Sanskrit
य एनं वेत्ति हन्तारं यश्चैनं मन्यते हतम् । उभौ तौ न विजानीतो नायं हन्ति न हन्यते ॥
ya enaṃ vetti hantāraṃ yaś cainaṃ manyate hatam ubhau tau na vijānīto nāyaṃ hanti na hanyate
Translation
He who regardeth this as a slayer, and he who thinketh he is slain, both of them are ignorant. He slayeth not, nor is he slain.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A near-quotation of a famous line from the Katha Upanishad (a Vedic text older than the Gita), doing double duty: it restates the immortality argument one more time in its sharpest form, and quietly signals that Krishna’s teaching here isn’t new revelation but a restatement of established Vedic wisdom Arjuna could, in principle, already know.
Concepts