Shloka 19
Yoga, Nārāyaṇa as Supreme Principle, and the Emanation of Categories
Sāṅkhya-Yoga Outline
उत्पत्तिवृद्धिवयसा यथा स इति गृहाते । चन्द्र एव त्वमावास्यां तथा भवति मूर्तिमान्,जैसे किसी व्यक्तिका जन्म होता है, वह बढ़ता है और किशोर, यौवन आदि भिन्न-भिन्न अवस्थाओंमें पहुँच जाता है तो भी यही समझा जाता है कि यह वही व्यक्ति है तथा अमावास्याके बाद जब चन्द्रमा पुनः मूर्तिमान् होकर प्रकट होता है तो यही माना जाता है कि यह वही चन्द्रमा है (उसी प्रकार दूसरे शरीरमें प्रवेश करनेपर भी वह देहधारी आत्मा वही है--ऐसा समझना चाहिये)
utpatti-vṛddhi-vayasā yathā sa iti gṛhyate | candra eva tvam amāvasyāṁ tathā bhavati mūrtimān ||
Bhishma said: “Just as, through birth, growth, and the successive stages of age, one is still understood to be the very same person, so too the Moon—though it disappears at the new-moon night—when it becomes visible again is accepted as that very same Moon. In the same way, when the embodied self enters another body, it should be understood as the same continuing self.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Continuity of identity despite change: just as a person is regarded as the same individual through different life-stages, and the Moon is regarded as the same Moon after disappearing at amāvasyā, so the self remains the same even when it takes another body.
In Śānti Parva, Bhīṣma instructs Yudhiṣṭhira on dharma and philosophical truths. Here he uses everyday analogies—human aging and the Moon’s reappearance—to clarify the doctrine of the enduring self across bodily change.