By the qualification 'body' He marks off what was indicated with the pronoun 'this'. O son of Kuntī, because it is guarded from harm (kṣata-trāṇa), or because it decays (kṣaya), or because it wears away (kṣaraṇa), or because, like a field (kṣetra), the fruit of action ripens in it, this body is called the 'field' (kṣetra). And he who knows this body, the field, who makes it, from the soles of the feet to the head, an object of knowledge, marking it off part by part by an awareness either natural or got from teaching: that knower, those who know these two declare, is called the 'knower of the field' (kṣetrajña). Thus the field and the knower of the field have been told. Is it enough to know them only this much? No, it is said.

Know Me also as the field-knower, of the single form of being the knower, in all fields, those of god, man, and the rest; that is, know him as having Me for his self. From the word 'also' in 'also the field-knower' it is understood that it is said, 'know the field too as Me'. As the field, having the single nature of being a qualifier of the field-knower and so not established apart from him, is to be indicated only in co-ordination with him, so know that the field and the field-knower, having the single nature of being My qualifier and so not established apart from Me, are to be indicated only in co-ordination with Me. For He will state the otherness of the supreme Brahman, Vasudeva, from the field and the field-knower in their two states, bound and freed, indicated by the words 'perishable' and 'imperishable': 'these two Persons are in the world, the perishable and the imperishable; the perishable is all beings, the one fixed on the peak is called imperishable; but the highest Person is another, called the supreme Self, who, having entered the three worlds, the undecaying Lord, upholds them; since I transcend the perishable and am higher even than the imperishable, therefore in the world and in the Veda I am renowned as the highest Person'. That the field, of the form of the aggregate of earth and the rest, and the field-knower, having the single own-form whose one nature is to be the Blessed One's body, have the Blessed One for their self, the revealed texts declare, from 'he who, standing in the earth, is within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, who governs the earth from within, he is your self, the inner ruler, the immortal' down to 'he who, standing in the self, is within the self, whom the self does not know, whose body the self is, who governs the self from within, he is your self, the inner ruler, the immortal', and the rest. This very abiding of all field-knowers, as the self, by way of being the inner ruler, is the ground for indicating them in co-ordination with the Blessed One: 'I am the self, Gudakesha, seated in the seat of all beings', 'there is no thing, moving or unmoving, that could be without Me', 'having propped up this whole world with one portion, I abide'; having said this before and after, in the middle He indicates with co-ordination, 'of the Adityas I am Vishnu' and the rest. This knowledge, which has for its object the discernment of field and field-knower and their having Me for their self, that very knowledge is the knowledge to be taken up; this is My judgment. Some say: from 'know Me also as the field-knower' a oneness is understood through co-ordination; and from this it is to be granted that the Lord, being really the Lord, has, through ignorance, as it were, a field-knowerhood, and that this teaching of oneness is for the removal of that; and that, by this most trustworthy teaching of the Blessed One, as by a trusted man's teaching 'this is a rope, not a snake' the illusion of snakehood ceases, so the illusion of field-knowerhood ceases. They are to be asked: this teacher, the Blessed Vasudeva, the supreme Lord, has He, by the direct realisation of the truth of the self, had His ignorance removed, or not? If His ignorance is removed, then, the self being of the single own-form of undifferenced bare consciousness, the superimposition of a form not that being impossible, the seeing of the difference of Kaunteya and the rest, and the activity of teaching and the like toward them, do not hold. But if, for want of the direct realisation of the truth of the self, His ignorance is unremoved, then, just because He is ignorant, the undertaking of a teaching of knowledge of the self does not hold; for it was said, 'the knowers of truth, the seers, will teach you knowledge'. Therefore such doctrines, started by the ignorant to delude the world out of a stubborn insistence on establishing their own words, conflicting with revelation, remembered scripture, history, Purana, reasoning, right conduct, and their own statements, all unexamined, are not to be respected. Here is the truth. Some revealed texts speak of the distinction of own-form of the insentient thing, the conscious thing, and the supreme Brahman, by way of the insentient being the thing to be enjoyed, the conscious being the enjoyer, and Brahman being the ruler: 'from Him the mayin sends forth this universe, and in it the other is held bound by maya'; 'let one know matter to be maya, and the great Lord the mayin'; 'the perishable is the primal matter; the immortal-imperishable is Hara; the one God rules the perishable and the self', where by 'the immortal-imperishable, Hara' the enjoyer is indicated, since he takes (harati) the primal matter as the thing to be enjoyed; 'He is the cause, the lord of the lords of the organs, and of Him there is no begetter nor lord'; 'the lord of the primal matter and the field-knower, the lord of the qualities'; 'the lord of the universe, the ruler of the self, the everlasting, the auspicious, the unfallen'; 'the two unborn, the knowing