Bhagavad Gita 2.22
Spoken by Krishna ☆ Key verse · Verse 22 of 72
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.
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.
This most secret śāstra spoken — knowing it, one becomes truly wise and kṛta-kṛtya: all duties fulfilled.
Verse 22 of 72 · back to Chapter 2