It is not born: no modification of a thing, marked by birth, belongs to the Self. So too it does not die: the word 'vā' is used in the sense of 'and', and 'it does not die' denies the last modification, marked by destruction. The word 'kadācit', 'at any time', is to be joined with every denial of modification: at no time is it born, at no time does it die. Since this Self, having undergone the act of coming-to-be, will not afterward become a non-being, it does not die; for in the world one is said to die who, having been, will not be. And the Self is not, like a body, something that comes to be after not having been; therefore it is not born; for one is said to be born who comes to be after not having been. Since it is so, it is unborn; and since it does not die, it is eternal. Although the denial of the first and last modifications denies all the modifications, the modifications in between are still to be denied by their own words, so that the denial may reach the unmentioned modifications too, youth and the rest. So He says 'lasting' and the rest. By 'lasting' the modification marked as decline is denied: that which always is, is lasting; it does not decline in its own form, being partless, nor by the loss of qualities, being free of qualities. The modification opposite to decline, marked as growth, is denied by 'ancient': what is built up by the accession of parts grows and is called new, but this Self, being partless, is new even when old, so it is 'ancient' and does not grow. So too 'it is not slain': the verb here is to be taken in the sense of being transformed, to avoid repetition; the meaning is that it is not transformed even when the body is slain, transformed. In this verse six modifications of being, the modifications of worldly things, are denied of the Self; the sense of the sentence is that the Self is free of every kind of modification. Since it is so, those two do not know: this is its connection with the earlier verse. By 'he who knows this to be the slayer' He laid down that the Self is neither the doer nor the object of the act of slaying; by 'it is not born' He gave changelessness as the reason; now He sums up the thing laid down.

By the very reasons given, the self being eternal and unchanging, all of birth, death, and the rest, which are properties of the insentient body, do not belong to it. There, 'it is not born, it does not die': birth and death, present in all bodies and experienced by all, never touch the self. 'Having been, it does not come again to be, or not be': it is not that this self, having come to be at the beginning of an aeon, will again not be at the end of an aeon; the birth at the start of an aeon and the death at its end, learned from scripture in regard to certain bodies, those of Prajapati and the rest, do not touch the self. So the self, present in every body, is unborn, and for that reason eternal and lasting; unlike primal matter, it is not even followed by the unmanifest, ceaseless transformations. So, though ancient, it is ever new, to be experienced always as though fresh. Therefore, even when the body is slain, this self is not slain.

Here there is even a Vedic verse to the same effect, which Krishna gives with 'it is not born'. Nor does the self ever become a knower by first coming to be such, in the way the Lord is a knower, for the Lord's being a knower is established by scripture and tradition, 'He saw' (Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.3) and 'the one who, by place, by time, by state, of himself, by another, has consciousness undiminished as his very nature'. Why is the self of this character? Because it has the same form as the Lord, who is marked by being unborn and the rest. 'Everlasting' (shashvata) means having a single, constant being. 'Ancient' (purana) is so called because it moves through the city, that is, the body. And even so it is not slain, though the body is slain.