Sanskrit
वेदाऽविनाशिनं नित्यं य एनमजमव्ययम् । कथं स पुरुषः पार्थ कं घातयति हन्ति कम् ॥
vedāvināśinaṃ nityaṃ ya enam ajam avyayam kathaṃ sa puruṣaḥ pārtha kaṃ ghātayati hanti kam
Translation
Who knoweth him indestructible, perpetual, unborn, undiminishing, how can that man slay, O Pârtha, or cause to be slain?
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A direct rhetorical consequence of the argument just completed in verse 20: if the self cannot be born or die, then “slaying” and “being slain” are categories that simply don’t apply to it. The question format matters — Krishna isn’t asserting a new claim so much as pointing out that Arjuna’s whole framing of the battle as an act of killing rests on a premise (verse 19’s confusion) he’s just spent several verses dismantling.
Concepts