Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 29: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  He who sees that actions of speech, mind and body are done in every way by prakṛti (nature) alone, which is the Lord's three-guṇa (quality) māyā (illusion), as the Śvetāśvatara says, 'know prakṛti to be māyā,' transformed into mahat (the great principle) and the rest as effects and instruments, and by nothing else, and who sees the self, the kṣetrajña (field-knower), as akartṛ (non-agent), free of every upādhi (limiting adjunct), he sees: he is a paramārtha-darśin (seer of the highest truth). For the nirguṇa (quality-less), non-agent, distinction-free Self, like space, no pramāṇa (means of valid knowledge) for difference can be found.

  divergence: Śaṅkara (13.30) equates prakṛti (nature) with the māyā (illusion) of Bhagavān (the Lord) and concludes that the Self, being non-agent, admits no plurality, there being no pramāṇa (means of knowledge) for difference in what is like space. Agency, and with it plurality, belong wholly to māyā.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  He who sees all actions as done by prakṛti (matter), in the way stated before, that prakṛti is the cause in the agency of body and senses, and likewise sees the self as akartṛ (non-agent) and of the form of jñāna (knowledge); and who sees that its conjunction with prakṛti (matter), its presiding over it, and its experience of pleasure and pain born of it, are made by ajñāna (ignorance) in the form of karma (past action), he sees the self as it truly is.

  divergence: Rāmānuja (13.29) defines the self positively as jñānākāra (of the form of knowledge) and makes the cause of its embodiment karma (past action) itself, not māyā; ignorance here is karma, not an unreal superimposition. The self is non-agent in the sense that bodily action belongs to prakṛti, without denying that the self is a real, individual knower.

• Madhvadvaita

  He who sees the self as akartṛ (non-agent), he sees.

  divergence: Thin: Madhva's whole comment (his 13.30) only restates the second half of the verse ('ātmānaṃ cākartāraṃ paśyati sa paśyati'). It says nothing about prakṛti or about the kind of non-agency meant, so no doctrine particular to Dvaita can be anchored here.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  He states the fruit of seeing the second form of oneself, the puruṣa (individual self): in Sāṅkhya, actions are done by prakṛti (matter) alone, and agency, as the having of activity, rests in prakṛti; it does not belong to the self alone, the jīva (individual soul) in its own nature, atomic in size and of the form of consciousness, even though, as a continuing aṃśa (part) of Puruṣottama (the Supreme Person), the principal agent, it shares in his agency; when it is qualified by the upādhi (limiting condition) of the two bodies, the agency there is wholly prākṛta (of matter). So, in the end, he who sees the self, his own nature, as akartṛ (non-agent), free of upādhi (limiting condition), he sees; others are blind.

  divergence: Vallabha (13.30) is the only one to place real agency in Puruṣottama: the jīva (soul) is aṇu (atomic) and a part (aṃśa) of the Supreme Person, the chief agent, so the non-agency seen here is the lack of independent agency in the jīva (soul), while bodily agency is merely prākṛta (material). The source sentence is tangled; the rendering follows its main line.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  If, because of agency in good and bad acts, inequality is seen, how is the self the same? To answer this he says: he who sees actions done in every way by prakṛti (nature) alone, transformed into body and senses, and likewise sees the self as akartṛ (non-agent), that the self's agency comes only through deha-abhimāna (identification with the body) and is not its own, he alone sees rightly, no one else.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (13.30) frames the verse as a reply to an objection from moral inequality, and locates apparent agency in deha-abhimāna (identification with the body). He does not call prakṛti māyā (illusion), as Śaṅkara does; his reading is brief and psychological.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  Objection: agents of good and bad acts are different selves in each body and unequal as enjoyers of varied fruits, so how could one Self abiding in all, seen as the same, not harm itself? In reply: he who discerns that actions of speech, mind and body are done in every way by prakṛti (nature) alone, transformed into the body-and-senses complex, cause and effect of every change, the three-guṇa (quality) māyā (illusion) of Bhagavān (the Lord), and not by the puruṣa (Self), which is free of all change, and likewise sees the Self, the kṣetrajña (field-knower), as akartṛ (non-agent), free of all upādhi (limiting adjunct), unattached, one, the same everywhere, he is a seer of the highest truth. Though the field, with its changes, differs and is unequal in each body as agent of its varied acts, there is no pramāṇa (means of valid knowledge) for any difference in the distinction-free, non-agent Self, as there is none in space.

  divergence: Madhusūdana (13.30) is close to Śaṅkara (māyā as prakṛti, no pramāṇa for difference, the space analogy) but sets the verse up explicitly as a reply to the plurality objection raised by 13.28, and grants that the field really is divided and uneven body by body while the Self is not. Of the six readings this is the least divergent from its root school.