The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -19.1.

09/02/2017.

Chapter 19: True Knowledge : 1.

The meaning of the thirteenth chapter of the Bhagavadgita is the subject of our discussion now.

While all the eighteen chapters of the Gita touch upon almost all themes in the practice of yoga, there is a special emphasis laid on action in the third chapter, on meditation in the sixth chapter, on devotion in the eleventh chapter and on knowledge in the thirteenth chapter—corresponding to the faculties of cognition, volition, emotion and reason.

There is a special importance attached to the subject of the thirteenth chapter, inasmuch as it analyses the Samkhya principles or categories of cosmic evolution in the light of the supremacy of Brahman, the Absolute.

The Samkhya philosophy distinguishes between prakriti and purusha, or the field and the knower of the field, as they are designated here in this chapter.

Matter and consciousness are, we may say, the object and the pure subject.

In this chapter, at the very outset, we are told that there are two principles—the field and the knower of the field. “Know Me as the knower in all the fields—sarva-ksetresu,” says the great Eternity which speaks through the gospel of the Gita.

In this simple hint that is given to the effect that the pure subject or the knower of the field is equally present in all the fields, this particular specialty of teaching here takes us beyond the classical Samkhya, which draws a distinction between prakriti and purusha, making out thereby that God is transcendent and superior to matter and consciousness as we know it.

The Absolute is superior both to the object and the subject.

Swami Krishnananda
  To be continued  ....