Lord Krishna

Lord Krishna

Divine Teacher

The Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.

Speaking: Chapter 13, Verse 5

5

Verse 5

The Yoga of the Field and the Knower of the Field

This knowledge has been sung by the sages in many ways, in various hymns and also in well-reasoned and conclusive Brahma-sutra aphorisms.

Context & Meaning

Before describing the field, Krishna grounds his teaching in three streams of ancient authority: the wisdom of the sages (ṛṣibhiḥ), the Vedic hymns (chandas), and the philosophical aphorisms of the Brahma Sutras. This is not a new doctrine invented on a battlefield — it is the crystallized wisdom of a living tradition stretching back to the dawn of human consciousness. Krishna signals that what he is about to say has been realized and confirmed by countless seekers before.

Scholar Commentaries

1 commentary · Public domain

Adi Shankaracharya

Advaita

The mention of brahmasūtra-padaiḥ — the aphorisms of the Brahma Sutras — is significant. It establishes that the teaching of the Gita is continuous with the Upanishadic and Vedantic tradition, not separate from it. All three sources — seers, hymns, and sutras — converge on the same truth about the nature of the field and its knower.