देहिनोऽस्मिन् यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा। तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति॥
dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṃ yauvanaṃ jarā / tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati
Your body changed from childhood to age without 'you' dying — changing bodies is no different.
Word by word (4)
- dehinaḥ asmin yathā dehe
- — just as for the embodied one in this body · 'Dehinaḥ' — the embodied one, the soul inhabiting a body. The distinction between the dehi (soul) and the deha (body) is the core distinction the Gita is teaching.
- kaumāram yauvanam jarā
- — childhood, youth, old age · Three stages of life — all happening within a single lifetime to the same body. The witness of all three is the same 'I.' This is the analogy: just as one self watches the body go through three stages without 'dying,' so the self watches the body die and takes on a new one.
- tathā deha-antara-prāptiḥ
- — so also is the acquiring of another body / the soul moves to another body
- dhīraḥ tatra na muhyati
- — the wise person is not deluded by this · 'Dhīra' — the steady one, the wise one. Defined here by one quality: not being confused by what appears to be death.
'Just as the embodied self experiences childhood, youth, and old age in this one body — so it passes into another body. The wise person is not deluded by this.'
A modern analogy
The body you had at five years old is gone — every cell replaced, every bone grown. The body you have now will be different again in ten years. And yet you say 'I' continuously across all these changes. What is that 'I' that persists through every change? Krishna's analogy: death is just another change in the body, while the 'I' that persists is not touched.
Take with you
- The within-lifetime analogy is powerful: you have already survived the 'death' of your childhood body, your teenage body, your young adult body.
- 'Dhīras tatra na muhyati' — the wise person is not deluded by this. Wisdom here is defined as not being confused by bodily change.
- The teaching is not 'death doesn't happen' but 'what you fundamentally are is not touched by what happens to the body.'
Verse 13 introduces the most practical version of the soul's immortality teaching: the analogy of stages within a single lifetime. The child that Arjuna was at age seven — that body, that personality, that set of memories — is in a very real sense gone. Yet no one says Arjuna died when he stopped being that child. The same continuity — the 'I am' that persists through every bodily and psychological change — is what Krishna is pointing to as the Atman. The word 'dhīra' (the steady one) is used throughout the Gita's first philosophical section to describe the person who has this understanding. The definition is consistent: dhīra = one who is not confused by apparent change, because they have recognized what is unchanging beneath it.
Advaita lens
The analogy is limited, Shankaracharya notes: within a lifetime, the 'I' that persists is itself still embedded in the body-mind complex. The deeper Atman is beyond even the 'I' that persists across lifetimes — it is the pure witnessing awareness prior to all identity. V13 gives the accessible version; the deeper teaching unfolds in V16-20.
Bhakti lens
In bhakti the soul's journey through bodily stages—childhood, youth, age, and the transition to a new body—is the Lord's own arrangement for the jīva's purification and return. The devotee does not grieve over bodily change because the real relationship is with the eternal Lord who remains constant through every transition. Just as a loving parent watches a child grow through different clothes without ever losing the child, Bhagavān never loses sight of the soul through its embodied stages.
Karma-Yoga lens
For the karma-yogi, this verse liberates action from body-fixation: if the soul is the unchanging witness to childhood, youth, and age, then no bodily stage is 'the real me' to be protected. Grief over bodily loss is therefore unfounded—and unfounded grief is the most common obstacle to action. The karma-yogi acts fully in whatever body-stage is present, without clinging or lamenting, because the dehī (soul) is not diminished by the body's changes.
Public-domain translations (4) compare all →
Just as the soul experiences in this body childhood, youth, and old age, so also it passes into another body. The wise man does not grieve thereat. [4]
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. [6]
As when one layeth his worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, 'These will I wear to-day!' So putteth by the spirit lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit a residence afresh. [7]
As a person puts on new clothes, giving up old ones, similarly the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
You've changed your clothes a thousand times — this is all that death is.
Unborn. Undying. Ancient. Eternal. Not slain when the body is slain — this is what you are.
Arjuna asks: what does the truly wise person look like? How do they speak, sit, and move?
I taught this imperishable yoga to the sun-god at the dawn of time — it has been passed down through kings ever since.
Know Me as the eternal seed of all beings — I am the intelligence of the intelligent, the splendour of the splendid.
Deluded by the three guṇa-constituted states, all this world does not recognize Me — beyond them, imperishable.