Bhagavad Gita Chapter 13, Verse 2

Chapter 13 – Kshetra Kshetrajna Vibhaga Yoga · Speaker: Krishna

Sanskrit verse

श्रीभगवानुवाच ।
इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते ।
एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहुः क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विदः ॥

Transliteration

śrībhagavānuvāca .
idaṃ śarīraṃ kaunteya kṣetramityabhidhīyate .
etadyo vetti taṃ prāhuḥ kṣetrajña iti tadvidaḥ ॥

Meaning

The Blessed Lord said: This body, O son of Kunti, is called the field; and the one who knows it is called the knower of the field by those who know the truth of these matters.

Word meanings

श्रीभगवान् उवाच – the Blessed Lord said
इदम् – this
शरीरम् – body
कौन्तेय – O son of Kunti
क्षेत्रम् – the field
इति – thus, as
अभिधीयते – is called
एतत् – this
यः – who
वेत्ति – knows
तम् – him
प्राहुः – they declare
क्षेत्रज्ञः – the knower of the field
तद्विदः – those who know that (truth), the sages

Anvaya (word order)

श्रीभगवान् उवाच — कौन्तेय, इदम् शरीरम् क्षेत्रम् इति अभिधीयते । यः एतत् वेत्ति तम् क्षेत्रज्ञः इति तद्विदः प्राहुः ।

Explanation

Krishna opens his reply with a sentence that is simple to hear and radical to absorb: ‘This body is the field.’ Notice the word idam, ‘this’. Whatever can be pointed to as ‘this’ is an object of knowledge, not the knower. I know the chair in front of me, and in exactly the same way I know my body — its warmth, its tiredness, its aches, its growth and decline. The body, therefore, belongs to the side of the seen, and the one who knows it stands on the side of the seer.

Kshetra means a field. What is sown in a field is reaped there, and so it is with the body: actions performed through it bear their fruit through it. Traditional etymologies add further layers — the field is that which decays (kshiyate), and also that which, rightly used, protects from ruin. Both senses are apt. The body is perishable, yet it is the very soil in which the seed of liberation can be grown.

The kshetrajna is the one who knows this field. By saying ‘those who know declare it so’, Krishna roots his teaching in the Upanishadic tradition; the Shvetashvatara Upanishad, for instance, calls the Supreme the knower of the field and the lord of the gunas. The second chapter had already distinguished the embodied one from the body (2.13); here the same insight is stated in its most precise philosophical form.

Shankara takes ‘body’ to mean the whole objective complex — gross body, senses, mind and intellect — while the knower is pure awareness, untouched by any of it. Ramanuja understands the kshetrajna as the individual self, distinct from the body, eternal and essentially of the nature of knowledge. Madhva likewise holds the soul to be different from the body and always dependent on the Lord. All three agree on the central point: I am not this body; I am its knower.

This discrimination is not mere theory. When illness, ageing or loss arrives, one who identifies wholly with the body is shattered, but one who knows oneself as its witness can remain steady and act wisely.

Context

Arjuna has asked about six topics. Here Krishna begins his answer by defining the field and its knower. In the next verse he reveals that he himself is the knower in all fields, and declares this discrimination to be true knowledge.

Life lesson

Treat your body and mind as instruments you use, not as the whole of who you are. Care for the body with respect, but do not tie your identity to its pains and changes. It is a field — sow good actions and spiritual practice in it.

Key terms

Kshetra: The field: body, senses and mind, everything that can be known as an object; the ground where actions bear fruit
Kshetrajna: The knower of the field, the conscious witnessing self
Tadvid: Those who know the truth, the seers of the tradition