Bhagavad Gītā Chapter 13, Verse 5: Krishna to Arjuna — Kṣetra-Kṣetrajña-Vibhāga-Yoga

Bhāṣyakāra purports

• Śaṅkaraadvaita

  The mahā-bhūta (great elements) are the subtle ones, called great because they pervade all their products, the gross ones being counted later as objects of the senses; ahaṃkāra (the I-maker), marked by the notion 'I', is their cause, buddhi (intellect), marked by determination, is its cause, and its cause is the avyakta (unmanifest), the undifferentiated power of the Lord, 'my māyā, hard to cross'. The word 'eva' fixes prakṛti as eightfold and no more; then the ten senses, five that produce knowing and five that do work, the one, mind, the eleventh, made of intending, and the five objects of the senses, sound and the rest. These the Sāṅkhya school calls the twenty-four tattva (principles).

  divergence: Śaṅkara (his 13.6) identifies the avyakta with the Lord's power, māyā (citing 7.14), not with an independent pradhāna, and takes the great elements as subtle. He attributes the count of twenty-four to the Sāṅkhya without endorsing their metaphysics. Madhusūdana spells this Upaniṣad-versus-Sāṅkhya contrast out at length.

• Rāmānujaviśiṣṭādvaita

  The great elements, ahaṃkāra, buddhi and the avyakta are the kṣetrārambhaka-dravya (substances that build the field): earth, water, fire, air and space; ahaṃkāra, called bhūtādi (origin of the elements); buddhi, called mahat (the great); and avyakta, which is prakṛti (primal matter). The ten senses, the one and the five objects are the tattva (principles) that rest in the field: hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell, the five senses of knowing; speech, hands, feet, the organs of excretion and generation, the five of action; the one is mind; and the objects are sound, touch, form, taste and smell.

  divergence: Rāmānuja (his 13.5) sorts the list into two kinds: substances that make up the field and principles that are housed in it. The avyakta is plainly prakṛti, real primal matter, with no mention of māyā, against Śaṅkara and Madhusūdana.

• Madhvadvaita

  The great elements, the I-maker, intellect and the unmanifest; the ten senses and the one, and the five fields of the senses.

  divergence: ABSENT. The supplied Madhva text reads 'Sri Madhvacharya did not comment on this sloka.' The rendering is the mūla only; no Dvaita interpretation is supplied or attempted. Jayatīrtha's Prameyadīpikā is also silent on this verse.

• Vallabhaśuddhādvaita

  What substance is that field? It is the gross body made of the great elements. And what is it like? It is the āśraya (support) of ahaṃkāra, buddhi and mahat, of the eleven senses and their objects, of the liṅga-śarīra (subtle body) and the subtle elements.

  divergence: TERSE. Vallabha (his 13.6) reads the verse as answering the 'what' and 'what like' of 13.3: the field as substance is the gross elemental body, and that body houses the rest, including the subtle body. Listing buddhi and mahat separately differs from Rāmānuja and Śrīdhara, who identify them.

• Śrīdharabhakti

  Now the nature of the field, in two verses: the great elements, earth and the rest, five; ahaṃkāra their cause; buddhi, the mahat-tattva (great principle) whose nature is understanding; the avyakta, the mūla-prakṛti (root nature). The ten outer senses, ear, skin, nose, eye, tongue, speech, arms, genitals, feet and anus; the one, mind; and the five objects of the senses, which are the subtle tanmātra (subtle elements) themselves, sound and the rest, manifest as the special qualities of space and the other elements. So the twenty-four principles have been stated.

  divergence: Śrīdhara (his 13.6) gives the standard twenty-four, taking avyakta as root prakṛti without the māyā identification Śaṅkara makes. His distinctive point is that the sense-objects are the tanmātra become manifest as qualities of the gross elements.

• Madhusūdanaadvaita-bhakti

  In Sāṅkhya terms: five great elements; ahaṃkāra, marked by self-assertion, their cause; buddhi, the mahat marked by determination, its cause; the avyakta, pradhāna made of sattva, rajas and tamas, cause of all and effect of none; ten senses, one mind and five objects. But for those of the Upaniṣad, avyakta is the undifferentiated, indescribable māyā, the Lord's own power; buddhi is the īkṣaṇa (seeing) at the start of creation, 'it saw'; ahaṃkāra is the resolve that follows, 'may I be many'; and the elements arise in the order of śruti (scripture), space, air, fire, water, earth. This view is the better one, since the Sāṅkhya avyakta, mahat and ahaṃkāra are not accepted by the Upaniṣad, being 'not scriptural'.

  divergence: Madhusūdana (his 13.6) gives two readings and chooses: the Sāṅkhya account (pradhāna of three qualities) and the Upaniṣad account, in which buddhi and ahaṃkāra are cosmic events, the creator's first seeing and his resolve to multiply, and avyakta is indescribable māyā. He declares the second better, citing the Brahma-sūtra rejection of pradhāna. This makes the list a creation sequence, where Rāmānuja makes it an inventory of real substances.