Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 19: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga
Know that *prakṛti* and *puruṣa* are both without beginning, and that every modification of the field, together with the three *guṇas*, is born of *prakṛti* alone.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
Know both prakrti (primordial matter) and purusa (pure witnessing consciousness) as beginningless — neither produced by any prior cause. The modifications of the field and the three gunas all arise from prakrti alone; the purusa is untouched by them. This discrimination between the immutable seer and its ever-moving object is the entire gist of the Veda and the Gita compressed into one imperative.
divergence: Advaita renders purusa as the one non-dual Brahman mistakenly appearing as individual witness; prakrti is maya-shakti, not an independent eternal; hence 'both beginningless' means neither has a temporal origin, but prakrti is ultimately subsumed in Brahman at liberation.
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Know that prakrti and purusa, mutually conjoined from beginningless time, are both without origin. The modifications born of prakrti — desire, aversion and the rest — are the cause of the jiva's bondage; those same modifications in their refined form, beginning with humility (amanitvam), become the cause of liberation. Prakrti serves the purusa, functioning now as fetter, now as the very path to release.
divergence: Unlike Advaita, Vishishtadvaita keeps prakrti as a real eternal body of Ishvara, not maya; the jiva-purusa is a real individual spirit, never identical to Brahman, only inseparably related as attribute to substance.
- Madhvadvaita
Understand that both prakrti and purusa are without beginning, and that the modifications, which include even the instruments of knowledge, are the primary means-of-knowing (jnanasadhana) for the jiva. Their very multiplicity and applicability make their importance paramount — through them Hari's sovereign power over the permanently distinct jiva is revealed.
divergence: Dvaita insists the jiva, Ishvara, and prakrti are all real and eternally distinct; the jiva's dependence on Hari is absolute, and no dissolution of distinctions is ever possible — liberation is participation in Hari's bliss, not identity with Brahman.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Both prakrti and purusa existed in Parabrahman (Paramtama) at the beginning; the imperishable (akshara) that is spoken of is precisely that form which Brahman assumed as its own resting-place. All enumeration of the field, all knowledge, all the knowable — every category just described — is the prasada of Bhagavan; the devotee who is saturated with bhakti comprehends all this and becomes fit for the divine nature (mad-bhava).
divergence: Shuddhadvaita alone reads the verse as affirming that both poles emerge FROM Brahman (not alongside Brahman); liberation is not escape from prakrti but enjoyment of Krsna's own being through His grace-gift (pushti).
- Śrīdharabhakti
The Lord here concludes the exposition of the field and its knower, along with the qualified recipient and the fruit: the field (kshetra) from the great elements through fortitude, knowledge from humility through vision-of-truth, and the knowable from 'the beginningless supreme Brahman' through 'established in the heart of all' — all this, elaborated at length by Vasishtha and others, has been given by Me in brief. Only the devotee described in the previous chapter, having understood this, becomes fit for My nature, i.e., for Brahmanhood.
divergence: Sridhara's reading is integrative rather than polemical: the bhakti qualification frames the jnana content; liberation-as-Brahmanhood is not absorption but the fullness of the devotee's relationship to Bhagavan.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
The Lord concludes by naming the qualified recipient of this triple teaching: the field, knowledge, and the knowable — drawn from both shruti and smṛti and compressed here for those of modest intellect — are fully understood only by the devotee entirely surrendered to Bhagavan Vasudeva as supreme Guru. Such a one-pointed devotee (mad-eka-sharana) attains mad-bhava — the state of supreme bliss devoid of all deficiency — which is liberation itself.
divergence: Madhusudhana uniquely fuses the Advaita goal (non-dual liberation) with the Bhakti path (total surrender to Krsna as Guru); mad-bhava is simultaneously Brahman-realisation and Krsna-proximity, dissolving the tension between jnana and bhakti marga.