An archer loses his nerve at the sight of his own cousins and teachers across the battlefield, and his charioteer talks him round
Arjuna and Krishna on the plain of Kurukshetra
General knowledge · Religion & belief
The Bhagavad Gita
composed c. 2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE
Hinduism — the Song of the Lord, a dialogue before a battle
A Sanskrit poem of 700 verses in 18 chapters, forming part of the sixth book of the Mahabharata. On the eve of battle at Kurukshetra the warrior Arjuna sees his own kinsmen and teachers drawn up against him and refuses to fight; his charioteer, who is the god Krishna, answers him. What follows is a compressed account of duty, of action performed without attachment to its results, and of devotion, ending with Krishna's revelation of his universal form. It became, in the modern period, the most widely read Hindu text of all.
How to spot them
- ▸Bhagavad Gita means 'Song of the Lord'; 700 verses in 18 chapters
- ▸Set on the field of Kurukshetra, in the sixth book of the Mahabharata
- ▸A dialogue between a reluctant archer and his charioteer
- ▸Chapter 11: the terrifying universal form, the vishvarupa
Key facts
Seven hundred verses in eighteen chapters, embedded in the sixth book of a far longer epic
The Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata
'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' — quoted at Alamogordo in 1945 (1945)
Robert Oppenheimer recalling chapter 11, verse 32, at the Trinity test
Charles Wilkins made the first English version in 1785, under Warren Hastings's patronage (1785)
The first Sanskrit work translated directly into English
Gandhi called it his spiritual dictionary, and wrote a commentary on it in Gujarati
Anasakti Yoga; he first read it, in English, as a student in London
Acting without any attachment to the fruits of the action
Karma yoga — 'you have a right to the action, never to its fruits'
The charioteer reveals himself with countless mouths and eyes, and the warrior begs him to stop
The vishvarupa, the universal form, in chapter 11
Thoreau read it by Walden Pond and Emerson praised it as the first of books
Its reception by the New England Transcendentalists
Key ideas
- Its solution to Arjuna's problem is not that killing is good but that the self is not the body: what acts is the body, and what endures — the atman — is 'never born and never dies'. Duty done without attachment to the outcome is therefore not binding.
- The text sets out several paths as complementary rather than rival: karma yoga (action), jnana yoga (knowledge) and bhakti yoga (devotion), with devotion given the final word.
Quick-fire facts
- •The title means 'Song of the Lord' or 'Song of God'
- •It has 700 verses in 18 chapters and forms part of the Bhishma Parva, the sixth book of the Mahabharata
- •The speakers are Arjuna, third of the Pandava brothers, and Krishna, acting as his charioteer
- •The setting is Kurukshetra, on the eve of the great battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas
- •Chapter 11 describes the vishvarupa, Krishna's universal form; verse 32 supplied Oppenheimer's famous line at the Trinity test
- •The first English translation was by Charles Wilkins in 1785, sponsored by Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of Bengal
- •Gandhi described it as his spiritual reference book and wrote a Gujarati commentary, Anasakti Yoga
- •Its central ethical teaching is karma yoga: acting from duty without attachment to the fruits of action
- •It distinguishes karma yoga, jnana yoga (knowledge) and bhakti yoga (devotion) as paths
- •Emerson and Thoreau were both admirers; Thoreau read it at Walden
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia — Bhagavad Gita
- BBC Religion & Ethics — Hinduism at a glance