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Bhagavad-Gītā with Śaṅkara's bhāṣya · 2.24
acchedyo 'yam adāhyo 'yam akledyo 'śoṣya eva ca | nityaḥ sarva-gataḥ sthāṇur acalo 'yaṃ sanātanaḥ
Translation. This self cannot be cut; this self cannot be burned;
it cannot be moistened, nor indeed be dried.
Eternal, all-pervading, stable as a post, unmoving—
this self is primeval.
Grammar check: 14 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 |
|---|
| acchedyaḥ | acchedya | pass |
| ayam | idam | pass |
| adāhyaḥ | adāhya | pass |
| ayam | idam | pass |
| akledyaḥ | akledya | pass |
| aśoṣyaḥ | aśoṣya | pass |
| eva | eva | pass |
| ca | ca | pass |
| nityaḥ | nitya | pass |
| sarva-gataḥ | sarva-gata | pass |
| sthāṇuḥ | sthāṇu | pass |
| acalaḥ | acala | pass |
| ayam | idam | pass |
| sanātanaḥ | sanātana | 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.
The negative forms acchedya, adāhya, akledya, aśoṣya, and acala are analyzed as nañ-tatpuruṣas, with a- as the surface negative member.
→ Nañ-tatpuruṣa analysis: na chedyaḥ, na dāhyaḥ, na kledyaḥ, na śoṣyaḥ, and na calaḥ. The lexical segmentations a-cchedya, a-dāhya, a-kledya, a-śoṣya, and a-cala are reflected respectively in [MW s.v. acchedya, 9,2], [MW s.v. adāhya, 18,2], [MW s.v. akledya, 3,1], [MW s.v. aśoṣya, 113,3], and [MW s.v. acala, 8,3].
The four gerundive predicates express incapacity to affect the Self, not injunctions that it ought not to be cut, burned, moistened, or dried; ayam refers to the Self (ātman).→ Modal impossibility, with ayam understood as ayam ātmā. Śaṅkara says the destructive agents are not capable of destroying the Self and explicitly identifies ayam as ātmā.
gita [1]yasmāt anyonya-nāśa-hetu-bhūtāni enam ātmānaṃ nāśayituṃ notsahante asyādīni tasmāt nityaḥ |
Because things that are causes of mutual destruction are unable to destroy this Self—asyādīni is the supplied reading, likely a plaintext error for astrādīni, “weapons and the like”—therefore it is eternal.
gita [4]sthiratvāt acalo 'yam ātmā |
Because it is stable, this Self is unmoving.
Eva is taken as emphasizing the immediately preceding aśoṣyaḥ rather than placing exclusive scope over the entire verse.
→ Immediate emphasis, rendered “indeed,” based on word order and the ordinary strengthening function of eva described in [MW s.v. eva, 232,2]. The commentary does not discuss its scope.
Nitya and sarva-gata are coordinated predicates in the verse but form an inferential sequence in the commentary: indestructibility establishes eternality, and eternality establishes all-pervasiveness.→ Distinct but related predicates: “eternal” and “all-pervading.” The English translation preserves the verse’s coordination rather than inserting causal connectives absent from the verse.
gita [1]yasmāt anyonya-nāśa-hetu-bhūtāni enam ātmānaṃ nāśayituṃ notsahante asyādīni tasmāt nityaḥ |
Because the destructive agents are unable to destroy this Self, therefore it is eternal. The supplied asyādīni is likely a plaintext error for astrādīni.
gita [2]nityatvāt sarvagataḥ |
Because it is eternal, it is all-pervading.
Sarva-gata is treated as a tatpuruṣa with the sense sarvatra gataḥ, “present everywhere,” rather than as two independent words or a bahuvrīhi.
→ Tatpuruṣa, sarvatra gataḥ, translated “all-pervading.” The printed hyphen and syntax require a single inflected compound; the precise internal case relation is not parsed by the commentary.
Sthāṇu is translated with both its image and Śaṅkara’s gloss: “stable as a post.”→ “Stable as a post.” Śaṅkara explicitly supplies iva and then glosses the intended property as sthira.
gita [3]sarva-gatatvāt sthāṇur iva, sthira ity etat |
Because it is all-pervading, it is like a post; that is, stable.
Acala is kept distinct from sthāṇu and translated “unmoving.”→ “Unmoving.” The commentary derives acala from the preceding stability, while still presenting it as a separate predicate of the Self.
gita [4]sthiratvāt acalo 'yam ātmā |
Because it is stable, this Self is unmoving.
Sanātana is rendered “primeval,” conveying ancientness and absence of new causal production rather than merely duplicating nitya as “eternal.”→ “Primeval.” The supplied separation niṣpannaḥ, abhinava is construed under the preceding na: the Self is not produced from any cause as something new. No positive sense “new” is attributed to sanātana.
gita [5]ataḥ sanātanaś cirantanaḥ, na kāraṇāt kutaścin niṣpannaḥ, abhinava ity arthaḥ |
Hence it is sanātana, long-existing: the meaning is that it has not been produced from any cause as something new.
The series of predicates is purposeful redescription of the difficult-to-understand Self, not careless tautology.→ Repeated delineation of the same reality in different words, intended to make the unmanifest truth apprehensible and thereby conduce to release from saṃsāra.
gita [9]durbodhatvāt ātma-vastunaḥ punaḥ punaḥ prasaṅgam āpādya śabdāntareṇa tad eva vastu nirūpayati bhagavān vāsudevaḥ kathaṃ nu nāma saṃsāriṇām asaṃsāritva-buddhi-gocaratām āpannaṃ sat avyaktaṃ tattvaṃ saṃsāra-nivṛttaye syāt iti ||bhgs_2.24||
Because the reality of the Self is difficult to understand, Lord Vāsudeva repeatedly introduces an occasion and delineates that very reality in other words, considering how the unmanifest truth might become an object of the transmigrating person’s understanding of non-transmigratoriness and thus bring about the cessation of saṃsāra.
Śaṅkara's commentary on this unit
1yasmāt anyonya-nāśa-hetu-bhūtāni enam ātmānaṃ nāśayituṃ notsahante asyādīni tasmāt nityaḥ |
2nityatvāt sarvagataḥ |
3sarva-gatatvāt sthāṇur iva, sthira ity etat |
4sthiratvāt acalo 'yam ātmā |
5ataḥ sanātanaś cirantanaḥ, na kāraṇāt kutaścin niṣpannaḥ, abhinava ity arthaḥ |
6naiteṣāṃ lokānāṃ paunaruktyaṃ codanīyam, yataḥ ekenaiva lokān ātmanaḥ nityatvam avikriyatvaṃ coktam na jāyate mriyate vā ity ādinā |
7tatra yad eva ātma-viṣayaṃ kiṃcid ucyate, tad etasmāt lokārthān nātiricyate |
8kiṃcic chabdataḥ punaruktam, kiṃcid arthataḥ iti |
9durbodhatvāt ātma-vastunaḥ punaḥ punaḥ prasaṅgam āpādya śabdāntareṇa tad eva vastu nirūpayati bhagavān vāsudevaḥ kathaṃ nu nāma saṃsāriṇām asaṃsāritva-buddhi-gocaratām āpannaṃ sat avyaktaṃ tattvaṃ saṃsāra-nivṛttaye syāt iti ||bhgs_2.24||