Shloka 8
Chapter 43: Tumult of Battle-Sounds and the Proliferation of Dvandva
Paired Engagements
सम्बन्ध-- यह जीवात्मा मनसहित छः: इन्द्रियोंको किस समय
śarīraṁ yad avāpnoti yac cāpy utkrāmatīśvaraḥ | gṛhītvaitāni saṁyāti vāyur gandhān ivāśayāt ||
As the embodied Lord (the individual self) obtains a body and also departs from one, it carries these along—the senses together with the mind. Just as the wind bears fragrances from their source, so the self, leaving one body, takes the mind and senses and proceeds to another.
अजुन उवाच
Educational Q&A
The self does not move empty-handed at death; it carries the mind and senses—its inner instruments—into the next embodiment, like wind carrying fragrance. This supports the ethical idea that one’s cultivated tendencies and moral dispositions persist and bear consequences.
In the midst of the Bhīṣma Parva discourse, the speaker explains how the embodied self departs one body and enters another, taking along the mind and senses. The wind-and-fragrance analogy clarifies the subtle continuity of experience across bodily change.