Before the teaching, the plan: what to ask of the field, and what to ask of its knower.
It would be easy to skim past a verse that only lists questions. Read slowly, it already shows you the shape of the whole chapter, and the asymmetry between how much is asked of the field and how little is asked of its knower.
Hear from me now, in brief, what that field is and what its nature is, what changes it undergoes and from what cause it arises; and hear too who its knower is, and what powers belong to him.
The reading read whole, as one unhurried piece
Where it stands
Krishna has just said something enormous and folded it into a single line: know me too as the knower of the field, in every field. Now, before unfolding what that means, he pauses. This verse is the pause itself, the moment where the teacher tells the student what the lesson will cover before the lesson begins.
The teaching
You are handed the whole agenda now, in brief, before any of it is filled in. Two things are named. One is the field: the body and everything that can be known about it, the seen rather than the seer. The other is its knower: the conscious self who knows the body. About the field, a fixed set of questions is set out. What is it in its own nature, its very substance, something looked at rather than the one looking. Of what kind is it, its qualities, desire and its kin. What its changes are, the workings of the senses and what shifts within them. And from what cause it arises, the joining, several sources say, of nature and the conscious person. About the knower, only two things are asked, not four: who he is in his own nature, and what powers belong to him. Notice that asymmetry before you notice anything else. The field draws many questions because multiplicity and change are exactly what live there; the knower draws few, because whatever finally answers those two questions does not fragment the way the field does. Hear all this, Krishna says, and then hold it firmly in mind, so that when the chapter opens each point out one by one, you already know where it belongs.
The doubt that rises
If this verse is only a list of questions to be answered later, why does Krishna pause to announce them at all, instead of simply answering them as he goes?
Where the paths divide
Read as a list whose answers will show field and knower exactly as they are.
You are being told which questions will be settled, and the later answers will show each side as it truly is. The field is the insentient, the seen, the limited. The knower is consciousness shining by its own light, needing nothing else to be known. When the verse asks what power belongs to the knower, understand it as the capacities lent by the body's limiting adjuncts, the eye, the ear, and their kin, through which that one consciousness appears to see and to hear. Nothing native to consciousness itself is being asked about there; the power belongs to the instrument, not to the light that uses it.
Read as a promise resting on the seers, the Vedas, and reasoned aphorisms.
What Krishna compresses here in brief is not a private discovery. It has already been sung, in many forms, by seers such as Parashara, by the layered scriptural map running from the body outward through breath and mind to the knower made of discernment and, beyond that, the Self made of bliss, and by the Brahma-sutras, reasoned and settled with care. Hold on to the distinctive claim carried in this whole current: field and knower are genuinely distinct from each other, and both alike have the Lord, Vasudeva, as their own inner Self.
On a close reading of the grammar, where 'from what' becomes 'from whom.'
Weigh the words with care. Do not read 'from what' as merely naming a cause that produces an effect; that reading is forced and must import words the verse does not give. Read it instead as 'from whom': by whose impelling the field, which cannot move on its own, is set into motion. The impeller is the true subject of the question. Then 'and who he is' names that impeller's own essential nature as a separate matter, so both occurrences of 'and' in the verse carry distinct, non-repeating work.
A thin-source note, kept close to what is actually attested rather than filled in.
What survives here of Abhinavagupta's reading is brief and precise rather than expansive: 'subject to change' names a thing made to change by something other than itself, and 'in brief' is read distinctively as meaning that Krishna does not divide this inquiry into separate answers but settles every listed question at once with a single, shared answer. He adds that the seers and Vedas have already told this truth in many ways, and Krishna now simply states it concisely. Nothing further of his is attested at this verse, and none is invented here to fill the gap.
Read as nature entire, wearing in the body its sharpest knot.
The true field, on this reading, is primal nature in its complete twenty-four-fold unfolding; the body is only the piece of it where the confusion is worst. It is exactly in the body that the false sense of 'I' fastens most plainly, which is why the earlier verses spoke of the body as if it were the whole field. Of that field, five things in this fuller count are asked, including its very division into moving and unmoving; of its knower, only two, since consciousness does not multiply the way the field does, however it is gifted with unthinkable powers of lordship.
