Of the unreal, of what does not exist, namely cold, heat and the rest together with their causes, there is no being, no coming-to-be, no existence. For cold, heat and the rest, with their causes, when examined by the means of knowledge, do not stand as a real thing: each is a modification, and a modification strays from itself. As the shape of a pot, examined by the eye, is found to be nothing apart from clay and so is unreal, so every modification, found to be nothing apart from its cause, is unreal. The effect, a pot, is not found before its birth or after its destruction, and the cause too, clay, is not found apart from its own cause; so it is unreal. If it be objected that this entails the unreality of everything, the answer is no: because everywhere two cognitions are had, a cognition of being and a cognition of a particular thing. That with regard to which the cognition does not stray is real; that with regard to which it strays is unreal. The division of real and unreal resting on cognition, everywhere two cognitions are had by everyone, of one and the same locus, not as in 'a blue lotus' where the two are of different things: 'the pot is', 'the cloth is', 'the elephant is', and so everywhere. Of these two, the cognition of pot and the rest strays, as shown; the cognition of being does not. Therefore the object of the cognition of pot is unreal, since it strays, and the object of the cognition of being is not, since it does not stray. If it be said that when the pot is destroyed and the cognition of pot strays, the cognition of being too strays, the answer is no: because the cognition of being is still had with cloth and the rest; that cognition of being has the qualified thing for its object. If it be said that the cognition of pot too, like the cognition of being, is had with another pot, the answer is no: because it is not had with cloth and the like. If it be said that the cognition of being too is not had once the pot is destroyed, the answer is no: because the qualified thing is then absent; the cognition of being, having the qualified thing for its object, can in the absence of the qualified thing have no object, since a qualifier without a qualified is untenable, but it is not that it has no object of its own. If it be said that being of one locus is not right in the absence of the qualified thing, the answer is no: because, as in 'this is water' said of a mirage, sameness of locus is seen even when one of the two is absent. Therefore of the unreal, the body and the pairs of opposites with their causes, there is no being; and of the real, the Self, there is no non-being, since everywhere it does not stray, as we have said. Thus the conclusion regarding both, the Self and the not-Self, the real and the unreal, has been settled by the seers of the truth: the real is just real, the unreal just unreal. 'Tat' is a pronoun, and Brahman, the all, is named 'tat'; the state of being that is 'tattva', the true nature of Brahman; those whose habit it is to see that are the seers of the truth. You too, taking your stand on the vision of the seers of the truth, casting off sorrow and delusion, settling in your mind that cold, heat and the rest, the pairs of opposites of fixed and of varying form, are a modification that, being unreal, appears falsely like the water of a mirage, endure them. That is the intent. What then is that which is said to be ever real?

Of the unreal, namely the body, there is no real being; of the real, namely the self, there is no non-being. Both being objects of experience, the body and the self, the seers of truth have seen, each according to how it is experienced, the conclusion. 'Conclusion' is here the word for the settled determination, since determining ends in a conclusion. The settled determination seen is this: of the body, an insentient thing, the very nature is unreality; of the self, the conscious one, the very nature is reality. For what has destruction for its nature is unreality, and what has indestructibility for its nature is reality. So the Blessed Parashara said: 'therefore, twice-born one, apart from consciousness there is no thing whatever, anywhere, ever'; 'thus the being of the existent has been told you by me, and that knowledge is the true, the other untrue'; 'the supreme reality is held by the wise to be imperishable; what is perishable, beyond doubt, is what is produced from perishable substance'; 'but that which, even with the lapse of time, does not take on another name born of transformation and the rest, that, O king, is the real thing'. Here too it is said 'these bodies have an end' and 'but know that to be indestructible'. So it is understood that this very distinction is the ground for the terms 'real' and 'unreal'. Here the doctrine that the effect pre-exists in the cause does not fit, so this verse is not about that. For a man deluded by not knowing the natures of the body and the self, what must be told, to still that delusion, is just the discernment of their two natures, the perishable and the imperishable. That very thing was raised in 'they do not grieve for the dead or the living', and that very thing is established right after, in 'know that to be indestructible' and 'these bodies have an end'. So the meaning is exactly as stated. How the indestructibility of the self holds, the Lord now states.

It has been said that the self is eternal. Is the self alone eternal, or is something else eternal too, and if so, what? Krishna answers with 'of the non-existent' (na asatah). 'Of the non-existent' means of the unmanifest cause, prakriti; 'of the existent' means of Brahman. Of neither is there any non-being; they do not cease to be. The Vishnu Purana confirms it: 'prakriti, and the person, and time, O most excellent of the good, are eternal'. The verb 'is found' carries a sense of emphasis. That prakriti, the 'non-existent', is itself a cause is shown by the Bhagavata, 'by her, made of the gunas, having the form of the existent and the non-existent, the quality-less all-pervading One creates', and by 'from the non-existent the existent was born', and by the texts on the unmanifest. That this is the settled doctrine of the tradition Krishna indicates with 'of both'. 'The conclusion' (anta) means the final verdict.