Sanskrit
देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा । तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥
dehino'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṃ yauvanaṃ jarā tathā dehāntaraprāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati
Translation
As the dweller in the body experienceth in the body childhood, youth, old age, so passeth he on to another body; the steadfast one grieveth not thereat.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
The analogy that anchors the whole argument in something Arjuna already accepts without difficulty: nobody grieves that the child they were has “died” to become the adult they are now. Krishna’s move is to extend that same acceptance to the transition between bodies at death — if passing from childhood to old age within one body doesn’t unsettle a steady mind, why should passing from one body to the next? The person who is not thrown by this is named here for the first time: dhīra, the steady one — the same figure the chapter keeps drawing until it settles on sthitaprajña at BG 2.55.
Study deeper
Word by word
- dehino'sminदेहिनोऽस्मिन्
- for the embodied one, in this [body] (dehinaḥ + asmin)
- yathāयथा
- as
- deheदेहे
- in the body
- kaumāraṃकौमारं
- childhood
- yauvanaṃयौवनं
- youth
- jarāजरा
- old age
- tathāतथा
- so too
- dehāntaraprāptirदेहान्तरप्राप्तिः
- the gaining of another body (deha-antara-prāptiḥ)
- dhīrasधीरस्
- the steady one
- tatraतत्र
- at that
- na muhyatiन मुह्यति
- is not deluded (na + muhyati)
Commentary
Site Commentary
This is persuasion by extension, not introduction — Krishna doesn’t ask Arjuna to accept anything new, he asks him to apply something he already, uncontroversially, believes (that surviving into old age isn’t a loss) one step further, to death itself. The whole force of the verse depends on the first half being something nobody would ever argue with.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
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Lessons
Personal
- When you're trying to convince yourself of something difficult, look for a related belief you already, easily hold and ask whether the hard thing is really just one step further along the same line — extension is often easier to accept than a brand-new claim.
Professional
- When pitching a difficult change, anchor it to a practice the team already accepts without argument and show the new ask as one incremental step past it — introducing something as an extension of existing belief lands better than introducing it as new.
Family & Social
- When you want someone to accept a hard idea, find the version of it they already believe without resistance and show how the harder version is just one step past that — it's easier to extend a belief someone holds than to plant a new one.
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