The Field of Activities

The Bhagavad Gita describes what it calls the “field of activities” in chapter 13.6,7

  1. The major elements of earth, air, fire, water, and ether, the false ego, spiritual intelligence, the unmanifest element in material nature, the ten senses along with the mind, and the five objects of the senses as sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell;
  2. Desire, disdain, happiness, distress, the perceptual faculty of the mind, determination; all this is declared to be the field of activities modified by the six transformations of the physical body beginning with birth and ending with death.

Verse six is clearly a description of the 24 material principles of Samkhya. But to me, verse 7 is more interesting. It seems to be an alternative description containing:

  1. Two pairs of opposites
    a. Desire and disdain
    b. happiness and distress

  2. Two principles similar to Samkhya, represented as
    a. The perceptual faculty of the mind (minus the faculty of action)
    b. Determination, which is the equivalent of buddhi

  3. The six transformations of the body.

This raises a number of questions:

  1. What do the two pairs of opposites represent?
  2. Why is the perceptual faculty of the mind included, but the faculty of action not included?
  3. What are the six transformations of the body?
  4. Is this an alternative description? And if so, where does it come from?

Anybody have any insight?

  1. They represent pleasure and pain which can be experienced as either desire and aversion or happiness and sorrow. Patanjali simplies them as pleasure and pain(klesha alklesh)

  2. What is meant here by the perceptul faculty is how determination takes place. The manas considers the information, the ahamkara identifies it and personalizes it and the buddhi then determines and takes action.

  3. The six transformations are birth, youth, maturity, retirement, old age and death.

  4. No, it is not an alternative description. However, older Samkhya references do sometimes use different enumeration schemes. They are roughly the same.

Of course, if you already have all the answers, there’s no need for any real insight. Does anyone else have an opinion?

[QUOTE=Asuri;33396]The Bhagavad Gita describes what it calls the “field of activities” in chapter 13.6,7

Verse six is clearly a description of the 24 material principles of Samkhya. But to me, verse 7 is more interesting. It seems to be an alternative description containing:

  1. Two pairs of opposites
    a. Desire and disdain
    b. happiness and distress

  2. Two principles similar to Samkhya, represented as
    a. The perceptual faculty of the mind (minus the faculty of action)
    b. Determination, which is the equivalent of buddhi

  3. The six transformations of the body.

This raises a number of questions:

  1. What do the two pairs of opposites represent?
  2. Why is the perceptual faculty of the mind included, but the faculty of action not included?
  3. What are the six transformations of the body?
  4. Is this an alternative description? And if so, where does it come from?

Anybody have any insight?[/QUOTE]

Here’s Easwarans Translation of the following verses and his commentary on the section.

13.5 and 6. "The Field, Arjuna, is made up of the following: The five areas of sense perception, the five elements, the five sense organs and the five organs of action; the three components of the mind; manas, buddhi, and ahamkara; and the undifferntiated energy from which these evolved.

In this field arise desire and aversion, pleasure and pain, the body, intelligence, and will.

13.7 Those who know truly are free of pride and deciet. They are gentle, forgiving, upright and pure, devoted to thier spiritual teacher, filled with inner strength and self controlled.

13.8 Detached from sense objects and self will, they have learned the painful lesson of separate birth and suffering, old age, disease and death.

“Verses 7-11 describe a person who understands his true nature.”

Thanks, Scales. The first thing I noticed about Easwaran’s translation is that he left out the part about the six transformations of the physical body. At first I thought he took the easy way out, but when I checked into it, I found that the six transformations part isn’t really justified by the sanskrit text.

If you read this carefully, you will see that it is only two sanskrit words, sa-vikaram, that are translated as "the six transformations of the physical body beginning with birth and ending with death.

From the Apte Sanskrit-English dictionary:
विकारः vikārḥ
विकारः 1 Change of form or nature, transforma- tion, deviation from the natural state; cf. विकृति. -2 A change, alteration, a modification; and in philosophy, That which is evolved from a previous source or Prakṛiti.

As nearly as I can tell, “sa” means it or this, so sa-vikaram literally means these are the transformations (or modifications). This is key to understanding verse 7. Earlier in chapter 13, (verse 4) Krishna says that he will explain the nature of the field and its transformations. Verse 6 describes the nature of the field, verse 7 describes the transformations. This is a key Samkhya concept.

It seems that my original questions were a bit too analytical, because I was looking at these two verses in isolation. If you read them in the context of the entire chapter, the meaning isn’t that much of a mystery. The translation I used had engaged in a bit of interpretation. This is why reading the Sanskrit is so important.

Kinda looks to me like Easawaran leaves out a lot of Parts… :slight_smile:

He just kinda summarizes verse 8… with “detached from sense objects and self will.”

hmmm? The essence seems to be there . . . but not word for word.

Easwaran’s book says on the front cover “Translated for the modern reader”. I suppose it’s useful for people who don’t have any prior knowledge. I prefer something more literal. But in the case of “the six transformations of the physical body beginning with birth and ending with death”, he was right to leave it out, because it isn’t justified by the the text.