Read as a compressed table of contents for the chapter's technical unfolding.
What an earlier verse had only stated in brief, this reading opens up point by point: unconscious and visible substance, desire-marked qualities, the changes of the senses, the joining of nature and person as cause, and division into moving and unmoving; and of the knower, self-shining consciousness and bliss, holding the powers his adjuncts make available. The verse functions here less as poetry and more as an index, precise enough that each later verse can be matched back to the exact question it answers.
All six readings agree this verse announces rather than teaches, and that the field draws more questions than its knower does. They part on what that means. Is the field the body alone, or nature in its entirety wearing the body as its sharpest knot? Does the field's motion trace back to an ordinary cause, or to an impeller who alone can move what cannot move itself? And where the record for one reading runs thin, is the honest course to say plainly that it runs thin, rather than to smooth over the gap with an answer no source actually gives? This page leaves all three questions standing.
A question to carry
Of the things you could ask about right now, how many are questions about what is seen, and how many are questions about the one who is seeing? What does that ratio tell you about where your attention actually lives?
Where this teaching travels
Verses that sit near this one, each going its own way; follow whichever calls you.
Carry this list lightly, the way you would carry a map before setting out. Let it show you only the shape of the road ahead, and trust that walking it will fill in what no list, however careful, could give you in advance.
Each school is voiced from the commentators named above. Their full words, every translation, and where the schools agree and differ wait in the reading desk just below. Open the commentary desk.
Krishna has just named himself the knower of the field in every field; now he pauses on the threshold of the long teaching and tells Arjuna, in brief, exactly what he is about to unfold.
Where they agreethe convergence
Across schools and centuries the commentators come to the same ground. These are the points they share, and the voices that hold each one.
This is a program-announcement: Krishna names, in brief, what he will unfold about the field and its knower, so the long account to come lands as one ordered whole.
Across Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Rāmānuja · Madhusūdana · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and 2 others’ words
This verse is a program-announcement rather than the teaching itself. Krishna pauses on the threshold of the long chapter ahead and tells Arjuna exactly what he is about to unfold about the field and its knower, so that when the details arrive one by one, they land inside a shape already held in mind rather than scattering.
Four questions gather around the field, what it is, of what kind, its changes, its cause, while only two are asked of the knower, who he is and what power is his.
Across Advaita, Bhakti, DvaitaŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Śrīdhara · MadhvaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 2 others’ words
The inquiry breaks into a fixed set of questions, more of them about the field than about its knower: what the field is in its own nature, of what kind it is, what its changes are, and from what cause it arises; and, of the knower, only who he is and what power belongs to him. The lopsided count is itself a teaching, since multiplicity belongs to the field and not to the one who knows it.
The word 'in brief' marks real compression: this verse is the compact seed whose entries every following verse in the chapter will fill in.
Across Advaita, Kashmir Śaiva, BhaktiŚaṅkara · Madhusūdana · Abhinavagupta · ŚrīdharaIn Śaṅkara, Madhusūdana, and 2 others’ words
The word for 'in brief', samasena, is read by every source as a real compression rather than a throwaway phrase: this single verse is the table of contents whose entries the rest of the chapter will fill in one by one, and Arjuna is told not just to hear it but to hold it firmly.
This compressed teaching rests on more than one voice speaking for the first time; it gathers what the seers, the Vedas, and reasoned inquiry have already sung.
Across Viśiṣṭādvaita, Kashmir Śaiva, AdvaitaRāmānuja · Abhinavagupta · ŚaṅkaraIn Rāmānuja, Abhinavagupta, and 1 others’ words
More than one source insists this compressed teaching is not a private assertion but something already sung, at length and in many forms, by the seers, the Vedas, and reasoned inquiry; Krishna is here gathering a long-standing truth into a single, brief statement rather than announcing something new.
Underneath every question lies one aim: discrimination, learning to tell the changing, insentient field apart from the knower who is never, under any of its changes, the field.