and the unknowing, the lord and the not-lord'; 'eternal among eternals, conscious among the conscious, the one who, being one, grants the desires of the many'; 'having known the enjoyer, the enjoyed, and the impeller'; 'having known the self, the impeller, as separate, gladdened by Him he then gains immortality'; 'of the two, the one eats the sweet berry, the other looks on without eating'; 'the one unborn female, red, white, and black, bringing forth many creatures of like form; one unborn male, taking his joy, lies by her; another unborn male leaves her when she has been enjoyed'; 'the unborn female, without beginning or end, is the begetter, the bringer-into-being of beings'; 'in the same tree the person, sunk down, grieves, deluded by his lack of lordship; when he sees the other, the worshipped Lord, and His greatness, he becomes free of grief'; and the rest. And here too, 'earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding, and egotism, this is My eightfold-divided nature; other than this, know My other, higher nature become the soul, mighty-armed one, by which this world is upheld'; 'all beings, Kaunteya, go to My nature; at the close of an aeon I again send them forth at the start of an aeon; taking hold of My own nature I send forth again and again this whole troop of beings, helpless under the sway of the nature'; 'with Me as overseer the nature gives birth to the moving and the unmoving; by this cause, Kaunteya, the world revolves'; 'know that both nature and the person are beginningless'; 'My womb is the great Brahman; in it I place the germ; from that, Bharata, is the coming-to-be of all beings'. The meaning of that last is: into that great Brahman called nature, the womb of the whole world, the subtle insentient thing that is Mine, I join the germ called the conscious thing; and from that conscious-and-insentient contact, made by My resolve, comes the coming-to-be of all beings, mixed with the insentient, from gods down to unmoving things. In revelation too the subtle element is indicated as Brahman: 'from that Brahman, name and form and food are born'. Thus, of the conscious and the insentient, abiding as enjoyer and enjoyed in all their states, having the supreme Person's body-nature, the not-being-established-apart from Him by way of being governed by Him, and the supreme Person's being their self, some revealed texts declare, from 'he who, standing in the earth, is within the earth, whom the earth does not know, whose body the earth is, who governs the earth from within' down to 'he who, standing in the self, is within the self, whom the self does not know, whose body the self is, who governs the self from within, he is your self, the inner ruler, the immortal'; and likewise, from 'whose body the earth is, who, moving within the earth, the earth does not know', down to 'whose body the imperishable is, who, moving within the imperishable, the imperishable does not know; whose body death is, who, moving within death, death does not know; he is the inner self of all beings, free of sin, the one divine God Narayana'. Here by the word 'death' the insentient thing in its subtle state, denoted by the word 'darkness', is meant, by the statement, in this very Upanishad, 'the unmanifest is dissolved into the imperishable, the imperishable into darkness; darkness, having become one with the supreme God, abides'; and so too 'the inner-entered ruler of people, the self of all'. Thus, to convey this meaning, that the supreme Person alone, having the conscious-and-insentient thing abiding in all states for His body and so having it for His mode, abides in the form of the world in its effect-state and its cause-state, some revealed texts say that the world in its effect-state and cause-state is He alone: from 'in the beginning, dear one, this was the existent alone, one only without a second; it looked: may I become many, may I be born; it sent forth heat', down to 'all these creatures have the existent for their root, the existent for their abode, the existent for their resting-place'; 'all this has that for its self; that is the truth, that is the self, that you are, Shvetaketu'; and likewise 'He desired: may I become many, may I be born; He performed austerity; having performed austerity He sent forth all this', down to 'the true and the false, the truth He became'. Here too the distinction of own-form of the conscious, the insentient, and the supreme Person, established by other revealed texts, is recalled: 'come, let Me, having entered these three deities with this living self, unfold name and form'; and 'having sent it forth, He entered into it; having entered it He became the existent and the beyond, the defined and the undefined, the based and the baseless, the conscious and the unconscious, the true and the false; the truth He became'. By 'having entered with this living self as the self', the jiva's having Brahman for its self is conveyed; and by 'He became the existent and the beyond, the conscious and the unconscious', by the single meaning, it is understood that this is grounded in the relation of self and body. That such is the unfolding of name and form is said in 'this was then unmanifest; it is unfolded by name and form' as well. Therefore the supreme Person alone, having the gross and subtle conscious-and-insentient thing for His body, is both effect and cause; so, the effect not being other than the cause, the effect being known by the knowing of the cause, the intended one-knowledge that is the knowledge of all holds the more fittingly. In 'come, let Me, having entered these three deities with this living self, unfold name and form', having indicated by 'the three deities' the whole insentient thing, the statement that the unfolding of name and form is by the entering