The Bhagavad Gita is a philosophical poem that
summarizes and explains the key concepts underlying
Hindu religious belief and practice. The
poem is staged as a dialogue between the warrior
Arjuna, one of the five Pandava brothers, and his
charioteer Krisna, an engaging and remarkable
young man. In these conversations, Arjuna ostensibly
asks for advice on how to regain his composure
and courage to fight against the evil Kurowas,
his half-cousins. Krisna, who is an incarnation of
the Hindu god Vishnu, answers with a series of instructions
that coherently unify and communicate
the foundational tenets of Hindu beliefs, and also,
in the guidance Krisna gives his pupil on how to
conduct himself in war and life, provides a spiritual
manual for daily living.
The setting of the work is the battlefield of Kurukshetra,
where the two armies led by the Pandavas
and Kurowas gather for battle—also the
setting of the greatest and most elaborate of Indian
epic poems, the MAHABHARATA, of which the Bhagavad
Gita forms the sixth chapter. The essential
teachings of the Gita most likely existed long before
the Mahabharata was composed, transmitted
through oral teachings in the manner of the Upanishads
and the four Vedas, the oldest known Sanskrit
scriptures. The actual events of the
Mahabharata are thought to have transpired between
1000 and 700 B.C. The Bhagavad Gita contains
the outlines of a spiritual practice that may
date to the earliest indigenous settlers in the Indus
valley, around 3000 B.C.
Unlike other important works of Indian literature,
like the Ramayana, the author of the Bhagavad
Gita remains unknown. Early Indian
commentators have suggested that the Gita may
have been written by the Hindu god Krisna or by
the seer Vyasa, who is considered the author of the
Mahabharata and the PURANA.
Critical Analysis
The dramatic beauty of the Gita is that, in appearing
in the midst of a physical battle, the war between
good and evil provides a metaphorical
parallel to the Bhagavad Gita’s true topic. As translator
Eknath Easwaran says, “the Gita’s subject is
the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that
every human being must wage if he or she is to
emerge from life victorious.”
The poem opens with a metaphysical dialogue
between Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Kurukshetra
and father of the Kurowas, and his courtier
sage, Sanjaya.Worried about the course of the war,
Dhritarashtra asks Sanjaya (who is blessed with the
ability to see all that transpires in the past, present,
and future) to relate to him every detail of the war.
Sanjaya first tells of the conversation that takes
place between Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra’s son,
and his teacher, Drona, in which Duryodhana
boasts of his great number of forces and his confidence
in securing victory. This sets the scene for
the long dialogue between Arjuna and Krisna in
which Krisna instructs Arjuna that it is the latter’s
duty to fight and win the war. The Greek idea of
hubris, or exaggerated pride, is exemplified in the
contrast between the haughtiness of Duryodhana
and the unwillingness of Arjuna to engage in a war
in which his teachers and kin will be killed.
Given this background of war, in the poem, Arjuna
becomes concerned with the universal questions
of life and death. Seeing that his courage
wavers, Krisna proceeds to explain to him the nature
of the soul, the soul’s relation to God, the laws
that govern the natural world, and the laws that
govern consciousness and reality. In the end,
Krisna reveals himself as an avatar, or incarnation
of Vishnu, one of the faces of the Infinite God, the
lord of life and death. Arjuna goes on to engage in
battle because it is his duty; as the remainder of the
Mahabharata describes, he will, with Krisna’s help,
be victorious, and the proper rulers will be restored.
The heart of the Bhagavad Gita, however,
is its essential teachings about living with love and
compassion toward others. The Indian political
and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi, who based
his life on the tenets of the Gita, found its instructions
incompatible with harming others. In learning
how to transcend mortal consciousness and
attain spiritual union with God,Arjuna learns how
to enter his atman, or essential self, which transcends
life and death. He learns the profound
Hindu concepts of karma and dharma, which govern
human life, and he understands that the demands
of duty and consequence must be fulfilled.
