अव्यक्तादीनि भूतानि व्यक्तमध्यानि भारत।अव्यक्तनिधनान्येव तत्र का परिदेवना॥
avyaktādīni bhūtāni vyakta-madhyāni bhārataavyakta-nidhanānyeva tatra kā paridevanā
Word by word
The verse says
Beings are unseen before they begin, seen in the middle, and unseen again at the end. Why grieve over that?
In plain words
A picture rather than an argument.
Every person is unseen, then seen, then unseen. You only ever meet anyone in the middle stretch.
And then the flat question at the end. Not a rebuke exactly. Just: what is it, in that, that you are grieving over?
Where you've felt this · in community
You know someone for four years, at work, closely. Then they move and you never speak again. They existed before you met and they carry on afterwards. Your acquaintance with them was always a section, not a whole.
Going deeper
The word is avyakta — unmanifest, not shown. It is not the same as non-existent, and the difference carries the verse.
Krishna is not saying people come from nothing and return to nothing. He is saying they come from what is not displayed, appear for a while, and return to what is not displayed.
That is a strange thought to sit with, and it is meant to be sat with rather than solved. The middle stretch — the only part you have ever seen of anyone, including yourself — is presented as the exception rather than the rule.
Notice that this verse quietly rejoins the first argument. Verses 26 and 27 offered a route that needed no metaphysics; avyakta slips the metaphysics back in through a side door, without demanding assent.
And the closing question, kā paridevanā — what lamentation? — is left genuinely open. It is not answered. The chapter moves on, and the reader is left holding it.
That is a deliberate piece of teaching. Some questions do more work unanswered.