Chapter 13 · Verse 4·Spoken by Arjuna
तत्क्षेत्रं यच्च यादृक् च यद्विकारि यतश्च यत्।स च यो यत्प्रभावश्च तत्समासेन मे श्रृणु
tat kṣhetraṁ yach cha yādṛik cha yad-vikāri yataśh cha yat sa cha yo yat-prabhāvaśh cha tat samāsena me śhṛiṇu
Hear from me in brief what that field is, what its nature is, how it changes, where it comes from, and what it is. And who the knower is, and what his powers are.
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Sanskrit recitation by Swami Brahmānanda
Audio from the Gītā Supersite, IIT Kanpur
Synthesis · a glossed leaf
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse is a program-announcement. Krishna pauses before the long teaching that follows and tells Arjuna exactly what He is about to unfold, so the listener knows what to expect. He picks up the kshetra (the 'field', meaning the body and all that is known) and the kshetrajna (the 'knower of the field', the conscious self that knows the body), and He lists the specific points He will cover about each. The word samasena, 'in brief' or 'in summary', signals that this single verse compresses the whole agenda; the detailed unfolding comes in the verses ahead.
Braided from 10 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Dhanapati Sūri · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Swami Sivananda
The verse breaks the inquiry into a fixed set of questions, most of them about the field and the rest about its knower. About the kshetra: what it is in its own nature (its substance, named as jada, insentient, something seen rather than the seer); of what kind it is (its qualities, such as desire and the rest); what its vikaras are (its modifications or changes, like the workings of the senses); and from what cause it arises (named by several as the conjunction of prakriti, primal nature, and purusha, the person). About the kshetrajna: who he is in his own nature, and yat-prabhavah, what powers he has. Krishna asks Arjuna to hear all of this and then to fix it firmly in mind.
Braided from 8 commentators
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Vedānta Deśika · Vallabhācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
Several commentators stress why the body was first singled out as the field even though the field is really wider than the body. The deepest entanglement, the false sense of 'I' applied to what is merely seen, fastens onto the body more than anything else. So the teaching starts from the body, where the confusion is most palpable, and then opens out into the full account. The aim throughout is discrimination: to learn to tell the changing, insentient field apart from the conscious knower who is never the field.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Swami Ramsukhdas · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
On this reading the verse simply lists the questions to be answered, and the answers will describe the field and its knower as they truly are. The kshetra is the insentient, the seen, the limited; the kshetrajna is named as self-luminous consciousness. The 'powers' of the knower are understood as capacities made by the upadhis, the limiting adjuncts such as the eyes and ears, through which the one consciousness appears to see and hear. One source adds that this truth is established not only by Krishna's trustworthy word but also by Vedic statement and by reasoned aphorisms, weaving scripture, tradition, and reasoning together to fix the teaching firmly.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrī Nīlakaṇṭha · Śrī Ānandagiri
Dvaita
This school reads the grammar of the verse with great care and reaches a distinctive sense for 'from what'. It rejects taking that clause to mean merely 'from which some effect is produced', arguing such a reading is unsound and forces extra words to be supplied. Instead it reads it as 'from whom', meaning by whose impelling the field is set in motion, since the field has no motion of its own. The impeller is the topic at hand. On this view 'and who he is' then states the essential nature of that impeller, kept as a separate point so that both occurrences of the word 'and' in the verse are accounted for; the two clauses carry genuinely different meanings rather than repeating one another.
Madhvācārya · Śrī Jayatīrtha
Śuddhādvaita
Here the field and its knower are read as the very form of the Lord's own being, unfolded for the sake of His play, his lila. The kshetra is of the Lord's own substance even in its inert form; its 'of what kind' is the form taken by the wish of His play; its modifications are the manifold variations brought about by the wish for varied play; and it arises from the joining of prakriti and purusha conjoined for that play. The kshetrajna too is of the Lord's own portion, minute yet endowed with unthinkable powers fit for serving and pervading. Because others, lacking true knowledge of this form, have said many conflicting things about it, Krishna will now give the true form in brief.