Across Bhakti, Advaita, DvaitaŚrīdhara · Madhusūdana · MadhvaIn Śrīdhara, Madhusūdana, and 1 others’ words
Underneath the list of questions lies one aim, named across the readings as discrimination: to learn, point by point, how to tell the changing and insentient field apart from the conscious knower who is never, under any of its changes, the field itself.
This is the shared ground; it can be carried as it is. Below is where they differ.
Where they differthe divergence
Viśiṣṭādvaita, in their fuller words
Ramanuja reads the promise of this verse as resting on the seers, the metres, the Vedas, and the reasoned aphorisms of Brahman, all of which have already sung the field and its knower as genuinely distinct, while also declaring that the Lord, Vasudeva, is the inner Self of both. What Krishna compresses here in brief is not a new claim but a gathering of that many-times-sung truth into one voice.
Dvaita, in their fuller words
Madhva refuses to read 'from what' as merely naming a cause that produces an effect, a reading he calls forced. He reads it instead as 'from whom': by whose impelling the field, incapable of moving itself, is set into motion. The closing clause, 'who he is', then names that impeller's own nature as a distinct question, so that neither occurrence of 'and' in the verse is idle repetition.
Shaiva, in their fuller words
The material recorded for Abhinavagupta here is a brief, genuine note rather than a full commentary: 'subject to change' means made to change by something else, and 'in brief' is read distinctively as meaning Krishna settles every listed question at once with a single, undivided answer rather than treating each separately. He adds only that the seers and Vedas have already told this truth at length, and Krishna now states it concisely.
Bhakti, in their fuller words
Sridhara holds that primal nature in its full twenty-four-fold unfolding is the true field, the body only the piece of it where the false 'I'-feeling is most palpable, which is why the body was named first. Of the field, five things are asked, in his fuller count, including its very divisions into moving and unmoving; of the knower, only two, since consciousness does not multiply the way the field does.
A modern reading, in their fuller words
Read as a technical opening: what was stated in brief earlier is now opened up point by point, each question of the list given its precise referent, unconscious substance, desire-marked qualities, sense-changes, the joining of nature and person, moving and unmoving division, and, of the knower, self-shining consciousness and the powers lent by its adjuncts. The verse functions as a compressed table of contents for the chapter's technical unfolding.
A few questions to carry
These ask for understanding, not recall; each answer is settled by the commentary itself.
For a second sitting
Carry this with youwhat stays
Before you read further into this chapter, sit for a moment with just the list itself. Ask, of whatever you are looking at right now: what is it in its own nature, of what kind is it, how is it changing, where did it come from. Then ask, of the one asking these questions: who am I, and what power is truly mine? Let the second pair of questions feel noticeably lighter than the first four. That lightness is the whole teaching, arriving before any answer has been given.
Hold this list lightly for now, the way you would hold a map before a journey. Let it show you only the shape of what is coming, and trust the ground itself to fill in the rest.
Read deeper
Everything a full study holds, folded below.
Word by word
All the commentary, woven together
The commentary, woven together
machine-assisted draft, pending review
Convergence
his verse is a program-announcement rather than the teaching itself. Krishna pauses on the threshold of the long chapter ahead and tells Arjuna exactly what he is about to unfold about the field and its knower, so that when the details arrive one by one, they land inside a shape already held in mind rather than scattering.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī
The inquiry breaks into a fixed set of questions, more of them about the field than about its knower: what the field is in its own nature, of what kind it is, what its changes are, and from what cause it arises; and, of the knower, only who he is and what power belongs to him. The lopsided count is itself a teaching, since multiplicity belongs to the field and not to the one who knows it.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhvācārya
The word for 'in brief', samasena, is read by every source as a real compression rather than a throwaway phrase: this single verse is the table of contents whose entries the rest of the chapter will fill in one by one, and Arjuna is told not just to hear it but to hold it firmly.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śrīdhara Svāmī
More than one source insists this compressed teaching is not a private assertion but something already sung, at length and in many forms, by the seers, the Vedas, and reasoned inquiry; Krishna is here gathering a long-standing truth into a single, brief statement rather than announcing something new.
Rāmānujācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta · Śaṅkarācārya
Underneath the list of questions lies one aim, named across the readings as discrimination: to learn, point by point, how to tell the changing and insentient field apart from the conscious knower who is never, under any of its changes, the field itself.
