Tell me, Sanjaya, what my sons and the sons of Pandu did, when they gathered on the sacred field of Kurukshetra eager for battle? —Bhagavad Gita 1:11
The term Bhagavad Gita means the “Song of God” and is the title of an ancient and beloved Hindu sacred scripture. It deals with spiritual concepts such as the nature of existence and the spiritual self (or soul), our relationship with Divinity, consciousness, the practice of devotion, and the importance of doing our duty in life. More about these topics will be discussed later.
Originally written in Sanskrit, the Bhagavad Gita has been translated into every major language of the world. There are hundreds of English versions, and it is also available online in various forms and is often accompanied by commentaries such as in The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi. The Bhagavad Gita has multiple layers of meaning, like the parables of Jesus of Nazareth, and covers three main themes: duty, the hidden self in all beings, and the omnipresent nature of God; and it does all of this in eighteen short chapters totaling seven hundred verses.
The four principal characters, in order of appearance, of the Bhagavad Gita are:
• Sanjaya, the clairvoyant scribe to King Dhritarashtra
• King Dhritarashtra, the blind king, head of the Kauravas, one of the two sides in the upcoming battle.
• Prince Arjuna, the son of King Pandu, head of the Pandavas, the other side in the upcoming battle
• Lord Krishna, Prince Arjuna’s chariot driver and, unbeknownst to Prince Arjuna, the embodiment of God
In the next chapter, you’ll read an expanded cast of characters with more details about their roles. However, too many details up front can make it difficult to keep straight who is who, especially because in the Bhagavad Gita the same person is often referred to by numerous names. Lord Krishna, for example, is addressed by many different names, including Unfallen Lord, Supreme Person, Origin of All Beings, God of gods, and Ruler of the World. Each name discloses additional information about his nature and reveals Arjuna’s growing awareness of the Divinity steering his chariot. For this beginner’s guide, I’ve kept to one name per character, so you can stay clear on who is being referred to and who is speaking.
The Bhagavad Gita is embedded in a much larger work: the epic poem called the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is part of the folklore of India and a guide to understanding human nature. It chronicles the history and heartbreaking events that led up to a devastating and insolvable family dispute and the war that inevitably followed. The action takes place on a battlefield, known as Kurukshetra, which is north of modern New Delhi. The dialogue inside the Bhagavad Gita takes place immediately before that massive battle, one that lasted about three weeks wherein almost every person died. It was large-scale war and is thought to be based on actual events from between 3000 and 1000 BCE.
In short, the Bhagavad Gita is the conversation that takes place between two people, Lord Krishna and Prince Arjuna, directly before the battle begins. The conversation is observed from a remote location by the clairvoyant Sanjaya and related to King Dhritarashtra.
The Bhagavad Gita is a guide to spiritual self-discovery, with the goal of returning our awareness to the indwelling presence of the Divine. It advises us to pay attention to the integrity of our soul’s duty, practice single-mindedness, remain unattached to outcomes, and to do everything as an act of devotion. It guides the seeker to accurately identify what is real and what is unreal—not unreal in the sense that something does not exist, but in the sense that the external world is endlessly changing and impermanent and cannot be a reliable reference for understanding reality or knowing God. Our problem is that we perceive the world through our senses, which inform our thoughts and feelings. Our challenge, then, is to take command of our senses in the same way the five horses drawing Prince Arjuna’s chariot must be commanded lest they send the chariot and its passengers to ruin. To let the horses run where they may is like being attached to and driven by unstable forms. Unstable forms lead reliably to unstable experiences. The Bhagavad Gita strives to give us a different and stable reference point for navigating the world, by exploring the nature of permanent reality, God, as the basis for the life of selfless service, devotion, and peace.
The Bhagavad Gita offers three disciplines by which spiritual life can be approached: the path of detached action, the path of devotion, and the path of knowledge. One of the many names for God in Hinduism is Bhagavan, which means the Adorable One. Therefore, the Bhagavad Gita is the song of the Adorable One, giving a hint about the centrality of the path of devotion throughout the text.