Bhagavad Gītā · Chapter 2, Verse 13
देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति।।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति।।
dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati
also searched as "dehino smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara"
Translation
Just as the self associated with a body passes through childhood, youth, and old age, so too, at death, it passes into another body. A wise man is not deluded by that.
Vāṇi's rendering
The self wears childhood, youth, and old age in this body — then takes another. The steady are not fooled.
Word by word
| Sanskrit & transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|
| देहिनःdehinaḥ | of the one who wears a body; the embodied self (appears as *dehino* before the next word) |
| अस्मिन्asmin | in this (elided to *'smin* after the preceding vowel) |
| यथाyathā | just as |
| देहेdehe | in the body |
| कौमारम्kaumāram | childhood |
| यौवनम्yauvanam | youth |
| जराjarā | old age |
| तथाtathā | so too |
| देहान्तर-प्राप्तिःdehāntara-prāptiḥ | the reaching of another body (deha, body + antara, other + prāpti, arrival at) |
| धीरःdhīraḥ | the steady one; whoever is not shaken |
| तत्रtatra | there; about that |
| नna | not |
| मुह्यतिmuhyati | is confused, is taken in |
Frequently asked
What does Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Verse 13 mean?
Krishna says the self passes through childhood, youth and old age inside one body, and passes into another body at death — the same kind of change, only larger. The body alters continuously; the one wearing it does not. Whoever sees this steadily, the dhīra, is not thrown by death's appearance of ending.
What is the meaning of dehino smin yatha dehe kaumaram yauvanam jara?
It means: as for the embodied one in this body there is childhood, youth, old age. The line sets up an everyday fact everyone accepts without alarm — you survived becoming an adult — so that the second half can extend it past the moment we call dying.
Does this verse teach rebirth?
It states it plainly: dehāntara-prāpti, the reaching of another body. But Krishna is not offering a doctrine to believe. He is dismantling Arjuna's terror by showing that the change he dreads is one he has already undergone, in daylight, without losing himself once.
Who is the dhira, the steady one, in this verse?
Not the person who feels nothing. Dhīra means firm, settled, unwobbling — one who has looked long enough at their own changing to see what did not change with it. Such a person still weeps at a funeral. They simply are not deceived about what has ended and what has not.
If the self never dies, why does loss still hurt?
Because love attached itself to a face, a voice, a particular winter coat — and that is gone. Krishna does not deny the ache; two verses later he tells Arjuna to bear it. He denies only the conclusion the ache draws: that someone has been annihilated. Something has departed. No one has.
Themes in this verse
Read every verse this way, held — inside Vāṇi.
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Commentary
You have already changed bodies twice and called it growing up. The boy is gone — not dead, but gone; nothing of him remains in the hand that holds this page. Krishna points at that ordinary vanishing before he asks Arjuna to look at death. The same self stood behind each one, unbroken, wearing them the way you wear a coat through a long winter. Grief comes from thinking the coat is the man. The steady are not fooled — not because they feel less, but because they have watched this happen already. So have you, and you did not notice.