of the jiva who has Brahman for his self shows that all denoting words denote the supreme Self qualified by the insentient and the jiva; so the co-ordination of a word denoting the cause-state supreme Self with a word denoting the effect is in its primary sense. Therefore Brahman, having the gross and subtle conscious-and-insentient thing for its mode, is itself the effect and the cause; so the world has Brahman for its material cause. Even though, Brahman having the subtle conscious-and-insentient thing for its body being the cause, the world has Brahman for its material cause through the aggregate being the material cause, the non-mixing of the natures of the conscious, the insentient, and Brahman holds the more fittingly. As, even though a varied cloth has for its material cause the aggregate of white, black, and red threads, the connection with whiteness and the rest is only in this and that thread-region, so there is, even in the effect-state, no mixing of colour everywhere, and, as in the cause, a non-mixing everywhere; so, even though the world has for its material cause the aggregate of the conscious, the insentient, and the Lord, even in the effect-state there is no mixing of being-enjoyer, being-enjoyed, being-governor, being-governed, and the rest. The difference is this: threads, fit to stand apart, joined together at some time by a person's will, have causehood and effecthood; here, the conscious and the insentient in all states being things only by being the supreme Person's body and so by being His mode, the supreme Person with that mode is alone the cause and the effect, and He alone is at all times denoted by all words. The difference of nature and its non-mixing are alike there and here. This being so, even when the supreme Brahman enters the effect, since there is no otherness of its own-form, unchangeability holds the more fittingly. And since the gross-state conscious-and-insentient thing, divided by the division of name and form, has Him for its self, effecthood too holds the more fittingly; for effecthood is just the reaching of another state. And the doctrines of Brahman being without qualities hold, because the supreme Brahman has no connection with qualities to be shunned. This very revealed text, having denied qualities to be shunned in 'free of sin, ageless, deathless, griefless, hungerless, thirstless', and having enjoined auspicious qualities in 'of true desire, of true resolve', settles that the denial of qualities, understood elsewhere in a general way, has for its scope the qualities to be shunned. And the doctrine that Brahman is of the nature of knowledge holds the more fittingly, since it is admitted that the own-form of the supreme Brahman, all-knowing, all-powerful, the mine of auspicious qualities the opposite of everything to be shunned, is to be defined by knowledge alone and, by being self-luminous, is of the nature of knowledge. 'He who is all-knowing, who knows all'; 'His supreme power is heard to be manifold, and natural, the power of knowledge, strength, and action'; 'by what would one know the knower?' and the like make known His being a knower; and 'the true, knowledge, the endless' and the like make known His being of the nature of knowledge, by being definable by knowledge alone and by being self-luminous. 'He desired: may I become many, may I be born'; 'it looked: may I become many'; 'it was unfolded by name and form'; 'when the self has been seen, heard, pondered, and known, all this is known'; 'all that abandons him who knows all as other than the self'; 'this that is the out-breathing of this great Being is the Rig Veda' and the rest, declare that Brahman alone, by its own resolve, abides manifoldly, in the form of varied unmoving and moving things. The manyness of things-other-than-Brahman, not having Brahman for their self, as unreal, is what is denied in 'he goes from death to death who sees here as if many', 'there is not any manyness here', 'for where there is duality as it were, there one sees another', 'but where everything has become the self of this one, there by what would one smell what, by what see what', and the rest. It is not that the manyness, established by such revealed texts as 'may I become many, may I be born', of Brahman, by way of its bearing manifold names and forms by its own resolve, is denied. And in the very opening of the denying passage, 'but where everything has become the self of this one', that is established by 'all that abandons him who knows all as other than the self', 'this that is the out-breathing of this great Being is the Rig Veda', and the rest. Thus all the revealed texts, those that speak of the difference of own-form and difference of nature of the conscious, the insentient, and the Lord, and those that speak of their relation of cause and effect and of the non-difference of cause and effect, are without conflict; for they are known by the very revealed texts that speak of the eternal self-and-body relation of the conscious and the insentient with the supreme Self, and of the reaching, by the conscious and insentient things that are His body, of the subtle state unfit for the division of name and form in the cause-state and of the gross state fit for it in the effect-state. So the doctrine of Brahman-ignorance, the doctrine of an adventitious difference of Brahman, and any other groundless doctrine conflicting with the whole of revelation, have no scope whatever. Enough of excessive elaboration.

This is a brief sub-gloss. For a fuller reading of this verse, see Madhusūdana, Śaṅkara, or Rāmānuja above.

Salutation to the glorious giver of knowledge. In this chapter Krishna, gathering together the knowledge, the knowable, the field and the person spoken of before, shows them by distinguishing them.