Śrīdhara Svāmī · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī · Madhvācārya
Divergence
Advaita Vedānta
The verse simply lists the questions to be answered later, when field and knower will be shown as they truly are: the field insentient, seen, and limited, the knower self-luminous consciousness. The 'powers' asked about the knower are read as capacities lent by the upadhis, the body's limiting adjuncts such as eye and ear, through which the one consciousness appears to see and hear, never as powers native to consciousness itself.
Śaṅkarācārya · Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
Viśiṣṭādvaita
Ramanuja reads the promise of this verse as resting on the seers, the metres, the Vedas, and the reasoned aphorisms of Brahman, all of which have already sung the field and its knower as genuinely distinct, while also declaring that the Lord, Vasudeva, is the inner Self of both. What Krishna compresses here in brief is not a new claim but a gathering of that many-times-sung truth into one voice.
Rāmānujācārya
Dvaita
Madhva refuses to read 'from what' as merely naming a cause that produces an effect, a reading he calls forced. He reads it instead as 'from whom': by whose impelling the field, incapable of moving itself, is set into motion. The closing clause, 'who he is', then names that impeller's own nature as a distinct question, so that neither occurrence of 'and' in the verse is idle repetition.
Madhvācārya
Kashmir Śaiva
The material recorded for Abhinavagupta here is a brief, genuine note rather than a full commentary: 'subject to change' means made to change by something else, and 'in brief' is read distinctively as meaning Krishna settles every listed question at once with a single, undivided answer rather than treating each separately. He adds only that the seers and Vedas have already told this truth at length, and Krishna now states it concisely.
Ācārya Abhinavagupta
Bhakti
Sridhara holds that primal nature in its full twenty-four-fold unfolding is the true field, the body only the piece of it where the false 'I'-feeling is most palpable, which is why the body was named first. Of the field, five things are asked, in his fuller count, including its very divisions into moving and unmoving; of the knower, only two, since consciousness does not multiply the way the field does.
Śrīdhara Svāmī
Modern
Read as a technical opening: what was stated in brief earlier is now opened up point by point, each question of the list given its precise referent, unconscious substance, desire-marked qualities, sense-changes, the joining of nature and person, moving and unmoving division, and, of the knower, self-shining consciousness and the powers lent by its adjuncts. The verse functions as a compressed table of contents for the chapter's technical unfolding.
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī
A Seeker Asks
If this verse is only a list of questions Krishna promises to answer later, why pause to announce the agenda at all instead of simply teaching it?
The pause is itself part of the method, not a delay before it. By naming in advance exactly what will be covered, the field's nature, its kind, its changes, its cause, and the knower with his power, Krishna gives Arjuna a frame sturdy enough to hold the long unfolding to come, so it settles as one ordered understanding rather than scattered points heard in passing.
Śaṅkarācārya · Rāmānujācārya
Announcing the plan also raises the listener's attention before the difficulty of the material arrives; hearing that so much rides on these few questions, and that the truth answering them is grounded in the seers, the Vedas, and reasoned inquiry, prepares the mind to receive what follows with the seriousness it deserves.
Śaṅkarācārya · Ācārya Abhinavagupta
And the shape of the list already begins to teach something before any answer arrives: four questions crowd around the field, because multiplicity belongs there, while only two are asked of the knower, because his nature does not multiply the way the field's does. You are shown the asymmetry before you are shown the reason for it.
Madhvācārya · Śrīdhara Svāmī
Contemplation
Before you read further into this chapter, sit for a moment with just the list itself. Ask, of whatever you are looking at right now: what is it in its own nature, of what kind is it, how is it changing, where did it come from. Then ask, of the one asking these questions: who am I, and what power is truly mine? Let the second pair of questions feel noticeably lighter than the first four. That lightness is the whole teaching, arriving before any answer has been given.
Sit with this · sonnet-5-authored
All the translations and commentary
Pull up a chair.
You have come to sit with this verse. When you are ready to hear the translators and the commentators in full, open a tradition in the doorways below, or add a voice by name above.
Also hear this verse, tradition by tradition.