Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 13

Chapter 2 – Sankhya Yoga · Speaker: Krishna

Sanskrit verse

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा ।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥

Transliteration

dehino.asminyathā dehe kaumāraṃ yauvanaṃ jarā .
tathā dehāntaraprāptirdhīrastatra na muhyati ॥

Meaning

Just as the embodied Self passes through childhood, youth and old age in this body, so it passes into another body. The steady-minded are not bewildered by this.

Word meanings

देहिनः – of the embodied one, the Self
अस्मिन् – in this
यथा – just as
देहे – in the body
कौमारम् – childhood
यौवनम् – youth
जरा – old age
तथा – so too
देहान्तरप्राप्तिः – the attaining of another body
धीरः – the steady, wise person
तत्र – therein, about this
न मुह्यति – is not deluded

Anvaya (word order)

यथा देहिनः अस्मिन् देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा (भवति), तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिः (भवति); तत्र धीरः न मुह्यति ।

Explanation

Krishna now illustrates the eternity of the Self with an example everyone knows from experience. We have all watched our own body pass through childhood, youth and old age. The child's body is gone — every cell of it has changed — and yet ‘I’ am the same. The one who was a child is the very one who is here now.

From this experience a profound conclusion follows: the body changes, but the ‘dehi’, the one who dwells in it, does not. If we do not grieve when the child's body ‘dies’ and the youthful body takes its place, why grieve when, at death, the Self leaves one body and takes another? Death is simply another link in the same chain of change, only a larger one.

The word ‘dehi’ is important: the owner of the body, who lives in the body but is not the body. As the occupant of a house is not the house, so the Self dwelling in the body is not the body. Here the Gita clearly sets out the principle of rebirth.

‘Dhiras tatra na muhyati’ — the steady one is not deluded by this. A ‘dhira’ is a person whose understanding is firm and discerning. Shankara notes that such a person, knowing the Self to be changeless, is not shaken by change. Ramanuja adds that just as no one mourns the passing of life's stages, one should not mourn the change of bodies.

The verse teaches us to accept ageing and change gracefully. One who grasps this truth neither laments the passing of youth nor dreads the arrival of death.

Context

In 2.12 Krishna said that we have always existed and always will. Here He supports this with the example of the body's stages. In the next verse (2.14) He shows that pleasure and pain are passing and urges Arjuna to endure them.

Life lesson

Just as we naturally accept the move from childhood to youth to old age, learn to meet life's larger changes with peace. Only the outer form changes; the ‘I’ within remains steady.

Key terms

Dehi: the embodied one, the Self dwelling in the body
Dehantara-prapti: attaining another body — rebirth
Dhira: steady, wise, self-possessed