Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 11: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Adhyātma-jñāna-nityatva is constancy in knowledge whose object is the Self; tattva-jñānārtha-darśana is keeping in view the fruit of tattva-jñāna (knowledge of reality), which ripens from long practice of amānitva and the rest - that fruit being mokṣa, the cessation of saṃsāra - for one who contemplates the fruit is moved to practise its means. All this, from amānitva up to this, is called jñāna because it is for the sake of knowledge, and what is contrary - pride, ostentation, violence, impatience, crookedness - is to be known as ajñāna, so that it may be avoided as the cause of saṃsāra. If one objects that these are yamas and niyamas that cannot reveal any object as knowledge does, the reply is that they are called knowledge as its causes and auxiliaries.

  divergence: Śaṅkara explicitly meets the objection that ethical disciplines are not cognitions: 'knowledge' here is a transferred name for the causes and auxiliaries of knowledge (jñāna-nimitta, jñāna-sahakāri).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Adhyātma-jñāna is knowledge of the self, and nityatva is being established in it; tattva-jñānārtha-darśana is being devoted to the reality that is the purpose of knowing truth. 'Jñāna' here means that by which the self is known, the means to self-knowledge: the cluster of qualities, amānitva and the rest, of the puruṣa connected with the kṣetra alone helps self-knowledge, while everything else is a product of the kṣetra opposed to it and so is ajñāna. Next, the nature of the kṣetrajña, introduced earlier as the knower, is to be purified and set out.

  divergence: Rāmānuja classes everything outside the twenty qualities as kṣetra-kārya (a product of the field), with the jīva as the embodied puruṣa whose own nature is next to be shown distinct from the body - the self as real knower, not dissolved into Brahman.

• Madhva · Jayatīrthadvaita

  Constancy in adhyātma-jñāna (knowledge concerning the self), and tattva-jñānārtha-darśana, which is the study of scripture, examining its tātparya (intended purport), undertaken for the sake of aparokṣa-jñāna (direct knowledge): this is called jñāna (knowledge), and whatever is otherwise is ajñāna (ignorance). The 'seeing' meant here is not itself the knowledge of reality but the examination of what scripture intends, and so it rightly stands among the means to knowledge.

  divergence: Read with Jayatīrtha's Prameyadīpikā on Madhva's bhāṣya (their 13.12): Madhva glosses one compound: tattva-jñānārtha-darśana is śāstra-darśana (study of scripture) for the sake of aparokṣa-jñāna (direct knowledge). Jayatīrtha adds two things. First, he states the problem the gloss solves: if this 'seeing' were itself knowledge of reality, it could not be listed among the means to knowledge; so the seeing is a means, aimed at direct knowledge as its result. Second, he specifies the study as tātparya-ālocana (examining the purport of scripture), and notes that the word śāstra is not in the verse but supplied by adhyāhāra (understood from context), a plain textual admission. Neither glosses adhyātma-jñāna-nityatva, which is rendered literally. The other schools read the same compound as keeping mokṣa (liberation) in view as the fruit (Advaita, Bhakti, Advaita-bhakti, the last identifying the knowledge of reality as 'I am Brahman') or as devotion to the reality that is the goal (Viśiṣṭādvaita); the Dvaita reading instead makes it disciplined study of scripture for its intended sense, a step toward direct knowledge, and says nothing here of liberation.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This knowledge that has been declared is the work of vidyā; what is otherwise is ajñāna, the work of avidyā.

  divergence: THIN: Vallabha's single line re-labels the list as vidyā-kārya and its opposite as avidyā-kārya - both treated as effects (of the Lord's two powers), not as definitions of knowledge itself.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Adhyātma-jñāna is knowledge that concerns the Self, and constancy in it means steadfastness in purifying the meaning of the word 'tvam' (you). Tattva-jñānārtha-darśana is looking at the purpose of knowledge of reality, mokṣa, as the highest of all. These twenty, beginning with amānitva, are called knowledge as its means, and their opposites are called ignorance, as by Vasiṣṭha and others, because they oppose knowledge - so they are to be abandoned entirely.

  divergence: Śrīdhara reads adhyātma-jñāna in mahāvākya terms as tvam-padārtha-śuddhi (clarifying the 'you' in 'that you are'), and counts the means as exactly twenty.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Adhyātma-jñāna is discrimination of Self from non-Self, and constancy is being established in it, for one established in discrimination becomes able to know the meaning of the great sentence. Tattva-jñāna is the direct realization 'I am Brahman', produced by Vedānta sentences as the ripened fruit of all the means; its purpose is mokṣa - the cessation of all sorrow, avidyā and its effects, and the attainment of the Self as supreme bliss - and seeing it moves one to practise the means. These twenty, ending here, are called knowledge for its sake, and pride and the rest, their opposite, ignorance as its obstacle; therefore abandon ignorance and take up knowledge alone.

  divergence: Madhusūdana specifies tattva-jñāna as the sākṣātkāra 'aham brahmāsmi' generated by Vedānta-vākya, and defines mokṣa positively as attainment of paramānanda, not only cessation of saṃsāra.