Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 20: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  Kārya (effect) is the body, with the elements and objects that build it; karaṇa (instruments) are the thirteen within it, with the pleasure-pain-delusion guṇa (qualities) that rest on them; in producing these, prakṛti (nature) is called the cause, as their originator. The puruṣa, which is to say the jīva (individual), the kṣetrajña (knower of the field), the bhoktā (experiencer), is called the cause in the experiencing, the bare apprehending, of pleasure and pain. Without prakṛti transforming into cause and fruit, and without the conscious puruṣa apprehending it, how could there be saṃsāra (the round of birth), which is nothing but the enjoyment of pleasure and pain arising from their conjunction born of avidyā (ignorance)?

  divergence: Śaṅkara (source 13.21) also notes the variant reading kārya-kāraṇa (effect and cause: sixteen vikāra and seven prakṛti-vikṛti) and defines saṃsāra itself as sukha-duḥkha-saṃbhoga. Puruṣa's role is only upalabdhṛtva (apprehending), and the pairing with prakṛti is an avidyā-born conjunction, not a real relation of agency.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  Kārya is the body and karaṇa are the senses of knowing and acting together with the mind; in their working, prakṛti presided over by the puruṣa is the cause, since action, the means of experience, rests on prakṛti transformed into the field and governed by the self. The self's only further share is adhiṣṭhātṛtva (presiding), the effort that directs the body, and this is precisely its kartṛtva (agency), as the sūtra 'the self is agent, for scripture has purpose' (Brahmasūtra 2.3.33) establishes. The puruṣa joined to prakṛti is the locus of the experience of pleasure and pain, even though in itself its only joy is the experience of its own self.

  divergence: Rāmānuja (source 13.20) refuses to make the self a mere spectator: it is a real agent, its agency being the directing effort (prayatna) behind the body, defended by Brahmasūtra 2.3.33. Contrast Śaṅkara and Śrīdhara, for whom agency belongs to prakṛti and is only attributed to the self.

• Madhvadvaita

  Kārya is the body, as the lexicon says, karaṇa are the senses, and bhoga (enjoyment) is anubhava (experience). The puruṣa experiences because it is cit (consciousness) by nature; prakṛti undergoes transformation because it is jaḍa (inert). So the Bhāgavata says: in agency of body and instruments the wise know prakṛti as the cause; in enjoying pleasure and pain, the puruṣa beyond prakṛti.

  divergence: TERSE: Madhva (source 13.21) gives only glosses and a Bhāgavata 3.26.8 citation. The single doctrinal move is grounding the division in natures: the puruṣa experiences because it is cit, prakṛti changes because it is jaḍa; nothing is said here about attributed agency or avidyā.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  In creation the two have different work: kārya is bondage and liberation, its kāraṇa are the vikāra and guṇa already said to be born of prakṛti, and in producing these, prakṛti presided over by the puruṣa is the cause. The puruṣa's share is only to be the inner animator, the effort that presides over the field, which the sūtra (Brahmasūtra 2.3.33) calls agency; joined to prakṛti, he is the locus of experiencing the pleasure and pain born of it. Both belong to the field, yet since change terminates in the inert the field predominates in action, and since experience terminates in consciousness consciousness predominates in enjoyment.

  divergence: Vallabha (source 13.21) reads the verse's 'kārya-kāraṇa' variant and makes kārya mean bandha and mokṣa themselves, with the binding vikāra and liberating guṇa of 13.19 as their causes, a reading found in no other school here. He otherwise follows Rāmānuja's adhiṣṭhātṛ agency and adds a predominance (prādhānya) rule: action leans to the inert, enjoyment to consciousness.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Kārya is the body, karaṇa the senses that are the means of pleasure and pain; Kapila and the others call prakṛti the cause of their agency, that is, of its transforming into their form, and the puruṣa, the jīva (individual), the cause of enjoying the pleasure and pain they produce. The point is this: insentient prakṛti cannot be an agent by itself, nor can the changeless puruṣa be an enjoyer, yet agency means only bringing an action about, and that is possible even for the insentient when it is presided over by consciousness through the adṛṣṭa (unseen merit) of conscious beings, as fire flames upward, wind moves sideways, and milk flows from the udder by the calf's adṛṣṭa. So by the puruṣa's mere proximity prakṛti is called agent, and since feeling pleasure and pain is a property of the sentient, by that proximity the puruṣa is called enjoyer.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (source 13.21) attributes the doctrine to Kapila and supplies an argument no other school gives: the insentient can act under the presidency of the sentient via adṛṣṭa, with the three examples of fire, wind and the calf's milk. Both agency and enjoyment are then attributed by saṃnidhāna (proximity), a stronger 'as-if' than Rāmānuja's real agency.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Kārya is the body, with the elements that build it and the objects; karaṇa are the thirteen instruments, with the pleasure-pain-delusion guṇa that rest on them; in their agency, which is their transforming into those forms, the great ṛṣi (seers) name prakṛti the cause, and the longer reading kārya-kāraṇa gives the same sense. Having shown prakṛti as a cause of saṃsāra, the Lord shows in what way the puruṣa is one too: the puruṣa, the kṣetrajña (knower of the field), already explained as the higher prakṛti, is the cause in the experiencing of all pleasure, pain and delusion, that is, in vṛtty-uparakta-upalambha (apprehension coloured by the mind's modifications).

  divergence: Madhusūdana (source 13.21) follows Śaṅkara's glosses nearly word for word but sharpens bhoktṛtva technically as apprehension coloured by mental modes (vṛtty-uparakta-upalambha), and again ties puruṣa to the parā prakṛti of chapter 7.