Bhagavad Gita

One of the best-known Hindu scriptures, which is itself a section in the
Mahabharata, the later of the two great
Hindu epics. The parts of the epic before
the Bhagavad Gita chronicle the growing
strife between the Pandavas and the
Kauravas, the two branches of a royal
family who are the epic’s main characters. The parts following the Bhagavad
Gita detail the battle that ultimately
destroys the entire family. The Bhagavad
Gita itself is set in that moment of calm
just before the battle begins, and it is
written as a dialogue between the
Pandava prince Arjuna and the
supreme divinity Krishna, here disguised as Arjuna’s charioteer. Arjuna is
the world’s greatest archer and can decimate his enemies with ease. But as he
looks at the faces of the enemy, he realizes that the people he is about to fight
and kill are his relatives, teachers, and
friends. Not surprisingly, the prospect
leaves him cold, and it is up to Krishna
to give him divine guidance.
The Gita’s second chapter opens with
Krishna trying to shame Arjuna into
fighting (in essence, saying “everyone
will think you were afraid and make fun
of you”), but when this tactic fails,
Krishna has to give more substantive
advice, which makes up the rest of the
text. Different parts of the Bhagavad
Gita invoke all three of the generally
accepted paths to liberation of the
soul (moksha): the path of wisdom
(jnanamarga), the path of action
(karmamarga), and the path of
devotion (bhaktimarga).
The path of wisdom is rooted in the
teachings of the speculative texts known
as the Upanishads. This path stresses
the realization of one’s essential nature
as the eternal Self (atman). The atman is
identical with the universal reality
known as Brahman; once one has
accepted this, all dualistic ideas and
false knowledge disappear. The path of
action stresses acting without selfish
desire—performing one’s duty as duty,
but without attachment to the ultimate
outcome. This path thus upholds and
reinforces the rigid social structure propounded in the dharma literature. As a
warrior in that social system, Arjuna’s
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Bhagavad Gita
job is to kill people. At the same time,
the path of action provides a way to
transform socially sanctioned duty into
religious practice. The path of devotion
entails surrendering all one’s actions to
God and performing one’s role as an
instrument of divine will.
The Bhagavad Gita shows no clear
preference for any of these paths, which
implies that different writers reworked
the text over time. Professor Arthur
Llewellyn Basham has speculated that
the “original” Bhagavad Gita ended with
verse 2.38, after a section establishing
the morality of fighting in a just war,
thus giving Arjuna his rationale to fight.
It is believed that this “original” text was
then reworked by a philosopher of
the upanishadic type, who conceived
of the Ultimate Reality as the impersonal Brahman and of liberation in
terms of mystical realization. The
final sections were most likely added
by a passionate devotee (bhakta) of
Vishnu, particularly in his form as
Krishna. According to Basham, this
last author not only inserted verses in
some of the earlier books but also
added some completely new ones.
One of these, Arjuna’s vision of
Krishna’s cosmic form in the Gita’s
eleventh chapter, is considered
among the most brilliant religious
texts ever written. Although some
scholars might take issue with
specific points, Professor Basham’s
theory seems the most convincing
explanation for a highly varied text.
In the roughly two thousand years
since the Bhagavad Gita was compiled, different commentators have
interpreted its message according to
their own proclivities. The ninthcentury philosopher Shankaracharya
saw it as sanctioning the path of wisdom, while the eleventh-century
philosopher Ramanuja was convinced that it stressed devotion. The
most recent pivotal interpreter,
Mohandas Gandhi, understood the
text as commanding action. He saw in
Arjuna’s struggle a blueprint for his
own time and work, urging him to
labor for Indian independence but to
do so without attachment or hope for
personal gain. The text has become
even more important as a “scripture”
during the past two centuries, largely
because of pressure from Christian
missionaries. One sign of this is that
in modern Indian courtrooms, the
Gita is the text upon which Hindus
take the oath of truthfulness when
being called to take the stand. For an
accessible translation of the text
itself, see Barbara Stoller Miller
(trans.), The Bhagavad-Gita, 1991; for
Dr. Basham’s analysis of the text, see
Arthur Llewellyn Basham, The Origins
and Development of Classical
Hinduism, 1991.