The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita, attributed to the sage Vyasa, is a 700-verse Sanskrit dialogue embedded within the epic Mahabharata. Set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra just as the Pandava and Kaurava armies prepare for war, it opens with the warrior Arjuna collapsing in despair at the prospect of killing his own relatives and teachers. His charioteer, Krishna, responds with a discourse that becomes the book's core: a philosophical and spiritual teaching that moves from Arjuna's moral crisis to a broader account of duty, action, and liberation. Krishna lays out several interlocking frameworks. Central is the distinction between the eternal self, or atman, and the perishable body: because the self is unborn and undying, Arjuna's grief over bodily death is misplaced. Krishna then introduces the three paths to liberation: karma yoga, the discipline of acting without attachment to results; jnana yoga, the path of knowledge and discernment; and bhakti yoga, devotion to the divine. He also explains the three gunas, the qualities of nature (sattva, rajas, and tamas), and describes the state of the sthita-prajna, the person of steady wisdom who remains equanimous in pleasure and pain. Across its eighteen chapters, the Gita addresses sacrifice, meditation, the nature of the divine, and the relationship between individual duty, or svadharma, and cosmic order. It culminates in Krishna revealing his universal form and Arjuna resolving to act. The text has been interpreted by schools of Vedanta, by figures such as Shankara and Ramanuja, and by modern thinkers including Gandhi and Tilak, making it a foundational work of Hindu spirituality.