Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 1: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  This body (idam shariram) is called the field (kṣetra) — the inert object of experience, the locus of the six transformations (ṣaḍ-vikāra): birth, existence, growth, ripeness, decay, and dissolution. The one who knows it (kṣetrajña) is the witness-consciousness (sākṣin), not a bounded self but pure Awareness (Cit), identical with Brahman. The apparent distinction between knower and field is a pedagogical entry-point; the ultimate teaching is that the kṣetrajña of each body is the one undivided Ātman — 'I am Brahman' (aham brahmāsmi) — and knowledge of this identity is itself liberation.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  This body, perceived as 'I am a god, I am a human, I am stout, I am thin,' appears co-referential with the self (sāmānādhikaraṇya) but is in fact categorically distinct from the self (ātman) that experiences it — it is the field of enjoyment (bhoga-kṣetra) of that experiencer, as those who know the body's true nature declare. The one who cognizes this body part by part and as a whole — 'I know this' — is the knower (kṣetrajña), categorically other than the known body, just as the knower of a pot is other than the pot; those who know the self's true nature (ātma-yāthātmya-vids) name him so. The apparent co-reference is justified because the body, by its very nature as the self's qualifier (viśeṣaṇa), is inseparably established (apṛthak-siddha) in the self — as cow-hood qualifies a cow — yet is still an object, not the subject.

• Madhvadvaita

  This body is the field (kṣetra): inert matter (jaḍa), the instrument through which the jīva undergoes experience ordained by Hari, ever dependent (paratantra) and not self-luminous. The knower of the field (kṣetrajña) is the individual soul (jīva), eternally distinct from the body, eternally distinct from Paramātman — Viṣṇu alone being the supreme, independent Knower (svatantra-kṣetrajña) who knows all fields simultaneously. Those who truly know (tad-vidas) understand that jīva-knowledge is always mediated, always derivative of Hari's omniscience; self-knowledge that mistakes the jīva for Brahman is the root delusion this chapter will dismantle.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This body is the field (kṣetra) — not a prison to be escaped but a site of Kṛṣṇa's own līlā (divine play), fashioned from His bliss-nature (ānanda-svarūpa) and sustained by His prasāda (grace). The kṣetrajña is the jīva who, by Kṛṣṇa's gift, glimpses its own identity as a flame lit from the divine fire — distinct yet inseparable, as a ray is distinct yet inseparable from the sun. Knowing the field is not dry analysis but an act of devotional surrender (ātma-nivedana): the moment the devotee recognizes 'this body is Kṛṣṇa's field and I am His knower,' the entire field is transformed into an instrument of loving service.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  The Lord begins by naming the two: this body (idam shariram) is the field (kṣetra) — the soil in which karma ripens, sense-experience occurs, and devotion can be cultivated; the one who knows it is the kṣetrajña, the conscious witness whose knowing is never itself an object. Those who know both thoroughly (tad-vidas) use precisely this language, indicating that the distinction is not a philosophical conceit but the living testimony of the tradition's seers. For the bhakta, grasping this distinction frees attention from the field's fluctuations, so that what remains — pure knowing — can be offered, undistracted, at the feet of Bhagavān.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  The body is the field (kṣetra) — the structured domain of name-and-form in which the apparent self moves; the kṣetrajña is the one luminous Consciousness (Cit) that illuminates it, not really separate but appearing so through the power of Māyā, which is Kṛṣṇa's own Śakti. For the devotee, this is not cold Advaita but a profound intimacy: to know that 'Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate Kṣetrajña of all fields' (as BG 13.2 declares) is to recognize that the Beloved's gaze is the very light by which we know ourselves. The path is thus neither dry negation nor mere sentiment but the burning love (prema-jñāna) that simultaneously dissolves the field's illusion and deepens into the Knower who is identical with Kṛṣṇa.