Overview
The Bhagavad Gita (Sanskrit: भगवद्गीता, lit. 'God's song'), often called the Gita, is a Hindu scripture that forms part of the epic Mahabharata. It is likely to have been composed in the second or first century BCE. Traditionally attributed to the sage Veda Vyasa, it is regarded in modern scholarship as a composite work. The Gita holds a unique pan-Hindu influence and is a central text in the Vedanta and Vaishnava traditions.
The text is set as a dialogue between the Pandava prince Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, on the eve of the Kurukshetra War. Facing the prospect of fighting his own kin, Arjuna hesitates to perform his duty as a warrior. Krishna counsels him to engage in battle, arguing that one should follow one's dharma without considering oneself the agent of action, but attribute all action to God.
The Gita is a synthesis of various strands of Indian religious thought, drawing on the Vedic concept of dharma (duty, rightful action), Samkhya-based yoga, jñana (knowledge), and bhakti (devotion). It incorporates teachings from the Upanishads and Samkhya philosophy. While the text praises yoga as a means of releasing the inner essence from desire and the cycle of rebirth, it emphasises living according to one's dharma, in contrast to an ascetic ideal of seeking liberation through renunciation of all karma.
Numerous classical and modern thinkers have written commentaries on the Gita, offering differing views on its essence and on the relation between the individual self (jivatman) and the supreme self (Atman/Brahman) or God (Krishna). The Krishna–Arjuna dialogue has often been interpreted as a metaphor for a timeless dialogue between the individual self and the supreme self. Its setting on a battlefield has been read both literally, as guidance on duty in the world, and allegorically, as the inner struggle of the human being.
References
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article on the Bhagavad Gita.
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