Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 3: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The field (kshetra) is the object known; the knower of the field (kshetrajña) is the Lord himself — one undivided awareness appearing fragmented across bodies from Brahma down to a blade of grass only by superimposition (adhyaropa) born of nescience (avidya). Know that single kshetrajña, stripped of all conditioned differences, to be me, the unsamsaric Ishvara — beyond word and thought, neither existent nor non-existent in ordinary speech. Hear now, O Bharata, what that field is and how it arises, for no object of knowledge stands apart from the right understanding of field, its knower, and their Lord.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The field (kshetra) is described fourfold: its substance (dravya), its substrate or locus (ashraya), its transformations (vikara), and the cause and purpose for which it arises — all of this together constitutes the body that the conscious knower (kshetrajña) qualifies and indwells. The kshetrajña has his own nature (svarupa) and powers (prabhava) which Krishna now offers to reveal concisely (samasena). Hear from me — not from any other source — this complete account of field and knower as inseparable attributes of the one Bhagavan.

• Madhvadvaita

  The single syllable 'kshetrajñam' here signals the entire Dvaita reading of this chapter: the jiva-knower is eternally and really distinct from Hari, and the field is likewise really distinct from both. Krishna speaks as the independent sovereign (svatantra) — 'hear from me' — while the jiva knows only as a dependent (paratantra) witness within its own field. The verse's conciseness (samasena) matches Madhva's own terseness: multiplicity is real, subordination to Hari is the only truth worth stating.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  Vallabha reads this verse as the moment Bhagavan reveals that the kshetrajña who truly knows the field is none other than one who has received Krishna's own nature (mat-svabhavapanna): the jiva entangled in prakrti cannot on its own distinguish field from knower, but whoever does know it — know him as me, as a portion of me (madamshatva). This knowledge (jñana) is not the jiva's achievement but Bhagavan's will (madiccha-sammata), to be protected (rakshet) as prasada; it is the knowing that liberation requires, all else being vain scholarship binding one further.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Shridhara reads this verse as the pivot from the bound jiva's empirical nature to its ultimate unsamsaric nature: the same jiva who wanders through fields is in its deepest reality nothing but Krishna himself, present in all fields, marked out by the shruti formula 'tat tvam asi' (that thou art) — identity through the conscious element (cidamsha). The knowledge praised here — distinguishing field from its knower — is alone liberating (moksha-hetutva); everything else is empty scholarship, for as the saying goes: 'That action is action which does not bind; that knowledge is knowledge which sets one free.'

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Madhusudana moves in two registers at once: empirically the kshetrajña appears as agent and enjoyer through the superimpositions of avidya, but ultimately it is the one self-luminous (svaprakasha), eternal, all-pervading Consciousness (chaitanya) in all fields — and that is Krishna, the non-dual Brahman-bliss (advitiya-brahmananda-rupa), free of samsara. The field is maya-conjured and ultimately false (mithya); the knower is the ultimate real (paramartha-satya) that underlies the field's apparent existence. The knowledge Madhusudana calls 'mine' here is precisely the light that opposes avidya — not mere information but liberation itself.