Verse-22
Chapter 2 — Sānkhya Yog
Verse 22
🕉 Original Sanskrit Shloka
vasansi jirnani yatha vihaya navani grhnati naro parani
tatha sarirani vihaya jirna-nyanyani samyati navani dehi
🕉 English Translation
📜 Translation
English
Just as a man casts off his old clothes and takes up the new ones, in the same way the embodied soul casts off the old body and takes up a new one.
A natural doubt arises on studying this verse. It is understood that when the clothes are worn out they are given up but those who give up their bodies in childhood and youth - how can it be accepted that the body had grown old? For the embodied soul the body had become old; because whatever relations had to be fulfilled through it and whatever bondages of debts had to be satisfied through this body they were done with. It is to be remembered that the embodied soul takes up that body through whom whatever relations, unsatisfied desires and bondage debt bondage can be fulfilled.
Where the fulfilment of the relation by that body is complete from the point of view of embodied soul it is taken to have become old and further again, wherever other relations and bondage are awaiting, there the embodied soul takes up a new body! Therefore, here the question does not pertain only to the age of the body, but it relates to the embodied soul old and new, fruits of actions accumulated in the past and present birth, relations and bondage of debt. The entire drama of birth and rebirth pertains to the embodied soul. The physical body is in any case perishable and on its death its entire game is over; and the soul continues.