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The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gitā [CH. challenge. It does not, however, think of applying this principle, which underlies the ontological position of the Sāmkhya and the Vedānta, in a general way. It seems to apply the principle only to the nature of self (ātman). Thus it says, “O Arjuna, that principle by which everything is pervaded is to be regarded as deathless; no one can destroy this imperishable one. The bodies that perish belong to the deathless eternal and unknowable self; therefore thou shouldst fight. He who thinks the self to be destructible, and he who thinks it to be the destroyer, do not know that it can neither destroy nor be destroyed. It is neither born nor does it die, nor, being once what it is, would it ever be again.... Weapons cannot cut it, fire cannot burn it, water cannot dissolve it and air cannot dry it.” The immortality of self preached in the Gitā seems to have been directly borrowed from the Upanişads, and the passages that describe it seem to breathe the spirit of the Upanişads not only in idea, but also in the modes and expressions. The ontological principle that what exists cannot die and that what is not cannot come into being does not seem to have been formulated in the Upanişads. Its formulation in the Gitā in support of the principle of immortality seems, therefore, to be a distinct advance on the Upanişadic philosophy in this direction.
The first argument urged by Krsna to persuade Arjuna to fight was that the self was immortal and that it was the body only that could be injured or killed, and that therefore Arjuna need not feel troubled because he was going to kill his kinsmen in the battle of Kuruksetra. Upon the death of one body the self only changed to another, in which it was reborn, just as a man changed his old clothes for new ones. The body is always changing, and even in youth, middle age and old age, does not remain the same. The change at death is also a change of body, and so there is no intrinsic difference between the changes of the body at different stages of life and the ultimate change that is effected at death, when the old body is forsaken by the spirit and a new body is accepted. Our bodies are always changing, and, though the different stages in this growth in childhood, youth and old age represent comparatively small degrees of change, yet these ought to prepare our minds to realize the fact that death is also a similar change of body only and cannot, therefore, affect the unperturbed nature of the self, which, in spite of all changes of body at successive
