वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि। तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा- न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही॥
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi / tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī
You've changed your clothes a thousand times — this is all that death is.
Word by word (4)
- vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya
- — just as a person, casting aside worn-out garments
- navāni gṛhṇāti naraḥ aparāṇi
- — takes on new and different ones
- tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni
- — so too, casting aside worn-out bodies
- anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī
- — the embodied soul moves on to other, new ones
'Just as a person discards worn-out clothes and puts on new ones — so the embodied soul discards worn-out bodies and takes on new, different ones.'
A modern analogy
The clothes analogy is one of the most elegant in world philosophy: you don't grieve when you replace old clothes with new ones. The 'you' that wears the clothes is not diminished by the change. Death, in this analogy, is the discarding of a body that has served its purpose — not the end of the one who wore it.
Take with you
- The clothes analogy makes the abstract concrete: you are not your clothes, not your body.
- 'Jīrṇāni' — worn out. The body wears out; it is appropriate to exchange it for a new one.
- This verse has been one of the most widely cited in the tradition for its accessibility — it reaches people who find philosophical argument difficult.
The clothes analogy in V22 is perhaps the most popular illustration of rebirth in world literature. It is simple, visual, and precise: the soul (dehī — the one who has a body) discards worn bodies and takes on new ones, as a person discards worn clothes and takes new ones. The analogy works because it makes three points simultaneously: (1) the change is natural and not grieved; (2) the self (the person wearing the clothes) persists through the change; (3) the discarded thing (the old clothes/body) was never the self.
Advaita lens
The worn-garment simile makes the body-ātman distinction viscerally clear: the person wearing clothes is not the clothes; the dehī (the Self inside the body) is not the body. Advaita uses this analogy to point to the ātman's nirvikāra (unchangeable) nature—it passes through bodies as a person passes through garments, never being modified by them. Knowing this, the wise person ('dhīras tatra na muhyati') is not bewildered—because the witness of change is itself unchanging.
Bhakti lens
From bhakti's perspective, the soul (jīva) is an eternal part of the Lord ('mamaivāṃśo jīva-loke', Ch.15 V7)—a beloved fragment who moves through bodies as through garments. When the devotee grasps this simile, death loses its terror: the Lord's beloved devotee simply moves into a new garment arranged by the Lord's will. The entire cycle of rebirths is the Lord's compassionate provision for the soul's gradual purification and eventual return to His presence.
Karma-Yoga lens
The worn-garment simile directly dismantles Arjuna's paralysis: 'bodies will be destroyed' is not a valid reason to withhold right action. If the body is merely a garment, then the loss of garments is not the loss of anything essential. The karma-yogi acts fully in the present body (garment) without grasping it—performing the duty appropriate to this body and this role, without fear that the body's end constitutes a tragedy for the self who inhabits it.
Public-domain translations (3) compare all →
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. [4]
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 man, putting off worn-out clothes, takes others that are new, even so the embodied soul, casting off worn-out bodies, takes on others that are new. [9]
This verse speaks to
Where this thread continues
Your body changed from childhood to age without 'you' dying — changing bodies is no different.
Like wind carrying fragrance, the jīva takes its 6-sense apparatus from body to body through each birth and death.
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?
Sattva, rajas, tamas — three guṇas born of Prakṛti — bind the indestructible ātman in every body.
Better to die with clean hands than to win with blood on them.