Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 19: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Know prakṛti (matter-nature) and puruṣa (the conscious principle) as the two prakṛti of Īśvara (the Lord), both anādi (without beginning): since the Lord is eternal, His two natures must be eternal too, and to possess these two is precisely what makes Him Lord. Those who split anādī as 'not the first' so as to keep the Lord as sole cause are wrong, for before the two arose there would be nothing to rule, and saṃsāra (the round of birth), bondage and release would become causeless and scripture pointless. Know the vikāra (modifications), from buddhi (intellect) down to body and senses, and the guṇa (qualities) that turn into pleasure, pain and delusion, as born of prakṛti, which is the Lord's triguṇa māyā (three-stranded power of manifestation).

  divergence: Śaṅkara (source 13.20) makes the pair the Lord's two powers rather than two independent reals, and spends his argument refuting a rival tatpuruṣa parsing (na ādī) of anādī; prakṛti is explicitly identified with triguṇa māyā. Guṇa are read as the pleasure-pain-delusion forms of cognition, not as ethical virtues (contrast Rāmānuja).

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Know that prakṛti (matter) and puruṣa (the self), mutually conjoined, are both anādi (beginningless). And know that both the vikāra (modifications) such as desire and aversion, which cause bondage, and the guṇa (qualities) such as amānitva (freedom from pride) and the rest, which cause release, are born of prakṛti. This same prakṛti, joined to the self from time without beginning and transformed into the form of the kṣetra (field, the body), binds the self through desire and aversion, and that very prakṛti, through humility and the other virtues, becomes the cause of its apavarga (liberation).

  divergence: Rāmānuja (source 13.19) reads vikāra as the passions (icchā-dveṣa) and, strikingly, guṇa as the virtues listed at 13.7-11 (amānitva etc.), so the half-verse becomes a statement that one and the same prakṛti supplies both the chains and the means of release. No school but Vallabha (who follows him) takes guṇa this way; for Śaṅkara, Śrīdhara and Madhusūdana guṇa are the pleasure-pain-delusion modes.

• Madhva · Jayatīrthadvaita

  Know prakṛti (primal matter) and puruṣa, here the jīva (individual self), as both beginningless, and know the vikāra (modifications) and the guṇa (qualities), sattva (clarity) and the rest, as born of prakṛti. Everything other than Īśvara (the Lord), conscious and non-conscious alike, is the kṣetra (field), and it is summed up here because the next topic is the One who impels it, and the impeller cannot be described until what He impels is known. The guṇa are named apart from the vikāra, though they too arise from prakṛti, because they are both effect and not effect, their arising out of dissolution into creation being very slight, as the Mādhucchandasa recension says.

  divergence: Read with Jayatīrtha's Prameyadīpikā on Madhva's bhāṣya (their 13.20): Madhva frames the verse as preparing for 'from what, what' (13.4), says the guṇa (qualities) are sattva (clarity) and the rest, and explains that the vikāra (modifications) are listed separately because the guṇa differ from them only very slightly in passing from laya (dissolution) to sarga (creation), citing a Mādhucchandasa text that calls the three both effect and not effect. Jayatīrtha adds the doctrinally weighty points. He reads 'from what, what' as the nature of the preraka (impeller), and argues that describing the impeller needs prior knowledge of the prerya (what is impelled), which is the field with its kinds; hence it is summed up here, not earlier, which would have been prolix. He states that everything other than Īśvara (the Lord), conscious and non-conscious, is called kṣetra (field); that prakṛti (primal matter) here means the twenty-four principles listed from the great elements on; that vikāra covers all modifications, the three guṇa included, set apart only by a particular intention; and that puruṣa here means the jīva (individual self). He also says the sum is brief because the theme returns at 13.26, and rejects the reading of guṇa as pleasure, pain and delusion (marked in the edition as Śaṅkara), since those are already among the modifications and listing them again would be improper. Neither commentator glosses anādi (beginningless), which is rendered as the verse says. The others differ sharply: Advaita and Advaita-bhakti read the guṇa as pleasure, pain and delusion, the reading Jayatīrtha rejects; Viśiṣṭādvaita takes the guṇa as the virtues that lead to release; Śuddhādvaita and Bhakti make prakṛti the power and the puruṣa a portion of the Lord. Dvaita places the jīva inside the field and the Lord outside it as its impeller.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  This is the Bhagavat's own sāṅkhya (enumeration of principles), not that of the sāṅkhya partisans for whom prakṛti is an eternal second beside the self: here prakṛti is the Lord's śakti (power), in two forms, as effect the upādhi (limiting adjunct) of the jīva (individual self) bound with avidyā (ignorance), and as cause the māyā of the paramātman (supreme self); likewise puruṣa is the aṃśin (whole), the root person, and the jīva are His aṃśa (portions). By līlā (play), by His own will, He took up prakṛti; know both as My aṃśa, sat-cit (being-consciousness) in nature, anādi because not other than their cause. Know the vikāra, desire and aversion that bind, and the guṇa, humility and the rest, or sattva and the rest, that lead to amṛta (immortality), as born of prakṛti.

  divergence: Vallabha (source 13.20) repositions the whole verse inside a 'Bhagavadīya sāṅkhya' and doubles each term: prakṛti as effect (jīva's adjunct) and as cause (the Lord's māyā), puruṣa as root-whole and as portions. Beginninglessness comes from non-difference from the cause, not from independent eternity, and the taking-up of prakṛti is līlā (Bhāgavata 3.26.4-5). He keeps Rāmānuja's virtue-reading of guṇa but offers sattva etc. as an alternative.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  With this verse and the next four the Lord expounds 'what its modifications are and from what it comes, who he is and what his power', by declaring prakṛti and puruṣa the causes of saṃsāra (the round of birth). Know both as anādi (beginningless), for if they had a beginning, another prakṛti would be needed for them, and so without end; prakṛti is beginningless as the śakti (power) of the beginningless Īśvara, and puruṣa is beginningless as His aṃśa (portion), a point Śaṅkara has argued at length, so I do not expand it. Know the vikāra, body, senses and the rest, and the guṇa, their transformations as pleasure, pain and delusion, as sprung from prakṛti.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (source 13.20) gives a regress (anavasthā) argument for beginninglessness and grounds it devotionally: prakṛti as the Lord's power, puruṣa as His portion. He explicitly defers to Śaṅkara's bhāṣya for the full proof, so his divergence from Advaita here is in the aṃśa language, not in a rival argument.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  In the seventh chapter the Lord set out His two prakṛti, the lower, which is the kṣetra (field), and the higher, which is the jīva (living being); here the lower is called prakṛti, the three-stranded māyā, the power of the Supreme Lord, and the higher is called puruṣa, so there is no contradiction. Know both as anādi (without a cause): prakṛti because it is the cause of the whole world and to seek a cause for it would be endless regress; puruṣa because the joy, grief and fear of every newborn are driven by its past dharma and adharma (merit and demerit), else one would suffer the unearned and lose the earned. Know the vikāra, the sixteen (five great elements and eleven senses), and the guṇa, sattva, rajas and tamas as pleasure, pain and delusion, as having prakṛti alone for their cause.

  divergence: Madhusūdana (source 13.20) harmonizes the verse with 7.4-6 (aparā and parā prakṛti) and gives two separate proofs of beginninglessness: regress for prakṛti, the karmic argument (kṛtahāni-akṛtābhyāgama) for puruṣa. His vikāra are the classical sixteen, a narrower count than Śaṅkara's 'buddhi down to body and senses'.