]. Normally, what is predominant is expressed. If we say golden ring, even though it might be an alloy of gold and copper, the predominant gold is used to describe. But here by saying tejo mayam, it does not mean that the Lord's image had some dark patches and predominantly bright; the image was absolutely full of brightness alone. Vishvam = pervading everywhere in the Universe. Arjuna was able to see everything in this Universe, in His Viswaroopam Image. Ananta = unlimited image. The Image he saw was not limited by time, by place, by matter, by image or by anything. Anantam also means that without beginning or end or middle. Adyam = Prime Cause. He is the Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer. He is the Origin for everything. Anyena = others, na drushta = had not seen, poorvam = earlier. Arjuna got this rare view because the Lord decided so. The Lord thus explained the greatness of the Viswaroopam and indicated His decision to get back to His usual form. We may have a doubt here. Is it that the Lor is full of brightness only in Viswaroopam and not in His usual form? Is He infinite and unlimited only in Viswaroopam? Though the Lord comes back to His usual form of Sri Krishna, by no means His greatness and eminence get diminished. We see the Lord as a small idol in temple. It is not correct to think that His power and greatness is infinite only in Viswaroopam and not in the idol in temple. This, the Lord has explained in Chapter 4 itself. In 4.6 the Lord said that whatever form He took, be it a worm or animal, His greatness and Powers were never less. There is no compromise on His greatness according to the form He took. His greatness like full of brightness or infinity or being the Origin of all, continue even when He is a Chariot Driver or a Messenger or a Boar or a Tortoise. Then why does He reduce Himself to such forms? That is another greatness of His quality of soulabhyam or simplicity. With this quality He is available for our view. One, who thinks that those simple forms of the Lord could not have the same greatness, loses Bhakti and one tends to be nastika. We have to understand that the Lord graced us, not because of our efforts, but because of His sankalpam. Since the Lord has used the words prasannena [His delight] and atma-yogam [His sankalpam], we have strive for His happiness so that He decided to bless us. With this we take leave of Thirukkalvanur, and having visited all the Kshetrams in Kanchi mandalam, we will now proceed to other Kshetrams in Thondai Nadu.