Sanskrit
अच्छेद्योऽयमदाह्योऽयमक्लेद्योऽशोष्य एव च । नित्यः सर्वगतः स्थाणुरचलोऽयं सनातनः ॥
acchedyo'yam adāhyo'yam akledyo'śoṣya eva ca nityaḥ sarvagataḥ sthāṇur acalo'yaṃ sanātanaḥ
Translation
Uncleavable he, incombustible he, and indeed neither to be wetted nor dried away; perpetual, all-pervasive, stable, immovable, ancient.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Restates verse 23’s fourfold immunity (uncuttable, unburnable, unwettable, undrying) in adjectival form, then adds a second set of descriptors — perpetual, all-pervading, stable, immovable, ancient. The repetition is deliberate: this isn’t new argument so much as insistence, piling up near-synonyms until the claim of indestructibility becomes unmistakable. Sarva-gata — “gone everywhere,” present throughout — is the one genuinely new word in the list, and it quietly widens the self from something inside a body to something the body is inside. Chapter 13’s kṣetrajña teaching picks this thread back up.
Study deeper
Word by word
- acchedyo'yamअच्छेद्योऽयं
- this is uncuttable (acchedyaḥ + ayam)
- adāhyo'yamअदाह्योऽयं
- this is unburnable (adāhyaḥ + ayam)
- akledyo'śoṣya eva caअक्लेद्योऽशोष्य एव च
- unwettable and undryable (akledyaḥ + aśoṣyaḥ + eva + ca)
- nityaḥनित्यः
- eternal
- sarvagataḥसर्वगतः
- all-pervading (sarva-gataḥ)
- sthāṇurस्थाणुः
- stable, fixed
- acalo'yaṃअचलोऽयं
- this immovable one (acalaḥ + ayam)
- sanātanaḥसनातनः
- primeval
Commentary
Site Commentary
This verse closes on “sanātanaḥ” — ancient, perennial, the same root later traditions would use for the phrase “eternal law.” After two verses of piling up near-synonymous immunities, the argument’s most sustained block of pure assertion ends not on a new claim but on the oldest-sounding word in it, as if the emphasis itself is meant to convey permanence rather than add information.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Concepts
Apply this verse
Lessons
Personal
- When you need to convince yourself of something at a gut level, not just intellectually, repetition in different words can do work that a single precise statement can't — this verse isn't adding new content in its final lines, it's letting emphasis itself do the convincing.
Professional
- When a critical message needs to actually sink in with a team, not just be technically stated once, don't be afraid to restate it in several different phrasings even without new content — repetition builds conviction in a way a single precise sentence often doesn't.
Family & Social
- When you need someone close to you to really feel that you mean something, saying it once precisely is sometimes not enough — repeating it in a few different ways, even without new information, can be what makes it actually land.
Ask yourself
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