You are the supreme Brahman, the supreme Self, the supreme abode, the supreme radiance, the purifier, the cleansing thing, the supreme, the highest. You are the Puruṣa, everlasting, eternal, divine, the one who has His being in the heavens, the first God of all the gods, the one who is at the beginning, unborn, all-pervading.

Arjuna spoke. You indeed are He whom the revealed texts speak of as the supreme Brahman, the supreme abode, the supreme purifier. 'That from which these beings are born, by which, being born, they live, into which, departing, they enter, seek to know that; that is Brahman'; 'the knower of Brahman attains the supreme'; 'he who knows that supreme Brahman becomes Brahman itself'. Likewise the supreme abode: the word 'abode' (dhaman) denotes light, the supreme light: 'now that divine light which shines beyond this'; 'attaining the supreme light, he is brought forth with his own form'; 'that which the gods worship, the light of lights'. And likewise the supreme purifier, the supreme means of purity for the rememberer, the bringer of non-contact with the whole of taint and the destroyer of it: 'as water does not cling to the lotus leaf, so to one who knows thus sinful action does not cling'; 'as the tuft of a reed set in fire is burnt up, so all his sins are burnt up'. 'Narayana is the supreme Brahman; the truth is Narayana the supreme; Narayana is the supreme light; the self is Narayana the supreme'; so the revealed texts speak. And all the seers, knowers of the truth of the higher and lower reality, call you the eternal divine Person, the first deity, unborn, all-pervading. And so too the divine seer Narada, and Asita, Devala, and Vyasa: 'this glorious Narayana, dwelling in the ocean of milk, has, leaving his serpent-couch, come to the city of Mathura; holy is Dvaraka there, where Madhusudana dwells; in person the ancient God is he, and he is the eternal law. And the brahmins who know the Veda, and the people who know the adhyatma, call the great soul Krishna the eternal law. Of the pure, Govinda is called the supreme pure; of the meritorious he is the meritorious, and of the auspicious the auspicious. In the three worlds the lotus-eyed, the God of gods, the eternal, dwells, Hari of unthinkable self, Madhusudana, there itself.' Likewise, 'where the God Narayana, the eternal supreme Self, is, there, Partha, is the whole world, and the holy fords and the shrines; that is holy, that the supreme Brahman, that the holy ford, that the grove of austerity; there the divine seers, the perfected, and all the rich-in-austerity are; where the first God, the great yogin Madhusudana, is, that is the holy of the meritorious; let there be no doubt of yours here.' 'Krishna alone is the origination and the dissolution of the worlds; for the sake of Krishna this universe of moving and unmoving things exists.' And likewise you yourself say so, in 'earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding, and egotism, this is My eightfold-divided nature' and the rest, down to 'I am the arising of all; from Me everything sets going'.

'Brahman' means the wholly full one. The scripture says, 'why then is He called the supreme Brahman? He swells, and by His greatness makes swell' (Atharvashiras Upanishad 4); and the roots 'brh' and 'brhi' are read in the sense of growth. And there is 'the supreme, who is the great Brahman' (Mahabharata 13.149.9). He is 'vibhu' because He came to be manifold (vividham). So the Varuna branch says, 'vibhu, prabhu, the first, of the bountiful one' (Rigveda 2.7.2.5), and 'He alone, by His power, became manifold', and 'He desired, may I be many, may I be born forth' (Taittiriya Upanishad 2.6), and the like.