Vallabhācārya · Śrī Puruṣottama
Bhakti
Within this group the readings split by which verse is being glossed. One source holds that prakriti distinguished by its twenty-four divisions is itself the kshetra, but that the body was named first because the false I-feeling clings to it most plainly, and the powers of the knower come from the yoga of his unthinkable lordship. The others gloss the neighboring 'sung by the seers' verse: the truth of the field and its knower has been sung in many ways by the seers like Parashara and Vasishtha, by the metres and Vedas, and by the Brahma-sutras 'attended with reasons and conclusively determined'. One develops a layered scriptural map, the five sheaths of food, breath, mind, understanding, and bliss, where the first three are the insentient field, the understanding-made one is the living knower, and the bliss-made innermost one is the Lord as knower of the field.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Śrīla Viśvanātha · Śrīla Baladeva · Sant Jñāneśvar
Viśiṣṭādvaita
This school reads the verse, together with its neighbor, as announcing an orderly program while also grounding it in revelation. The kshetra and kshetrajna have been sung in many ways by the seers, by the several metres of the Rig, Yajus, Saman, and Atharvan, and by the aphorisms of Brahman attended with reasons. A distinctive emphasis is that scripture sings not only the separateness of field and knower but also their having the Lord, Vasudeva, for their inner self: the supreme Self, the bliss-made one, is the inner self even of the field-knower. So the program Krishna announces will set forth, plainly and in brief, this many-times-sung truth.
Rāmānujācārya · Vedānta Deśika
Kashmir Shaivism
This source reads 'in brief' in a particular way: it means without dividing the inquiry up, so that Krishna settles all the listed questions at once with a single common answer rather than treating each separately. It also notes that although this truth has been told in many ways by the seers and by the Vedas, Krishna will now expound it concisely.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Modern
These voices differ in focus. One reads the 'sung by the seers' verse and identifies the Brahma-sutras precisely: the field is treated in the first sixteen sutras of one section and the knower thereafter, which is why those sutras are also called the Sariraka-sutras, the canons dealing with the body. Another gives a careful map of where each listed point is answered later in the chapter and explains why the field has no 'power' assigned to it, since it does not stand still even for a moment, while the knower has no 'source' assigned, since he is birthless, eternal, and one without a second. A third draws out the agricultural image latent in the word kshetra, 'field', picturing the senses as bulls, the mind as supervisor, the soul as tenant, and primal nature as the mistress who works the field.
Lokmanya Tilak · Swami Ramsukhdas · Swami Sivananda
A Seeker Asks
If this verse is only a list of questions Krishna promises to answer later, what is the point of pausing to announce the agenda instead of simply teaching it?
The pause is the teaching method, not a delay before it. By laying out exactly what will be covered, what the field is, of what kind, with what changes, from what cause, and who its knower is with what power, Krishna gives the listener a frame to hold the long account that follows, so it lands as a single ordered understanding rather than scattered points. The word 'in brief' marks this verse as the compact seed of the whole chapter.
Vedānta Deśika · Swami Ramsukhdas · Śaṅkarācārya
Several commentators add that the pause also raises the listener's attention and even praises the subject, drawing the mind toward it before the details arrive, which is why the order to 'hear and fix it firmly' is given here. One notes that the truth being announced is no mere assertion but is sung many times over by the seers, the Vedas, and the reasoned aphorisms, so the announcement also tells you that what follows is well grounded and worth your full attention.
Śaṅkarācārya · Swami Sivananda · Rāmānujācārya
Contemplation
Carry one practical contrast away from this verse. Notice that of the field, the body and all that is known, Krishna will speak of its nature, its changes, and where it comes from, but never of any power that belongs to it, because the field does not stand still even for a single moment; it is always slipping toward non-being. The power you seem to see in objects is power you yourself have placed on them by leaning on them in your inner mind. Of the knower, by contrast, Krishna asks only who he is and what his power is, and no question of 'where does he come from' even arises, because the knower is birthless, deathless, and one without a second. So when you sit with this verse, watch how readily your attention grants weight and permanence to the changing field and overlooks the steady one who is doing the watching. Learning to tell these two apart is the whole work the chapter is about to begin.
Sit with this · Swami Ramsukhdas
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, tap a name in The seating.