Anitya

The impermanent — whatever is created and destroyed, whatever gains and loses existence in time. The contrary of eternal.

Overview

Anitya is Vedanta’s general-purpose label for everything that comes and goes. Bodies, objects, thoughts, even entire universes — if they appear for a while and then disappear, they are anitya. The concept is load-bearing because of the argument Shankara fuses to it in his 2.16 commentary: what is created and destroyed does not have existence as an intrinsic property; it borrows existence. Only sat, pure being itself, has existence intrinsically and is therefore nitya.

So anitya is not just a descriptive term (“changing”), it is a diagnostic: the very fact that a thing is anitya tells you it is mithya — an appearance with borrowed existence, not a reality in its own right. This is why 2.16–2.18 open with the ontological distinction: the atman is nitya, the body is anitya, so no action of yours can destroy what truly exists, and nothing you do can preserve what was never going to last.

Related concepts

• Contrast with nitya — eternal / unborn / undying
• mithya — anitya things are mithya (appearance with borrowed existence)
• vikara — anitya things undergo modification
• nama-rupa — the form anitya takes
• sat — the nitya reality anitya borrows from

In the Gita

• 02-16 — the sat/asat distinction; anitya = the “asat” category in Shankara’s reading
• 02-18 — “these bodies are with ends” (antavantaḥ)

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 6 [05:18]: Sanskrit term anitya introduced — the impermanent; what is born and dies.
• Ep. 6 [05:25]: Impermanent things do not have existence as their intrinsic nature; they borrow existence.
• Ep. 6 [13:18]: The enlightened distinguish the nitya (pure being) from the anitya (name-and-form appearing in it).