Bhagavad Gītā › Chapter 2 › Verse 22
Bhagavad Gītā 2.22: Old clothes, new clothes
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि ।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro'parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇānyanyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī
Recitation: NehalDaveND (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA 4.0, adapted, original recording
Meaning
As a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, so the embodied self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others that are new. This is the Gītā’s best-known image of rebirth. It builds on 2.13: the self passes through bodies as the body passes through childhood, youth and old age.
For children
Krishna says: “When your clothes get old, you put on new ones. In the same way, the real you can leave an old body and get a new one.”
Kṛṣṇa is explaining why Arjuna need not grieve: the self is not destroyed when the body is (2.20–2.21).
Word by word
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय — Just as a person gives up worn-out clothes
- vāsas: clothing
- jīrṇa: worn out, old
- yathā: just as
- vihāya: giving up, leaving
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि — and puts on other, new ones
- nava: new
- gṛhṇāti: takes, puts on
- nara: a person
- apara: other
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्य् — so the self gives up worn-out bodies
- tathā: in the same way
- śarīra: body
अन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही — and moves on to other, new ones
- anya: other
- saṃyāti: goes to, enters
- dehin: the one who lives in the body
Kṛṣṇa speaks this verse. The Sanskrit is checked against four editions; meanings and word notes are simple learning aids written for MahaPrabha Gurukul, awaiting review by a Sanskrit teacher.