Sanskrit
अव्यक्तोऽयमचिन्त्योऽयमविकार्योऽयमुच्यते । तस्मादेवं विदित्वैनं नानुशोचितुमर्हसि ॥
avyakto'yam acintyo'yam avikāryo'yam ucyate tasmād evaṃ viditvainaṃ nānuśocitum arhasi
Translation
Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable, he is called; therefore knowing him as such, thou shouldst not grieve.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
Explanation
A shift from physical to epistemic description: having established what can’t touch the self (weapons, elements), Krishna now says the self can’t even be grasped by ordinary perception or thought. “Unmanifest, unthinkable, immutable” moves the argument from indestructibility to incomprehensibility — a claim that becomes explicit again in verse 29’s admission that almost no one actually understands this, even after hearing it.
Concepts