Kshetrajña

Kshetrajña · kshetra-jña, “the knower of the field”

Grammar: masculine noun, a compound of kshetra (field) and -jña (knower): “the knower of the field”.

Meaning: the one who knows the kshetra, the field, that is, the body with the senses, the mind, ahaṅkāra, buddhi, the elements and Prakṛti; the lord of all beings.

In the scriptures: in his teaching on samādhi, Agnideva says that the organs of knowing, the manas, the organs of action, ahaṅkāra, buddhi, the five bhūtas and the avyakta Prakṛti together are called the kshetra. One who knows their nature is the kshetrajña. He is the lord of all beings (sarva-bhūtādhīśvara); he is sat, asat, and sad-asad-rūpa, of the form of both (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 376).

In the Gītā-sāra, Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Arjuna: “This body is named kshetra; the one who knows it is the kshetrajña. The knowledge of kshetra and kshetrajña is my knowledge” (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 381).

In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa:

  • Śrī Hari is the kshetrajña. Śuka tells Parīkshit that neither prakṛti, the cause of the world, nor the world, the effect, is other than Śrī Hari; that Parama-purusha is the kshetrajña who sees the aggregate of body, senses and mind of all beings (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 2). Vidura asks Maitreya Maharshi: “Bhagavān Vishṇu, the one without a second, alone is in all bodies in the form of the kshetrajña. That being so, why does this kshetrajña stay far from ānanda and suffer through karma?” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 7).
  • The witness. Jaḍabharata teaches King Rahūgaṇa that the thoughts of the mind appear in waking and dream and disappear in sleep, and the kshetrajña, who is unattached, watches them as witness. “Kshetra means the aggregate of body, senses and mind. The ātma-caitanya that knows it is the kshetrajña” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 11).
  • The devatā of citta. Bhagavān Kapila tells Devahūti that when the Virāṭ Purusha came forth, Candra was the devatā of the mind, Brahmā of buddhi, Rudra of ahaṅkāra, and the Kshetrajña of citta. Agni, Vāyu, Āditya and all the other devatās entered his body each with its power, and still the Virāṭ Purusha did not rise; but as soon as the Kshetrajña, the presiding one of citta, who as the witness (drashṭā) sees the kshetra, entered with citta, the Virāṭ Purusha rose up from the water. Without the Kshetrajña, prāṇa, the indriyas, the mind and the buddhi cannot by their own strength wake a sleeping man (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 26).
  • Distinct from the body. Kapila teaches that as a man thinks of his son and wealth as himself and yet is plainly different from them, so though there is the error that the kshetrajña purusha, the full ātmā, is the body, in truth the ātmā is distinct from the body (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 28).
  • In the merging. Nārada Maharshi foretells to Yudhishṭhira that Dhṛtarāshṭra has merged the mind into the vijñānātmā, that into the kshetrajña, and that witness (drashṭā) into Brahman, as the space in a pot merges into the great space (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 13). Teaching the sannyāsī’s dissolution, Nārada says the mind is merged into Candra, the buddhi into Brahmā, actions with ahaṅkāra into Rudra, the citta into the kshetrajña (here glossed as the jīva), and the jīva into Parabrahma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 7, Chapter 12).
  • A likeness. Sūta tells that Śrī Kṛshṇa’s queens, not knowing his greatness, thought he was under their control, just as the modifications of the buddhi imagine the Paramātmā, the kshetrajña, to be a jīva under their control (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 11).

Related terms: Kshetra · Ātmā · Paramātmā · Prakṛti · Jñāna

Other meanings

Kshetrajña has more than one meaning in the Purāṇas and Itihāsas. Besides the meaning above, it names those listed here, each with where it is told.

  • Kshetrajña, the Śiśunāga king: a king still to come in the line of Śiśunāga, the son of Kshemadharmā and father of Vidhisāra, told on Kings of Kali Yuga. Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 1

Sources

  • Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 376, 381
  • Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapters 11, 13; Skandha 2, Chapter 2; Skandha 3, Chapters 7, 26, 28; Skandha 5, Chapter 11; Skandha 7, Chapter 12