Chapter 2 - Verse 13

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा ।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥ १३ ॥

dehino’sminyathā dehe kaumāraṃ yauvanaṃ jarā .
tathā dehāntaraprāptirdhīrastatra na muhyati .. 13 ..


Just as in this body the embodied (Self) passes into childhood and youth and old age, so does He pass into another body. There the wise man is not distressed.
Read the commentary

We see how the embodied Self passes unchanged in the present body into the three stages (avasthas) of childhood, youth or the middle age, and old age or the age of decay, all distinct from one another. At the close of the first of these stages the Self is not dead, nor is He born again at the commencement of the second; on the other hand, we see the Self passing unchanged into the second and third stages. Just so does the Self pass unchanged into another body. Such being the case, the wise man is not troubled (in mind) about it.

Endurance is a condition of wisdom.

Now Arjuna might argue as follows : It is true that when one knows the Self to be eternal there is no room for the distressful delusion that the Self will die. But quite common among people, as we see, is the distressful delusion that the Self is subject to heat and cold, pleasure and pain, as also to grief due to the loss of pleasure or to the suffering of pain.

As against the foregoing, the Lord says: