अथ चैनं नित्यजातं नित्यं वा मन्यसे मृतम्।तथापि त्वं महाबाहो नैवं शोचितुमर्हसि॥
atha cainaṃ nitya-jātaṃ nityaṃ vā manyase mṛtamtathāpi tvaṃ mahā-bāho naivaṃ śocitum arhasi
Word by word
The verse says
And even if you think it is constantly born and constantly dies — even then, strong-armed one, you have no reason to grieve.
In plain words
Krishna changes tack completely.
Even if you do not believe any of that. He drops the whole argument he has just made and offers a second one that does not need it.
This is a teacher who has noticed that the first approach has not landed.
Where you've felt this · in parenting
You explain it to your child and watch it fail to land. So you try again from somewhere else entirely. Not louder, and not the same words again. A different road to the same place.
Going deeper
This is one of the most generous moves in the Gita, and it is easy to read past.
Krishna has just spent fifteen verses on the deathless self. Now he says: suppose you are not convinced. Suppose you think people really do begin and end. Even then the grief is misplaced.
He is arguing on his student's terms rather than requiring agreement with his own. That is not a rhetorical trick. It is a recognition that Arjuna is not going to be reasoned into a metaphysics while sitting on the floor of a chariot.
It also tells you something about how the Gita expects to be read. The argument from verses 11 to 25 is not presented as a gate you must pass through. A reader who cannot accept the eternal self is given another route in the next two verses, and it depends on nothing but observation.
The address mahā-bāho — strong-armed — is worth noticing here. Krishna keeps using martial epithets while Arjuna is at his least martial. It is a steady, unhurried reminder of who is being spoken to.