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Bhagavad-Gītā with Śaṅkara's bhāṣya · 2.22
vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi | tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni anyāni saṃyāti navāni dehī
Translation. As a man, casting off worn-out garments, takes other, new ones,
so the embodied Self (dehin), casting off worn-out bodies, goes to other, new ones—itself unchanged.
Grammar check: 16 words pass / 0 flagged / 0 beyond the checkerPāṇini-verified
Every word's claimed grammar is re-derived with vidyut-prakriya, software implementing Pāṇini's rules. Flags are shown, never hidden; some are the text taking epic or Vedic liberties the classical rules do not generate.
Word by word
| surface | lemma | grammar |
|---|
| vāsāṃsi | vāsas | pass |
| jīrṇāni | jīrṇa | pass |
| yathā | yathā | pass |
| vihāya | hā | pass |
| navāni | nava | pass |
| gṛhṇāti | grah | pass |
| naraḥ | nara | pass |
| aparāṇi | apara | pass |
| tathā | tathā | pass |
| śarīrāṇi | śarīra | pass |
| vihāya | hā | pass |
| jīrṇāni | jīrṇa | pass |
| anyāni | anya | pass |
| saṃyāti | yā | pass |
| navāni | nava | pass |
| dehī | dehin | pass |
How the commentary settled it
Where the verse alone is ambiguous, the reading follows Śaṅkara's commentary; the deciding lines are quoted below each decision.
Translate vāsāṃsi as “garments” and jīrṇāni as “worn-out,” rather than merely “clothes that are old.”→ worn-out garments
gita [1]vāsāṃsi vastrāṇi jīrṇāni durbalatāṃ gatāni
“Vāsāṃsi” means garments; “jīrṇāni” means those that have come to a state of weakness.
Analyze both occurrences of vihāya as active absolutives from hā with the prefix vi, not as masculine singular dative nominals.→ absolutive vi-hā, “having cast off”
gita [1]yathā loke vihāya parityajya
As in the world, having left—having cast off—...
gita [1]tathā tadvad eva śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni
So, just in that same way, having cast off worn-out bodies...
Construe the first clause’s neuter plural forms as accusatives: vāsāṃsi jīrṇāni is governed by vihāya, while navāni aparāṇi is the object of gṛhṇāti. Navāni and aparāṇi jointly denote other new garments.→ accusatives: “casting off worn-out garments, [he] takes other, new ones”
gita [1]vihāya parityajya navāni abhinavāni gṛhṇāti upādatte naraḥ puruṣo 'parāṇi anyāni
Having left, having cast off, a man—a person—takes, accepts, new, fresh ones, other ones.
In the second clause, construe śarīrāṇi jīrṇāni as the object of vihāya and understand śarīrāṇi again with anyāni navāni. Take saṃyāti actively as “goes to/reaches,” with those other new bodies as its accusative destination.→ “casting off worn-out bodies, goes to other, new ones”
gita [1]śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni anyāni saṃyāti saṃgacchati navāni
Having cast off worn-out bodies, he goes to—reaches—other, new ones.
Treat yathā and tathā as the two sides of an explicit comparison: “as … so,” not as unrelated manner adverbs.→ the correlative construction “as … so”
gita [1]yathā loke
As in the world...
gita [1]tathā tadvad eva
So, precisely in that same way...
Translate dehī as “the embodied Self (dehin),” not merely “a bodily creature,” and make explicit the commentary’s conclusion that the Self remains unchanged while bodies are exchanged.→ the embodied Self (dehin), itself unchanged
gita [1]dehī ātmā puruṣavat avikriya evety arthaḥ
The embodied one is the Self; like the person [in the comparison], it is indeed unchanged—this is the meaning.
gita [2]kasmāt avikriya eveti, āha ---
Why is it indeed unchanged? He states—
Śaṅkara's commentary on this unit
1vāsāṃsi vastrāṇi jīrṇāni durbalatāṃ gatāni yathā loke vihāya parityajya navāni abhinavāni gṛhṇāti upādatte naraḥ puruṣo 'parāṇi anyāni, tathā tadvad eva śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāni anyāni saṃyāti saṃgacchati navāni dehī ātmā puruṣavat avikriya evety arthaḥ ||bhgs_2.22||
2kasmāt avikriya eveti, āha ---