Shloka 22
कर्मयोग–ज्ञानयज्ञ–अवतारोपदेश
Karma-Yoga, Jñāna-Yajña, and Avatāra Instruction
सम्बन्ध-- यहाँ यह शंका होती है कि आत्माका जो एक शरीरसे सम्बन्ध छूटकर दूसरे शरीरसे सम्बन्ध होता है
vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi | tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī ||
Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and takes up other, new ones, so the embodied self abandons bodies that have grown old and enters into other, new bodies.
संजय उवाच
Educational Q&A
The self (dehī) is not destroyed when the body perishes; it merely leaves an old body and takes a new one, like changing clothes. Hence sorrow centered on bodily loss is ethically and philosophically misguided.
In the midst of the Kurukṣetra crisis, the teaching addresses the fear and grief tied to death. The speaker uses a simple everyday analogy—changing garments—to reframe death as a transition of embodiment rather than the end of the self, supporting steadiness in one’s duty.