Bhagavad-Gita

Bhagavad-Gita [Skt.,=song of the Lord], Sanskrit poem incorporated into the Mahabharata , one of the greatest religious classics of Hinduism. The Gita (as it is often called) consists of a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna on the eve of the great battle of Kurukshetra. Arjuna is overcome with anguish when he sees in the opposing army many of his kinsmen, teachers, and friends. Krishna persuades him to fight by instructing him in spiritual wisdom and the means of attaining union with God (see yoga ). The main doctrines of the Gita are karma-yoga, the yoga of selfless action performed with inner detachment from its results; jnana-yoga, the yoga of knowledge and discrimination between the lower nature of man and his soul, which is identical with the supreme self; and bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion to a particular god—in this case, Krishna, who reveals himself to Arjuna as the avatara (incarnation) of Vishnu, Lord of the Universe. The Bhagavad-Gita is essentially Upanishadic in content, but it differs significantly from the brahman-atman doctrine of the Upanishads in teaching that the highest God is personal and that love and surrender to God's grace is a better and easier spiritual path than that of pure knowledge. The Gita has been the subject of many commentaries and has been much translated. Its translators include Annie Besant, Sir Edwin Arnold, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and Mohandas Gandhi.

Bibliography: See F. Edgerton, The Bhagavad Gita (1944); E. Deutsch, ed., Bhagavad Gita (1968); B. S. Miller, The Bhagavad Gita (1986).

Bhagavad Gita (Hindi, ‘Song of the Lord’) Sanskrit poem, forming part of the sixth book of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. Probably written in the 1st or 2nd century ad, it is perhaps the greatest philosophical expression of Hinduism. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna (as an incarnation of Vishnu) instructs Prince Arjuna on the importance of absolute devotion (bhakti) to a personal god as a means of salvation.

Bhagavad-gītā (Skt., ‘the song of the Bhagavā’). A fundamental text for Hindus—for many, the most sublime. It forms part of book vi of the Mahābhārata, and in eighteen sections of 700 verses, it explores the situation which has brought the warrior Arjuna to a crisis of conscience: he is opposed in battle by members of his own family; should he attack and perhaps kill them? Offered the assistance of Kṛṣṇa Devakīputra, he accepts and receives instruction on appropriate conduct and attitudes. The main part of the Gītā records this instruction. Kṛṣṇa points Arjuna to the three paths (marga), of knowledge (jñāna-marga), of action with detachment (karma-marga), and of devotion to God (bhakti-mārga). Since these are ways of being united to the ultimately true and real, they are also known as karmayoga, jñāna-yoga, and bhakti-yoga, the latter amounting to rāja-yoga.

The Gītā appears to have been addressed (the date is uncertain, but c.200 BCE is likely) to a situation in which major unease about the excessive and costly rituals of Brahmanical religion had led to a reaction so severe that it had isolated both Buddhism and Jainism as separate religions. The Gītā appears to make a deliberate attempt to show the worth of the major ways of the continuing tradition (though obviously it corrects any non-theistic system if taken in isolation). It therefore reads as a deliberate attempt to reconcile and hold the line against further schism. It achieves a profound reconciliation; not surprisingly, therefore, it is the most revered and influential text among Hindus.