Sanskrit
गुणानेतानतीत्य त्रीन्देही देहसमुद्भवान् । जन्ममृत्युजरादुःखैर्विमुक्तोऽमृतमश्नुते ॥
guṇān etān atītya trīn dehī dehasamudbhavān janmamṛtyujarāduḥkhair vimukto'mṛtam aśnute
Translation
When the dweller in the body hath crossed over these three qualities, whence all bodies have been produced, liberated from birth, death, old age and sorrow, he drinketh the nectar of immortality.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
Verse 19’s recognition is named as an actual crossing here — beyond the three gunas that produced the body altogether, with birth, death, old age, and sorrow all falling away at once. It’s worth noting the bluntness of the causal claim: the gunas aren’t merely responsible for bondage in some general sense, they’re identified as the very thing “whence all bodies have been produced,” so crossing them isn’t self-improvement, it’s an exit from embodiment’s whole basis. That naturally prompts Arjuna’s question at verse 21: what does someone who has actually done this look like?