Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 13, Verse 26

यावत्सञ्जायते किञ्चित्सत्त्वं स्थावरजङ्गमम् । क्षेत्रक्षेत्रज्ञसंयोगात्तद्विद्धि भरतर्षभ

yāvatsañjāyate kiñcitsattvaṃ sthāvarajaṅgamam | kṣetrakṣetrajñasaṃyogāttadviddhi bharatarṣabha

Translation

Whatever being is born, the unmoving or the moving, know thou, O best of the Bhāratas, that to be owing to the union of Kṣetra and Kṣetrajña.

— Alladi Mahadeva Sastri

Word meanings

yāvat

whatsoever

sañjāyate

is born

kiñcit

any

sattvam

being

sthāvarajaṅgamam

unmoving, and, moving, and

kṣetrakṣetrajñasaṃyogāt

of the field, and, of the field-knower, and, from the union

tat

that

viddhi

know

bharatarṣabha

O best of the Bharatas

Śaṅkarācārya's commentary

The union between Kṣetra and Kṣetrajña, between the object and the subject, which are opposed to each other in nature, is of the nature of mutual adhyāsa; i.e., it consists in confounding them as well as their attributes with each other owing to the absence of a discrimination between the nature of Kṣetra and that of Kṣetrajña, like the union of a rope and a mother-of-pearl respectively with a snake and silver when they are mistaken one for the other owing to the absence of discrimination. This illusion vanishes when a man attains to a knowledge of the distinction between Kṣetra and Kṣetrajña as defined in the śāstra, when he is able to separate Kṣetrajña from Kṣetra like the iṣīkā reed from the muñja-grass and to realise that Brahman, the Knowable, is his own Self. As the cause of birth has vanished in the case of such a man, it stands to reason that the wise man is not born again.