Chapter 11: The Cosmic Vision · Verse 38

त्वमादिदेवः पुरुषः पुराणस्त्वमस्य विश्वस्य परं निधानम् |

वेत्तासि वेद्यं च परं च धाम त्वया ततं विश्वमनन्तरूप ॥३८॥

tvamādidevaḥ puruṣaḥ purāṇastvamasya viśvasya paraṃ nidhānam |

vettāsi vedyaṃ ca paraṃ ca dhāma tvayā tataṃ viśvamanantarūpa ||38||

You are the primal God, the ancient Person, the ultimate resting place of this universe. You are the knower, the knowable, and the supreme abode. The entire universe is pervaded by You, O infinite form!

knower-and-known all-pervading primal-God supreme-abode unity

Synthesis

Arjuna identifies Krishna as the primal God, the ancient Person, the ultimate resting place — as Vayu, Yama, Agni, Varuna, and Prajapati. Shankaracharya sees this as establishing God's identity with all cosmic functions. Ramanujacharya reads the identifications as confirming that all natural and moral forces operate under divine authority. Madhva sees every cosmic function as ultimately performed by the one supreme Lord. Abhinavagupta recognizes the five powers of Shiva operating through different cosmic forms. Vallabha establishes that the personal Lord has existed from before creation. Tilak sees every natural force and moral principle confirmed as operating under divine authority. Vivekananda reads the divine as not separate from nature but as nature itself. Together, these perspectives reveal that the cosmic form does not show something other than the familiar world but shows the familiar world's true identity — wind, fire, death, and creation are all the one God operating through nature's diverse phenomena.

Commentaries 8 traditions

Advaita Vedanta/Adi Shankaracharya

Shankara highlights that being simultaneously knower and known collapses the subject-object distinction that is the foundation of all dualistic knowledge. In Brahman, the knower, the act of knowing, and the known are one — this is pure non-dual awareness.

Apply This Verse

Personal Growth

You are both the seeker and what is sought. The consciousness that looks for truth is itself the truth looking. Recognize the knower within you as the ultimate reality you seek.

Questions this verse answers

  • ?"Am I seeking something that is already within me?"
  • ?"What if the knower and the known are the same?"
  • ?"How do I recognize the truth I'm looking for in the act of looking?"
  • ?"What does it mean that consciousness knows itself?"