Verse 18

¹⁴Hearing this hard speech of the Bhagavan Krsna, whose wit is never blunted, the brahmins fell silent, their thoughts going round and round. ¹⁵After turning it over a long while, the sages said, smiling, to him who is the teacher of the world, that the Lord's being subject to rule is for the holding together of people. ¹⁶By whose maya we, best of those who know what is real, overlords of the makers of the world, are bewildered; who, hidden, acts by his own doing as one who is ruled. Ah, strange is the working of the Bhagavan. ¹⁷Doing nothing, one, by himself he sends this manifold forth, keeps it and eats it, and is not bound, as the earth, being one, carries many names and forms in the things of earth. Ah, the vast one's conduct is mockery.

¹⁸Yet in time, for the guarding of your own people and the putting down of the wicked, you take up clarity, and by your own play the eternal path of the Veda, being yourself class and stage, the supreme Person.