31. Being without beginning and devoid of Gunas, this Supreme Self, immutable, O son of Kunti, though existing in the body neither acts nor is affected.

32. As the all-pervading Akasha, because of its subtlety, is not tainted, so the Self existent in the body everywhere is not tainted.

33. As the one sun illumines all this world, so does He who abides in the Kshetra, O descendant of Bharata, illumine the whole Kshetra.

34. They who thus with the eye of knowledge perceive the distinction between the Kshetra and the Kshetrajna, and also the emancipation from the Prakriti of beings, they go to the Supreme.

The end of the thirteenth chapter designated, THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE KSHETRA AND THE KSHETRAJNA.

Footnotes

^288:1 This verse is omitted in many editions.

^289:1 Kshetra: Literally, field; the body is so called because the fruits of action are reaped in it as in a field.

^290:3 That: the true nature of Kshetra and Kshetrajna in all these specific aspects.

^291:5 The Sankhyas speak of those mentioned in the fifth Sloka as the twenty-four Tattvas or Principles.

The great Elements--Mahabhutas--pervade all Vikaras, or modifications of matter.

Aggregate--Samghata: combination of the body and the senses.

Desire and other qualities which the Vaiseshikas speak of as inherent attributes of the Atman, are spoken of in the sixth Sloka as merely the attributes of Kshetra, and not the attributes of Kshetrajna. Desire and other qualities mentioned here, stand for all the qualities of the Antah-Karana or inner sense,--as mere mental states. Each of them, being knowable, is Kshetra.

The Kshetra, of which the various modifications in their totality are spoken of as "this body" in the first Sloka, has been here dwelt upon in all its different forms, from 'The great Elements' to 'fortitude.'

^292:7 Acharya--one who teaches the means of attaining Moksha.

Purity--external and internal. The former consists in washing away the dirt from the body by means of water &c., and the latter--the purity of mind--consists in the removal from it the dirt of attachment and other passions, by the recognition of evil in all objects of the senses.

^293:8 Sense-objects: such as sound, touch &c., of pleasures seen or unseen.

Pain--whether Adhyatmic, i.e., arising in one's own person, or Adhibhautic, i.e., produced by external agents, or Adhidaivic, i.e., produced by supernatural beings.

Reflection . . . pain--or the passage may be interpreted as--reflection on the evils and miseries of birth, death, old age and sickness. Birth &c., are all miseries, not that they are miseries in themselves, but because they produce misery. From such reflection arises indifference to sense-pleasures, and the senses turn towards the Innermost Self for knowledge.