Briefly, the ultimate goal of samsara, the cycle of
birth and death, is moksha, or spiritual liberation,
also called nirvana. Spiritual liberation is achieved
through a combination of three things: jnana, or
knowledge; bhakti, or devotion; and yoga, or spiritual
discipline and practice. Union with the Brahman,
or Infinite God, is the highest good, as Krisna
explains in passage 6:30–32 of Eknath Easwaran’s
translation:
I am ever present to those to have realized me
in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,
they are never separated from me. They
worship me in the hearts of all, and all their actions
proceed from me. Wherever they may
live, they abide in me.
The challenges of human life, Krisna explains,
are the result of karma and dharma. Karma, which
literally means “something that is done,” is often
translated as “deed” or “action” and basically states
that every event contains both a cause and an effect.
The consequences of each action engender
another act, with similar consequences, and so on
in a potentially unending series of events. An individual
acts out karma until he or she learns how
to act in harmony with dharma. Dharma, often
translated as “duty,” can be thought of as the master
plan to which each living thing in the universe
is connected.When one learns not to pursue selfish
interests but rather contributes to the welfare of
the whole, the karmic debt is discharged.
One learns and understands one’s duty through
yoga, the disciplined practice through which one
heals the splintered, unconscious self and learns
how to come in contact with the atman, the higher
self, and through that the Brahman or divine.
Meditation and yoga bring one to essential truths,
as Krisna instructs Arjuna in passages 6:19–21:
When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering
like the flame of a lamp in a windless
place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation,
the Self reveals itself. Beholding the Self
by means of the Self, an aspirant knows the joy
and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained
that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed
in the stilled mind, he never swerves
from the eternal truth.
The surrounding environment of imminent
war serves, in the poem, to highlight the importance
of the spiritual path, transcendence, and
union with the divine. Krisna’s explanation of the
relationships among the ideas of death, sacrifice,
and devotion exemplify the Hindu belief that transcendental
truth can only be experienced and
grasped when one heroically faces death and fulfills
one’s duty. Hence, the path to liberation lies
not in the avoidance of action but through action
performed simultaneously with detachment to
consequences and with devotion to the divine God.
Krisna teaches Arjuna that he is not being asked to
commit indiscriminate violence but instead has a
mortal duty to restore the legitimate rulers, who
have been given their authority by the gods.
Through disciplined action combined with
knowledge, committed with a detachment from
selfish interest in the outcome and an interest in
the greater welfare, Arjuna will be led not only to
mortal victory but also to an understanding of his
essential connection to the higher order. Thus, the
Bhagavad Gita dramatically portrays Arjuna’s inward
journey and also shows in human form the
possibility of union with the divine. Arjuna’s
recognition of his destiny, coinciding with Krisna’s
revelation of his divinity, is the climax of the poem.
As a document of Hindu culture and belief, the
Bhagavad Gita has had a profound impact. Barbara
Stoler Miller says the “Bhagavad-gita has been
the exemplary text of Hindu culture for centuries,
both in India and in the West.” The true value of
the Gita, Easwaran believes, is in the philosophical
truths it contains: “Like [Jesus’] Sermon on the
Mount, it has an immediacy that sweeps away
time, place, and circumstance.Addressed to everyone,
of whatever background or status, the Gita
distills the loftiest truths of India’s ancient wisdom
into simple, memorable poetry that haunts the
mind and informs the affairs of everyday life.”
English Versions of the Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita. Translated by Eknath Easwaran.
New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
The Bhagavad-gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time ofWar.
Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller. New York:
Bantam Books, 1986.
The Bhagavad-Gita: Translated and Interpreted. 2 vols.
Translated by Franklin Edgerton. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952.
Works about the Bhavagad Gita
Minor, Robert N. Bhagavad-Gita: An Exegetical Commentary.
Columbia,Mo.: South Asia Books, 1982.
Van Buitenen, J.A. B. Ramanuja on the Bhagavadgita.
Delhi:Motilal Banarsidass, 1968.
Zaehner, R. C. The Bhagavad-Gita: With a Commentary
Based on the Original Sources. London: Oxford
University Press, 1969.