Those that have an end, a destruction, are 'antavat'. As the cognition of being, run on with regard to a mirage, is cut off when examined by the means of knowledge, that being its end, so these bodies, like the bodies of dream and of illusion, have an end. They are said, by the discerning, to be the bodies of the eternal embodied one, of the Self that has a body, the indestructible, the immeasurable. 'Eternal' and 'indestructible' are not a repetition, since both eternality and destruction are of two kinds in the world. A body burnt to ash, gone out of sight, is said to be destroyed; and a body, though still existing, when changed otherwise, fallen into disease, is also said to be destroyed. By 'eternal, indestructible' it is meant that the Self has no connection with destruction of either kind; otherwise the Self would be eternal only as the earth is, and to forbid that He says 'eternal, indestructible'. 'Immeasurable' means not an object of measure, not to be bounded by the means of knowledge, perception and the rest. Now, the Self is bounded by scripture, and earlier by perception and the rest. No: because the Self is established of itself. Only when the Self, the knower, is established does one who wishes to know seek out a means of knowledge; one does not, without first proving the Self as 'I am thus', set about the bounding of objects to be known. The Self is unknown to no one. Scripture is the final means of knowledge: it gains the status of a means of knowledge for the Self only by setting aside the superimposition upon it of qualities not its own, not by making known an unknown thing; and so the scripture, 'the Brahman that is immediate and direct, the Self within all'. Since the Self is thus eternal and changeless, therefore fight, do not draw back from the war. War is not here being enjoined as a duty to be done; for Arjuna, already engaged in the war, sat silent, held back by sorrow and delusion, and the Blessed Lord merely removes his obstruction. Therefore 'fight' is a mere restatement, not an injunction. That the scripture of the Gītā is for the cessation of the cause of transmigration, sorrow and delusion, and is not a prompter to action, the Blessed Lord brought in two verses as witnesses. And what you think, that in the war Bhīṣma and the rest are slain by me, that I am their slayer: that cognition of yours is false. How?

The root 'dih' means to heap up; so these bodies, being of the form of an aggregation, 'have an end', are by nature destructible, for things of the form of an aggregation, pots and the like, are seen to have an end. The bodies, aggregations of elements belonging to the eternal embodied self for the experience of the fruit of karma, are declared by scriptures such as 'by merit, merit' to be destroyed at the ending of karma. But the self is indestructible. Why? Because it cannot be measured as an object. The self is not apprehended as an object of knowing, but as the knower. So it will be said, 'the knowers of that call him the field-knower'. Nor is the self apprehended as of the form of an aggregation, for in every body it is apprehended as one in form, distinct from the body, as the knower, in 'I know this'. And, unlike the body and the like, no difference in the knower's form is apprehended with difference of place. So, being one in form, not of the form of an aggregation, the knower, and all-pervading, the self is eternal. The body, on the other hand, being of the form of an aggregation, existing for the embodied self's experience of the fruit of karma, manifold in form, and pervaded, is perishable. Therefore, the body being by nature destructible and the self by nature eternal, neither is an occasion for grief; so, bearing with steadiness the unavoidable harsh contacts, the falling of weapons and the like, whether they touch you or others, undertake, for the attaining of immortality, the action called war, done with no eye to its fruit.

Suppose some body too is eternal. Not so, Krishna says with 'these bodies have an end'. Then let the self be destroyed when the body is destroyed, as a reflection is destroyed when the mirror is destroyed. To that Krishna replies, 'of the eternal embodied one'; the word 'eternal' is added to set the self apart from the Lord. And there is no destruction of it from any occasioning cause either, which is why He says 'the indestructible one'. Why is it indestructible? Because it has the same form as the immeasurable Lord. A reflection is not destroyed so long as the proximity of the original to the reflecting medium is unbroken and a revealer is present. Here the self is its own revealer, since it is of the nature of consciousness, and there is a certain eternal reflecting medium. So says the Lord's own word: 'joined with an eternal medium that is its own form and made of consciousness, the living being is a reflection of Keshava, at the attainment of its release'.