Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 14: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The knowable (jneyam) appears as though it possesses all sense-faculties because the upadhis (limiting adjuncts) — hands, feet, eyes — function only by virtue of the one conscious kshetrajna animating them; the multiplicity of limbs across bodies is superimposed (adhyaropa) upon the non-dual Brahman. Once the superimposition is negated (apavada), what remains is neither qualified by limbs nor deprived of them — the very form of nirgunam awareness. Shankara explicitly cites the sampradaya dictum: by superimposition and negation the unmanifest is elaborated for pedagogical purpose, so no literal ownership of organs should be inferred.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Brahman, as inner Self (antaryamin) of all beings, has the full range of sense-operations (indriya-vrittis) available to it as modes (prakaras) of its own body; thus it appears furnished with all faculties. Yet by its own inherent nature it needs no instrument — it knows directly without mediation of organs. Unattached to any particular divine body yet sustaining all bodies ('sarva-bhrt'), it is free from the gunas of matter but capable of experiencing those gunas, since the entire sentient and insentient world is its body (sharira) as affirmed by shruti: 'sa ekadha bhavati dvidha bhavati'.

  divergence: Ramanuja: 'indriya-vrittibhih api vishayan jnatum samartham ... svata eva sarvam janati'

• Madhvadvaita

  *Sarvendriya-guṇābhāsam* (shining with the qualities of all sense-faculties) yet *sarvendriya-vivarjitam* (utterly free of those faculties) — this apparent contradiction resolves only within *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction). Hari, the sole *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient), possesses no sense-organs as instruments of dependence, yet all perceptual power that flickers in *jīva* (the individual self) and matter is a derivative luminosity of his own infinite cognizing nature. The *jīva* does not generate that light; it receives it as a *paratantra* (eternally dependent) being, sustained at every moment by Hari's *sarva-bhṛt* (all-sustaining) sovereignty. *Asaktam* names not indifference but ontological non-attachment grounded in absolute self-sufficiency: Hari needs no object, no support, no organ — yet nothing exists apart from his upholding will. *Nirguṇam* (without the *guṇas* of *prakṛti*) and *guṇa-bhoktṛ* (experiencer of those *guṇas*) hold simultaneously: Hari transcends *prakṛtic* conditioning absolutely, yet as sovereign witness he encompasses all *guṇa*-modification in the field without being touched by it. The *jīva*, by contrast, is genuinely subject to *guṇa*-fluctuation, which is the mark of its *paratantra* status within *taratamya* (graded ontological hierarchy). *Bheda* (real distinction) between the Lord and the *jīva* is not cancelled by the Lord's pervasive luminosity — it is confirmed by it.

  divergence: Both Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse. The reading is voiced directly from Dvaita *siddhānta* applied to the *mūla*: *pañca-bheda*, *taratamya*, and the *svatantra*/*paratantra* axis structure the resolution of the verse's apparent paradoxes.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha's commentary insists on sakaratva — the Lord is emphatically formed, not formless: 'sakaram eva' with hands, feet, eyes, and ears present everywhere by his own sovereign will (svecchaya). The apparent paradox of being 'nirguna' yet 'guna-bhoktri' dissolves in the Pushti-marga reading: Brahman as Krishna enjoys all qualities as his own lila-prasada, not as a subject trapped by them. The clause 'sarvam avrittya tishthati' signals that his eternal form pervades the entire manifest world without contraction or boundary.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara resolves the tension between Brahman's transcendence and the 'sarvam khalv idam brahma' of the Chandogya by invoking the doctrine of achintya-shakti (inconceivable power): 'svabhaviki jnana-bala-kriya' enables the Lord to pervade all beings through their own hands, feet, eyes, and ears without contradiction. These organs are the upadhis through which universal activity rests (sarva-vyavahara-aspadatvena tishthati), yet none of this entangles the ground-consciousness. Sridhara thus holds the devotional and the metaphysical together — the Lord is knowable precisely because his inconceivable power makes all sense-transactions simultaneously his presence.

  divergence: Sridhara: 'acintya-shaktya sarvat-matam tasya darshayan'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana reads this verse as the soteriological antidote to the nasat-shankas (the fear that nirgunam Brahman is mere nothing): by pointing to every inert limb across every body as requiring a conscious kshetrajna-substratum to function, the verse proves Brahman's existence beyond dispute. The one eternal, all-pervading Consciousness (nitya-vibhu) inhabits the entire inert world through adhyasika-sambandha (the relationship of superimposition), yet is untouched — 'na tu svaadhyastasya jadaprapanchasya doshena gunena va anumam api sambadhyate'. For Madhusudana, this is not cold Advaita — it is the very ground that makes Krishna's compassionate presence in every perceiving eye an ontological fact, not a metaphor.