संस्कृत
इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते । एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहुः क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विदः ॥
idaṃ śarīraṃ kaunteya kṣetram ity abhidhīyate etad yo vetti taṃ prāhuḥ kṣetrajña iti tadvidaḥ
अनुवाद
This body, son of Kuntî, is called the Field; that which knoweth it is called the Knower of the Field by the Sages.
Annie Besant · The Bhagavad-Gita, translated by Annie Besant (4th ed., 1922) — Wikisource · Public Domain
व्याख्या
Krishna answers with maximum economy: “this body… is called the Field; that which knows it is called the Knower of the Field.” Kshetra — literally a plot of land under cultivation — becomes the chapter’s term for the entire arena of embodied experience: body, mind, and the objects it engages. Kshetrajna is simply the awareness that observes that arena without being identical to it. Notice the definition is structural, not descriptive — it says how to locate the knower (whatever is aware of the field), not what it’s made of, which is what verse 23’s fuller list of names is for. Kṣetra — literally a plot of land under cultivation — becomes the term for the whole arena of embodied experience: body, mind, its objects. The definition is structural, not descriptive — it says how to locate the knower (whatever is aware of the field), not what it is made of.
गहराई से अध्ययन करें
शब्द-दर-शब्द
- idaṃ śarīraṃ kaunteyaइदं शरीरं कौन्तेय
- this body, O son of Kuntī (idam + śarīram + kaunteya)
- kṣetram ity abhidhīyateक्षेत्रं इत्य् अभिधीयते
- is called the field (kṣetram + iti + abhidhīyate)
- etad yo vetti taṃ prāhuḥएतद् यो वेत्ति तं प्राहुः
- who knows it, him they call (etat + yaḥ + vetti + tam + prāhuḥ)
- kṣetrajña iti tadvidaḥक्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विदः
- the knower of the field — so say the knowers (kṣetrajñaḥ + iti + tat-vidaḥ)
टीका
Site Commentary
Read against what surrounds it, verse 2 is oddly plain — a flat equation, body equals field, knower equals knower-of-field — sandwiched between Arjuna’s dense four-term question and the Samkhya catalogue and paradox-language still to come. Before the chapter gets technical in one direction (the field’s inventory) and cryptic in the other (Brahman’s contradictions), it plants one sentence a reader can hold onto without any prior training.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
Site Commentary — Second Reading
Notice what kind of definition this actually is: kshetrajna is defined purely by its relation to kshetra — “that which knows it” — with nothing said about what the knower is made of or where it resides. It’s a functional definition, not a substantive one, and that’s a pattern worth recognizing outside this text too: you locate awareness in your own experience the same way, by noticing what is aware, not by finding some separate object called “the self” sitting behind it.
Original commentary written for this site · © Amit Singh — original commentary
अवधारणाएँ
इस श्लोक को अपनाएँ
पाठ
व्यक्तिगत
- Before diving into a genuinely difficult or technical subject, give yourself one plain, ungarnished sentence to anchor to — a definition simple enough to hold onto — even if everything on either side of it gets more complicated.
व्यावसायिक
- When writing a technical design that will get dense in both directions, background context and implementation detail, put one plain, jargon-free sentence stating the core idea right in the middle, so anyone can re-orient there no matter how deep they've read.
परिवार और समाज
- When explaining something complicated to someone who doesn't share your background — a diagnosis, a financial decision — give them one flat, plain sentence stating the core fact before you get into the nuance on either side; it's the sentence they'll actually remember.
स्वयं से पूछें
इस श्लोक को पढ़ने से आगे ले जाने के कुछ तरीके। टिक और नोट इसी ब्राउज़र में रहते हैं।
इस श्लोक पर चिंतन करें
खोज जारी रखें
विषय
अध्ययन-मार्ग