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Page 1
The Deity said :
This body, O son of Kuntī! is called Kshetra 1, and the learned call him who knows it the Kshetragńa. 2. And know me also, O descendant of Bharata! to be the Kshetragńa in all Kshetras. The knowledge of Kshetra and Kshetragńa is deemed by me (to be real) knowledge. Now hear from me in brief what that Kshetra (is), what (it is) like, what changes (it undergoes), and whence (it comes), and what is he 3, and what his powers, (all which) is sung in various ways by sages in numerous hymns 4, distinctly, and in well-settled texts full of argument, giving indications or full instruction about the Brahman. The great elements 5, egoism, the understanding, the unperceived also, the ten senses, and the one, and the five objects of sense, desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, body, consciousness, courage, thus in brief has been declared the Kshetra with changes 6. Absence of vanity, absence of ostentatiousness, absence of hurtfulness, forgiveness, straightforwardness, devotion to a preceptor, purity 7, steadiness, self-restraint, indifference towards objects of sense, and also absence of egoism; perception of the misery and evil of birth, death 8, old age, and disease; absence of attachment, absence of self-identifying regard for son, wife 9, home, and so forth; and constant equability on the approach of (both what is) agreeable and (what is) disagreeable; unswerving devotion to me, without meditation on any one else; resorting to clean places, distaste for assemblages of men 10, constancy in knowledge of the relation of the individual self to the supreme, perception of the object 11 of knowledge of the truth, this is called knowledge; that is ignorance which is opposed to this.
Foot Notes :
1. I retain the original for want of a good equivalent.
2.. Cf. Svetāsvataropanishad, and Maitrī.
3. I. e. the Kshetragńa.
4. Hymns = scil. from the Vedas about ordinary or special actions and so forth. Argument = e.g. in texts like 'How can entity come from non-entity? Who could breathe, if &c.?'
5. Cf. Aitareya-āranyaka, The subtle elements, earth, fire, &c., are meant. The unperceived = nature; the one = mind; courage = that by which the drooping body and senses are supported; egoism = self-consciousness-the feeling 'this is I.'
6. See the last page. Changes = development.
7. Internal as well as external; as to devotion to a preceptor, cf. Āpastamba, Taittirīya-upanishad, Svetāsvatara, and Sutta Nipāta, as to egoism, see supra.
8. Cf. Sutta Nipāta,
9. Cf. Sutta Nipāta,
10. Cf. Sutta Nipāta,
11. Viz. removal of ignorance and acquisition of happiness.
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