Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 16: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The kshetra (field) appears divided among individual bodies — gods, humans, stones — but the knowing ground is indivisible, one brahman without remainder, just as the rope-snake (rajju-sarpa-abhasa) appears as many but is only rope. Sankara reads 'bhutatvam' as appearance only: the moving and the unmoving are both the superimposed image, not the substrate. The jneya is therefore simultaneously the farthest distance — utterly unreachable for the ignorant across countless aeons — and the nearest intimacy, since for the wise it is 'atmaiva idam sarvam' (the self alone is all this).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The single knower-self (vedita) pervades all beings — god-forms and human-forms alike — without division, yet the unwise perceive it as divided, identifying 'I am a god' or 'I am a human' by body-coincidence (deha-samanaadhikaranya). Ramanuja draws out three distinguishing functions that mark the jiva as categorically other than the material elements: it is bhutatr (sustainer of the elemental body), grasisnhu (the one who consumes food and transforms it), and prabhavisnhu (the generative principle behind that transformation). That a dead body shows none of these functions proves the field alone cannot account for them — the knower is genuinely distinct.

• Madhvadvaita

  *Avibhaktaṃ ca bhūteṣu vibhaktam iva ca sthitam* — the *jñeya* (the supreme object of knowledge) stands undivided in all *bhūta*s (creatures) and yet appears divided; it sustains (*bhūta-bhartṛ*), consumes (*grasiṣṇu*), and generates (*prabhaviṣṇu*) all that exists. Dvaita reads every term here as a mark of Hari's absolute *svatantra* (independent, self-sufficient) lordship. His presence in all creatures without division is not an identity with them but omnipresence: the *paratantra* *jīva* is contained within Hari's sustaining grasp, never dissolved into it. *Vibhaktam iva* is not mere appearance for the ignorant — it registers the real *bheda* (distinction) constitutive of *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction). The *jīva* is genuinely separate, genuinely dependent; Hari alone is *bhūta-bhartṛ*, sustainer of beings, a title no *jīva* can bear. That he is also *grasiṣṇu* and *prabhaviṣṇu* — the power of dissolution and origination both — locates the entire cycle of *saṃsāra* within Hari's *svatantra* will, not in any impersonal principle. *Bhakti* as ontological subordination of the *paratantra* self to this *svatantra* Hari is the only movement that answers the verse's force: the *jñeya* is known not by merging but by recognizing one's permanent station as sustained, not sustainer.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  The entire manifest world — moving and unmoving — is Krsna himself in his svabhava (own nature): 'sarvam khalv idam brahma' (Chandogya Upanisad 3.14.1) means literally that the inert (acara) and the animate (cara) are both his play-forms. Vallabha reads the Isa Upanisad mantra 'tad ejati tan naijati' (that moves, that does not move) directly into this verse: the one who both moves and stays still, near and yet apparently remote, is the Lord whose prasada alone makes knowledge of him possible. Without that grace the jneya remains paradoxically invisible — farthest of the far, though seated in the heart.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Sridhara reads the verse through the gold-ornament analogy: just as gold is both inside and outside every bangle and earring, the jneya is the material ground both within and around all moving and unmoving things. Its 'sukshmatva' (subtlety) — being free of form and colour — means it cannot be grasped as 'this is it' (idam iti) by any ordinary perception; hence for the ignorant it is 'dure sthitam' (standing at a million leagues' distance), while for the knower it is 'antike' (right here, perpetually present), as confirmed by the Isa Upanisad verse he cites. Bhakti keeps the seeker oriented toward this presence so that distance collapses.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana synthesises Sankara's rope-snake image with devotional warmth: all fabricated appearances (kalpita) share a single unfabricated substratum (akalpitam adhisthanam), which pervades them as the rope pervades its apparent snake — 'bahi rantasca' (both outside and inside). Because this substratum is the self of all, nothing stands apart from it; yet its formlessness means the unaided intellect grasps it as impossibly remote. Madhusudana closes with a sruti citation that bridges jnana and bhakti: 'durat sudure tad ihantike ca' (far beyond the far, yet right here) — the devotee who orients toward Krsna finds the jneya 'nihitam guhayam' (placed in the cave of the heart), not at a metaphysical distance.