Speaker: Śrī Kṛṣṇa
य एनं वेत्ति हन्तारं यश्चैनं मन्यते हतम् ।
उभौ तौ न विजानीतो नायं हन्ति न हन्यते ॥१९॥
ya enaṁ vetti hantāraṁ
yaś cainaṁ manyate hatam
ubhau tau na vijānīto
nāyaṁ hanti na hanyate
Word for word (synonyms)
- yaḥ
- anyone
- enam
- this
- vetti
- knows
- hantāram
- the killer
- yaḥ
- anyone
- ca
- also
- enam
- this
- manyate
- thinks
- hatam
- killed
- ubhau
- both of them
- tau
- they
- na
- never
- vijānītaḥ
- in knowledge
- na
- never
- ayam
- this
- hanti
- kills
- na
- nor
- hanyate
- be killed
Translation
He who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or that he is slain, does not understand. One who is in knowledge knows that the self slays not nor is slain.
Defined in the Gītā
Knowledge
What is knowledge?
Humility, pridelessness, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, approaching a bona fide spiritual master, cleanliness, steadiness and self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification, absence of false ego, the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; nonattachment to children, wife, home and the rest, and evenmindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me, resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self-realization, and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth—all these I thus declare to be knowledge, and what is contrary to these is ignorance.
Purport
When an embodied living entity is hurt by fatal weapons, it is to be known that the living entity within the body is not killed. The spirit soul is so small that it is impossible to kill him by any material weapon, as is evident from the previous verses. Nor is the living entity killable because of his spiritual constitution. What is killed, or is supposed to be killed, is the body only. This, however, does not at all encourage killing of the body. The Vedic injunction is, "māhiṁsyāt sarva-bhūtāni" never commit violence to anyone. Nor does understanding that the living entity is not killed encourage animal slaughter. Killing the body of anyone without authority is abominable and is punishable by the law of the state as well as by the law of the Lord. Arjuna, however, is being engaged in killing for the principle of religion, and not whimsically.
What this verse teaches
The soul doesn’t kill or get killed (nāyaṁ hanti na hanyate)
In thematic compilations 2
Śrīla Prabhupāda lectures 2
- Bhagavad-gītā 2.19–25 1968-10-14 · Seattle
- Bhagavad-gītā 2.19–20 1973-08-25
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda © The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International.