A declaration · expansive in mood · builds on earlier teachings
“What you are cannot be reduced to killer or victim.”
Whoever thinks this imperishable being is the killer, and whoever thinks it is killed, both do not understand. It neither kills nor is killed.
The verse in reading order — each Sanskrit word with its meaning beneath. Tap a word to focus on it.
Read literallywho · this · knows · as killer · and who · also · this · thinks · killed · both · those two · not · understand · not · this · kills · not · is killed
The true self cannot be killed, and it does not kill. Seeing it as either one is ignorance.
Krishna speaks this verse, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the chapter titled "Sankhya Yoga" (The Yoga of Knowledge).
Verse 19 sits in Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita — Sankhya Yoga, "The Yoga of Knowledge". The chapter has 72 verses in total.
An old soldier may carry the thought "I killed" for decades after a war. Krishna tells Arjuna that the self neither kills nor is killed, and that anyone who thinks otherwise has misunderstood.
Did you like this verse?
Krishna rejects both pictures: the self neither kills anyone nor is ever killed.
What this verse means
The true self cannot be killed, and it does not kill. Seeing it as either one is ignorance.
Context & commentary
Krishna has just said the body ends, but the inner being does not. Now he sharpens the point: neither murder nor death touches that reality, so Arjuna’s terror is built on a false identification.
What it looks like today
An old soldier may carry the thought "I killed" for decades after a war. Krishna tells Arjuna that the self neither kills nor is killed, and that anyone who thinks otherwise has misunderstood.
“Fear loosens when you stop identifying life with what can be destroyed.”
Explore related themes: kurukshetra (95 verses)