Text 261
Contents of the City Summarized
— 107 —
atha cainam nitya-jātam  
 nityam vā manyase mṛtam  
 tathāpi tvam mahā-bāho  
 nainam śocitum arhasi
atha —if, however;  ca —also;  enam —this soul;  nitya-jātam —always born;  nityam —forever;  vā —either;  manyase —so think;  mṛtam —dead;  tathāpi —still;  tvam —you;  mahā-bāho —O mighty-armed one;  na —never;  enam —about the soul;  śocitum —to lament;  arhasi —deserve.
TRANSLATION
If, however, you think that the soul is perpetually born and always dies,  still you have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.
PURPORT
There is always a class of philosophers, almost akin to the Buddhists, who do not believe in the separate existence of the soul beyond the body. When Lord Kṛṣṇa spoke the  Bhagavad-gītā , it appears that such philosophers existed, and they were known as the  Lokāyatikas  and  Vaibhāṣikas . These philosophers maintained that life symptoms, or soul, takes place at a certain mature condition of material combination. The modern material scientist and materialist philosophers also think similarly. According to them, the body is a combination of physical elements, and at a certain stage the life symptoms develop by interaction of the physical and chemical elements. The science of anthropology is based on this philosophy. Currently, many pseudo-religions—now becoming fashionable in America—are also adhering to this philosophy, as well as to the nihilistic nondevotional Buddhist sects.
Even if Arjuna did not believe in the existence of the soul—as in the  Vaibhāṣika  philosophy—there would still have been no cause for lamentation. No one laments the loss of a certain bulk of chemicals and stops discharging his prescribed duty. On the other hand, in modern science and scientific warfare, so many tons of chemicals are wasted for achieving victory over the enemy. According to the  Vaibhāṣika  philosophy, the so-called soul or  ātmā  vanishes along with the deterioration of the body. So, in any case, whether Arjuna accepted the Vedic conclusion that there is an atomic soul, or whether he did not believe in the existence of the soul, he had no reason to lament. According to this theory, since there are so many