Kshetra Kshetrajna Vibhaga Yoga
Kshetra Kshetrajna Vibhaga Yoga • 35 verses
Krishna teaches the distinction between the field (kshetra — the body, mind, and all of material nature) and the knower of the field (kshetrajna — the eternal witnessing consciousness). Recognizing this distinction is the path to liberation.
Chapter Overview
Two things, Krishna says, and everything follows from telling them apart. The field, and the one who knows the field.
The field is this body and everything crowded into it — the senses, the mind, desire, aversion, pleasure, pain. All of it belongs to nature. The knower is what watches all of it happen.
Confusing the two is the whole problem. When the watcher believes it is the field, it takes on the field's fortunes: this pain is mine, this success is mine, this decay is mine.
Krishna does not leave knowledge as an idea. He lists what it looks like in a person — no pretence, no injury, patience, honesty, steadiness, no fuss about one's own achievements, a clear-eyed view of birth, illness, ageing and death. Everything else, he says, is ignorance.
The one who sees the same imperishable thing in all beings, undivided among the divided, sees truly.
Key Verses
अर्जुन उवाच | प्रकृतिं पुरुषं चैव क्षेत्रं क्षेत्रज्ञमेव च | एतद्वेदितुमिच्छामि ज्ञानं ज्ञेयं च केशव ||१३-१||
arjuna uvāca . prakṛtiṃ puruṣaṃ caiva kṣetraṃ kṣetrajñameva ca . etadveditumicchāmi jñānaṃ jñeyaṃ ca keśava ||13-1||
Arjuna said: I wish to learn about Nature (matter) and the Spirit (soul), the field and the knower of the field, knowledge and that which ought to be known, O Kesava.
श्रीभगवानुवाच | इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते | एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहुः क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विदः ||१३-२||
śrībhagavānuvāca . idaṃ śarīraṃ kaunteya kṣetramityabhidhīyate . etadyo vetti taṃ prāhuḥ kṣetrajña iti tadvidaḥ ||13-2||
The Blessed Lord said: This body, O Arjuna, is called the field; he who knows it is called the knower of the field, by those who know of them.
क्षेत्रज्ञं चापि मां विद्धि सर्वक्षेत्रेषु भारत | क्षेत्रक्षेत्रज्ञयोर्ज्ञानं यत्तज्ज्ञानं मतं मम ||१३-३||
kṣetrajñaṃ cāpi māṃ viddhi sarvakṣetreṣu bhārata . kṣetrakṣetrajñayorjñānaṃ yattajjñānaṃ mataṃ mama ||13-3||
Do thou also know Me as the knower of the field in all fields, O Arjuna. Knowledge of both the field and the knower of the field is considered by Me to be ï1the ï1 knowledge.
तत्क्षेत्रं यच्च यादृक्च यद्विकारि यतश्च यत् | स च यो यत्प्रभावश्च तत्समासेन मे शृणु ||१३-४||
tatkṣetraṃ yacca yādṛkca yadvikāri yataśca yat . sa ca yo yatprabhāvaśca tatsamāsena me śṛṇu ||13-4||
What the field is and of what nature, what are its modifications and whence it is and also who He is and what His powers are hear all that from Me in brief.
ऋषिभिर्बहुधा गीतं छन्दोभिर्विविधैः पृथक् | ब्रह्मसूत्रपदैश्चैव हेतुमद्भिर्विनिश्चितैः ||१३-५||
ṛṣibhirbahudhā gītaṃ chandobhirvividhaiḥ pṛthak . brahmasūtrapadaiścaiva hetumadbhirviniścitaiḥ ||13-5||
Sages have sung in many ways, in various distinctive chants and also in the suggestive words indicative of the Absolute, full of reasoning and decisive.