वक्तुमर्हस्यशेषेण दिव्या ह्यात्मविभूतयः।याभिर्विभूतिभिर्लोकानिमांस्त्वं व्याप्य तिष्ठसि॥
vaktum arhasyaśeṣeṇa divyā hyātma-vibhūtayaḥyābhir vibhūtibhir lokān imāṃs tvaṃ vyāpya tiṣṭhasi
Word by word
The verse says
Please describe your divine glories completely — the forms through which you pervade these worlds and stand in them.
In plain words
Arjuna asks for the list that makes up the rest of the chapter.
And notice what he asks for. Not an explanation. Not a proof.
He asks where to look. Which forms, which places, so that he can recognise them.
Where you've felt this · in community
A friend who grew up in a city you are visiting does not hand you a map. She tells you which bakery, which bench by the river, which street at six in the evening. You could have found all of it eventually. What she gave you was six years of her attention, in about four minutes.
Going deeper
Asking where to look is a more practical request than asking what something is, and Arjuna has worked that out.
He could have asked for the metaphysics again. He has had plenty of it and said he accepts it. What he asks for instead is a set of places to put his attention — the particular things in the world that carry the mark most clearly.
This is how anybody learns to see anything. Nobody becomes able to recognise good carpentry by being told what quality is. They are shown ten joints by somebody who knows, and the tenth one they spot themselves.
So the list that follows is not a catalogue to be memorised. It is somebody pointing, repeatedly, at things the reader already knows about, until the pointing stops being necessary.