Weapons do not cut this embodied one, because it is partless; swords and the rest cannot divide it into parts. Fire does not burn it, does not reduce it to ash. Water does not wet it: water has the power, with a thing that has parts, to dissolve it into its parts by wetting it, but this is not possible with the partless Self. And the wind, which destroys an oily substance by drying up its oil, does not dry the Self either. Since it is so, therefore.

Weapons, fire, water, and wind cannot effect cutting, burning, wetting, and drying upon the self. For the self, being all-pervading, of the very nature of pervading every category of thing, is more subtle than every category, and so cannot be pervaded by them, whereas cutting, burning, wetting, and drying have for their objects only what can be pervaded. Therefore the self is eternal, firm, unmoving; this self is everlasting, of stable nature, not to be made to tremble, and ancient.

Even of what is indestructible by itself and by ordinary causes, there might be destruction by some special cause, as wood is destroyed by a saw; so Krishna rules out special causes too with 'weapons do not cut it'. Since only the present tense is used in the denial, the destruction might still happen later; to that He says 'it cannot be cut'. By speaking in the present He hints that the self's unfitness to be cut and the rest is shown by its never being seen cut. And why is it unfit? Because it has the same form as the Lord, who is qualified as eternal, all-pervading and the rest. 'Everlasting' states only its being of one constant form. By the word 'unmoving' (sthanu) He wards off even an occasioned change. 'Eternal' qualifies 'all-pervading', for otherwise there would be mere repetition; and even though oneness with the Lord is spoken of, there is no repetition in reaffirming that oneness, because a qualifier not yet stated is being added. The properties of the original belong fittingly to the reflection wherever there is no contradiction. That the self is such a reflection is established by scripture and tradition, 'into every form he became the counter-form' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 2.5.19; Katha Upanishad 5.2.10), 'and a mere semblance', and the like. There is no conflict with the self's being a portion (amsha), for it is precisely a portion that is a reflection; being of one form is not the same as being a portion, and the proof is simply that texts of both kinds are spoken. Nor need the reflection-hood of a portion be a mere assumption, for in Gadhi and others a portion's manifold embodiment is observed, while in other things it is not. Even with the self's being 'unmoving', texts like 'He saw' are not contradicted in the Lord's case, since texts of both kinds are spoken and His power is beyond thought. Nor is the world one merely through maya, for it is precisely by His lordship that the harmonising of opposed properties is declared, in 'in you, the Lord, Brahman, it is not contradictory', 'not through yogic power but through lordship', 'and this is no wonder in you, who are cause and effect', and the like, and because the great purport of all scripture is that lordship. For liberation is the great human end, and even there liberation itself is the goal, as scripture and tradition say: 'the steadfast take their joy in the ends, not in the middle states; they call the reaching of the final end happiness, and what lies between the two a sorrow' (Shanti-parva, Moksha-dharma 174.34), 'the world won by merit is heaped up only to waste away' (Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.6). And that liberation is gained solely by the grace of Vishnu: 'without worshipping Vasudeva, who could ever win liberation? and when He, the infinite Lord, is pleased, what is unattainable?' (Bhagavata 3.6.25); 'by His grace one attains the supreme perfection, no doubt of it', and 'those whom the infinite Lord, whose feet are the refuge, favours, if their refuge is without guile, they indeed know and cross over the divine maya, and in them there is no thought that they are His equal, though their bodies be food for dogs and jackals' (Bhagavata 2.7.42), and 'were it not for you, O Lord, the living being in this becoming, struck by the three sufferings, finds no peace in the self, for, but for your grace, whose release could there be here, for one who knows thus' (Nrisimha-purva-tapini Upanishad 1.6), and the like. And that grace arises solely from the knowledge of the Lord's supreme excellence, as is well known in the world.