Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 13: The Field and the Knower of the Field

Bhagavad Gita 13.1

idaṃ śarīraṃ kaunteya kṣetramityabhidhīyate | etadyo vetti taṃ prāhuḥ kṣetrajña iti tadvidaḥ ||

This body, Arjuna, is called the field. One who knows it is called the knower of the field by those who understand these things.

Modern context

A new image opens the last part of the Gita: the body is a field, and the one who knows it is the knower of the field. A field is where things grow. Seeds are sown, crops come up, weather passes over it. Everything that happens to us, sensations, thoughts, moods, happens in the field. But there is also the one who watches the field, who knows what is growing there. The chapter asks us to tell these two apart.