Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 22: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The supreme puruṣa in this body is the upadraṣṭā (near-seer), himself uninvolved, like the expert who sits apart at a sacrifice and judges the merits and faults of priests and patron while they work, or the innermost seer than whom none is nearer; he is the anumantā (consenter), who though not acting seems to go along with the working of body and senses and never once stops them; he is the bhartā (sustainer), for the aggregate of body, senses, mind and buddhi holds its form only by existing for the sake of consciousness. He is the bhoktā (experiencer) as heat is of fire, since the intellect's cognitions of pleasure, pain and delusion arise as if seized by eternal consciousness; he is maheśvara (great Lord) as the self of all and independent; he is the paramātman (supreme self), supreme over the body-to-buddhi series that avidyā (ignorance) imagines to be the self. He is the puruṣa beyond the unmanifest, the 'highest puruṣa' of 15.17, the very kṣetrajña announced at 13.2, 'know Me as the knower of the field'.

  divergence: Śaṅkara (source 13.23) takes all six epithets as describing the one witness-self that is the same as the Lord (kṣetrajña = Me, 13.2); 'bhoktā' is explicitly defanged (like heat of fire, cognitions appear as if grasped). Contrast Rāmānuja, who applies the same epithets to the individual jīva as lord of its own body.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  This puruṣa dwelling in the body, the individual self, is its upadraṣṭā and anumantā through resolves that accord with the body's activity, its bhartā (supporter), and the bhoktā (enjoyer) of the pleasure and pain born of that activity; by controlling, supporting and being the śeṣin (owner) of body, senses and mind, he is their maheśvara (great lord), just as 15.8 calls the self that leaves one body and takes another 'īśvara'. In this body he is also called paramātman relative to body, senses and mind, for 'ātman' is used of body and mind just after, at 13.24. This puruṣa, called supreme (para) at 13.12 for his unlimited power of knowledge, becomes lord and supreme self of this body alone because of the guṇa-saṅga (attachment to qualities) that comes from his beginningless connection with prakṛti.

  divergence: Rāmānuja (source 13.22) makes the most radical move in the panel: maheśvara and paramātman here name the jīva, lord only of its own body (deha-mātra-maheśvara), defended by 15.8 (īśvara for the transmigrating self) and the use of ātman for body and mind at 13.24. Every other school takes the verse as describing a puruṣa beyond the individual, whether the witness-self (Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana) or the antaryāmin (Vallabha, Śrīdhara).

• Madhvadvaita

  Here the Lord states 'from what, what arises' (13.4): the anumantā is the one who specially determines, and where 13.20 said 'the puruṣa of pleasure and pain' it meant the jīva, while 'puruṣa and prakṛti' (13.19) names jīva and Īśvara together, for any other reading conflicts with the mahātātparya (supreme purport) of scripture, which is the excellence of Viṣṇu. Reasoning that contradicts the Veda is only semblance, there is no proof that the world is a dream imagined by a single jīva, and the Mokṣadharma teaches many puruṣa with one source. What is taught is not Īśvara's identity with the jīva but that the jīva is to meditate on its identity with Īśvara, and that only as conditioned, as a pratibimba (reflection): 'I am His servant, and by reflection I am He'.

  divergence: Madhva (source 13.23) glosses only one epithet (anumantā as nirūpaka, determiner) and spends the rest on polemic: the supreme puruṣa is distinct from the jīva, identity-texts mean the jīva's meditation on itself as His reflection and servant, and the dream-world of a single jīva is rejected. That the epithets of this verse belong to Viṣṇu rather than the jīva is inferred from his contrast with 13.20 ('jīva uktaḥ'), not stated epithet by epithet.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  In this tree-like body, 'two birds, companions, cling to the same tree; one eats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating' (Muṇḍaka 3.1.1): so the Lord here names that other, the paramātman, the antaryāmin (inner controller), unattached, which is why 'paramātman' and 'supreme puruṣa' are said. He is upadraṣṭā, the witness, needing no contact with effects, instruments or enjoyment, yet by his own nature the chief enjoyer and doer, as 'the Lord of six excellences smells the six-fold'; unknown, he is anumantā and maheśvara, controller and impeller, and though dwelling in this body he is unstained, because he does not eat, while the breathing jīva is stained because it eats. Whoever knows the puruṣa so present in the body in both forms, the kṣetrajña (knower of the field) as a portion of Brahman, distinct and nirguṇa (beyond qualities), and knows prakṛti with her guṇa, is not born again into the stream of the guṇa but is released.

  divergence: Vallabha (source 13.23) reads the verse through Muṇḍaka 3.1.1: the epithets belong to the second bird, the antaryāmin, distinct from the eating jīva. Uniquely, the witness is also 'by nature the chief enjoyer and doer' (svata eva mukhya-bhoktā kartā), so bhoktā is affirmed of the Lord rather than defanged as in Śaṅkara. His comment also runs on into the sense of the next verse (13.23, 'whoever knows...is not born again'), which is why his own entry for that verse is empty.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Since saṃsāra comes to the puruṣa from not discriminating prakṛti, not from his own nature, the Lord states that nature: though dwelling in this body, prakṛti's product, the puruṣa is para, quite other, and not joined to its guṇa. For he is upadraṣṭā, standing near yet apart and seeing; anumantā, approving, gracing by mere presence, as the śruti says 'witness, conscious, alone, without qualities'; and in his sovereign form he is bhartā (upholder), bhoktā (protector), maheśvara (lord of Brahmā and the rest), and paramātman, the antaryāmin (inner controller), as the śruti says 'this is the lord of beings, the lord of the worlds, the protector of the worlds'.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (source 13.23) splits the epithets: the first two describe the witness by mere presence, the last four the Lord's aiśvara (sovereign) form. Most strikingly he glosses bhoktā as pālaka (protector, from bhuj 'to protect'), not enjoyer, a reading no other school in the panel takes.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Saṃsāra belongs to the puruṣa only through false identity with prakṛti, not by his own form; so the Lord states that form: though present in this body as the jīva, the puruṣa is para, untouched by prakṛti's guṇa and in truth never in saṃsāra. He is upadraṣṭā, a seer, not a doer, like the onlooker at a sacrifice, or the most immediate seer among body, eye, mind and buddhi, as the śruti says 'whatever he sees there, he is not followed by it, for this puruṣa is unattached'; anumantā, seeming to go along by mere presence and never stopping the senses; bhartā, holding and nourishing the aggregate by his own being and shining; bhoktā, the changeless one who lights up the intellect's cognitions of pleasure, pain and delusion by his own consciousness. He is maheśvara as self of all and independent, paramātman as supreme over the insentient body-to-buddhi series that avidyā imagines as the self, the same who will be called the uttama puruṣa (highest person) at 15.17.

  divergence: Madhusūdana (source 13.23) follows Śaṅkara's sacrifice-onlooker and fire-heat analyses closely, adding the Bṛhadāraṇyaka asaṅga śruti and stating outright that the puruṣa 'present as jīva' is para and asaṃsārin, which makes the jīva-Lord identity explicit where Rāmānuja and Madhva deny it.