Krishna smiled at his friend's thirst, and then he did something tender. Before he began, he warned Arjuna kindly.

"Very well," he said. "I will tell you My divine glories — but only the chief ones, the most important. For of My full extent, Arjuna, there is no end at all."

Imagine, he might have thought, a poet who is asked to name everything beautiful in the world. He could begin: the sunrise, the sea, a baby's laugh, the first rain, the mountains at dusk. He could speak all day. He could speak all year. And still, when his voice finally gave out, he would not have reached the end — because new beautiful things keep being born every single moment, faster than any tongue can name them.

That was the truth Krishna wanted Arjuna to hold before the listing began. The glories he was about to name were not a complete catalogue, like all the items on a merchant's shelf that can be counted and finished. They were more like the first few stars that appear at dusk. You can point and say, "There — and there — and there." But while you are still pointing, a hundred more have come out, and behind them a thousand, and behind those the whole endless field of the night sky, which no one has ever counted and no one ever will.

"Hear, then," Krishna said, "the most important. Where the world shines brightest, that brightness is Mine. Where a thing is the greatest of its kind, the greatness is a spark of Me. I will give you the chief examples, so your mind has a path to walk. But know as you listen that every example is only a doorway, and that beyond the last one I name, the glory keeps going on and on, with no shore, no edge, no final line to the song."

Arjuna nodded slowly. He understood. He was not being handed a finished list to memorise. He was being shown the first lamps of a road that ran past the horizon — and the road, he now knew, never stopped.

And so the great listing of the vibhutis began.