Study a Verse

• This is the process of the soul’s transmigration from one body to another.
• When higher authorities have decided what kind of gross body the living entity will have, he is forced to enter such a body, and thus he automatically gives up his previous body.
• Dull-minded persons who do not have the intelligence to understand this process of transmigration take for granted that when the gross body is finished, one’s life is finished forever.

Śrīla Prabhupāda's own sentences, chosen from the purport as its central points. Read the full purport on Vedabase to see them in place.

Terror → Wonder and relief. The threat of destruction yields to divine appearance.

Chapters 1–4 of Canto 10: Threat from Kaṁsa and Kṛṣṇa's birth. An editorial reading of the story's mood, not the text itself. See the emotional arc

Chapter 1: The Advent of Lord Kṛṣṇa: Introduction

From the chapter summary, the lines nearest this verse:

Every living entity lives in a body for some time and then transmigrates to another body, but one is unfortunately misled into accepting the body as the soul. If a person under this mistaken conception wants to kill another body, he is condemned as hellish.