Connotation of soul's immortality in Bhagavad-Gita

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Abstract

Death and desire for immortality are among the man's ontological questions. Hinduism like other religions, at the given tenets, has managed to remove or relief human distress of immortality. Vedas and Upanishads, in one or other way, have attended and accepted the man's composite of two dimension and excellence of its spiritual aspect. Bhagavad-Gita too has endorsed immortality of soul explicitly in chapter 2 and implicitly in other chapters by some evidences. Gita by supposing man as immortal soul, refuses reality of death. Impossibility of conversion of real to unreal is the most important ratiocination of Gita in proving illusion of soul's extinction. Despite of diversity of immortality's connotation, Gita by companying it with knowledge (jnana) has given more supreme concept of man's immortality. Theories of Sankhya and Vedanta, reasoning to prove illusion of death, absoluteness of immortality, Jivan¬mukta's qualities, distinction of para-vidya from apara-vidya, doctrine of Avatara, and the idea of reincarnation are gita's implicit proofs of immortality of soul by connotation of "cognizance of own self's immortality".

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