वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि। तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णान्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही॥

Meaning

Krishna offers Arjuna one of the most evocative images of the Gita to convey the indestructibility of the atman. Just as a person discards worn-out garments and accepts new ones in their place, so the embodied self lays aside aged or broken bodies and enters fresh ones. The simile makes a metaphysical doctrine intimate; clothing is something we change daily without grief, and the verse invites us to look upon birth and death with the same equanimity. The choice of the word dehi, the one who possesses a body, is deliberate: it distinguishes the wearer from the worn, the conscious witness from the temporary form. By relocating identity from the body to the deathless self, the verse undercuts the principal source of fear that paralyzes Arjuna and that grips ordinary human life. Sankara emphasizes that the analogy holds only at the level of the embodied jiva caught in samsara; the underlying Brahman neither comes nor goes. Ramanuja stresses that the journey from body to body proceeds under the guidance of the lord and according to karma, which is why right action and devotion remain urgent.