Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 6: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga
Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the body's composite mass, awareness, and steadiness, together with their transformations, Krishna says, are the field described in brief.
Bhāṣyakāra purports
- Śaṅkaraadvaita
The verse enumerates the vikāras (modifications) of the kṣetra (field): icchā (desire), dveṣa (aversion), sukha (pleasure), duḥkha (pain), saṃghāta (the physical aggregate), cetanā (apparent sentience), and dhṛti (will-to-hold). Śaṅkara reads these alongside the prior twenty-four Sāṃkhya tattvas — the five mahābhūtas, ahaṃkāra, buddhi, avyakta, ten indriyas, manas, and five viṣayas — as the complete anatomy of prakṛti's self-display. Crucially, cetanā here is not the ātman's own awareness but the reflected luminosity that makes the saṃghāta appear alive; the Brahman-witness stands untouched, kṣetra and its modifications being superimposed on it through avidyā (ignorance).
- Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita
Rāmānuja classifies icchā, dveṣa, sukha, and duḥkha as kṣetravikāras — modifications belonging to the kṣetra yet experienced by the jīvātman as its dharmas precisely because the ātman is in kṣetrasambandha (field-conjunction). The saṃghāta, formed from the pañcabhūtas through their evolution from avyakta, serves as the ādhāra (substratum) that makes the ātman's enjoyment and liberation possible; cetanā names that substratum's capacity to uphold experience, and dhṛti is its power of coherence. This entire field-structure is Bhagavān's body (śarīra), so even the vikāras are inseparable from His sovereignty — knowing them as such is the first movement toward ātma-jñāna.
- Madhvadvaita
*Icchā* (desire), *dveṣa* (aversion), *sukha* (pleasure), *duḥkha* (pain), *saṃghāta* (the composite body-sense aggregate), *cetanā* (sentient awareness), and *dhṛti* (steadiness) — these, together with their *vikāra*s (modifications), constitute the *kṣetra* (field) in brief. Each item in this enumeration belongs irreducibly to the *paratantra* (eternally dependent) order. *Icchā* and *dveṣa* are real affections of the bounded *jīva* (individual self), not superimpositions on a featureless substrate; they mark the *jīva*'s ontological finitude against Hari, who is *nirviṣaya* — free from object-conditioned desire — and who alone is *svatantra* (the independently real, self-sufficient). The *saṃghāta* is a genuine composite, not an appearance conjured by *māyā*; *bheda* (real distinction) between *jīva*, matter, and the Lord runs through the very structure of the field. *Cetanā* in the *jīva* reflects a real but partial *cit*-nature, entirely derivative and sustained by Hari's will, never self-luminous in the manner of the Lord's consciousness. *Etat kṣetraṃ samāsena sa-vikāram udāhṛtam* — the field, stated briefly, is that which undergoes modification; the *kṣetrajña* who never undergoes modification stands wholly apart, and within the *pañca-bheda* (the five-fold real distinction: Lord–jīva, Lord–matter, jīva–jīva, jīva–matter, matter–matter), the field enumerates precisely those realities that are neither the Lord nor the knowing *jīva* in its pure witness-aspect.
divergence: Madhva and Jayatīrtha are silent on this verse; the reading applies Dvaita *siddhānta* directly to the mūla, maintaining *pañca-bheda*, real *vikāra*, and the *paratantra* status of all field-constituents.
- Vallabhaśuddhādvaita
Vallabha's commentary focuses on the gross and subtle body: the kṣetra is the mahābhūta-composite — the sthūla (gross body) — as well as the āśraya (substratum) of the liṅga-śarīra formed of ahaṃkāra, buddhi, mahat, the eleven indriyas, and the subtle elements. The vikāras listed — icchā through dhṛti — are the dynamic pulse of Kṛṣṇa's own śakti playing through the instrument; in Puṣṭimārga, even the field's desires and aversions are the Lord's līlā-prasāda (grace-play), animated by His will, not alien to Him. The practitioner's work is not to escape the field but to recognize every movement in it as the Lord's own breath.
- Śrīdharabhakti
Śrīdhara Svāmī, having established the prior twenty-four Sāṃkhya tattvas (five mahābhūtas, ahaṃkāra, buddhi, avyakta, ten external indriyas, manas, and five tanmātra-viṣayas), now brings the enumeration to its close with the vikāras: icchā, dveṣa, sukha, duḥkha, saṃghāta, cetanā, and dhṛti. Together these round out the kṣetra 'samāsena' (in brief summary) 'savikāram' — the field inclusive of all its transformations. The bhakta sees this catalogue not as an occasion for dry taxonomy but as a map of what must be offered: every desire, every aversion, every ache and delight, surrendered at the feet of the Beloved.
- Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti
Madhusūdana synthesizes two levels: at the Sāṃkhya-level, avyakta is mūlaprakṛti (root-nature), buddhi is its first evolute, ahaṃkāra the second, and the pañcabhūtas arise from tamas-ahaṃkāra in the canonical sequence — space from ātman, air, fire, water, earth (per śruti). At the Vedāntic level, avyakta is the anirvacanīya māyā-śakti, buddhi is the primal īkṣaṇa ('it saw'), and ahaṃkāra is the sankalpa 'I shall become many.' The vikāras (icchā through dhṛti) are therefore simultaneously prakṛti-transformations for the Sāṃkhyin and the veil woven by māyā for the Vedāntin; Kṛṣṇa-bhakti dissolves both frames, recognizing the field's entire play as Bhagavān's self-expression.