Gita

The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (chapters 23–40 of book 6 of the Mahabharata called the Bhishma Parva), dated to the second half of the first millennium BCE and is typical of the Hindu synthesis. It is considered to be one of the holy scriptures for Hinduism.

The Gita is set in a narrative framework of a dialogue between Pandava prince Arjuna and his guide and charioteer Krishna. At the start of the dharma yuddha (or the "righteous war") between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, Arjuna is preoccupied by a moral and emotional dilemma and despairs about the violence and death the war will cause in the battle against his kin. Wondering if he should renounce the war, he seeks Krishna's counsel, whose answers and discourse constitute the Gita. Krishna counsels Arjuna to "fulfil his Kshatriya (warrior) duty to uphold the dharma" through Karma ("selfless action"). The Krishna–Arjuna dialogues cover a broad range of spiritual topics, touching upon ethical dilemmas and philosophical issues that go far beyond the war that Arjuna faces.

Numerous commentaries have been written on the Bhagavad Gita with widely differing views on the essentials. According to some, the Bhagavad Gita was written by the god Ganesha, as told to him by Veda Vyasa. Vedanta commentators read varying relationships between the Self and Brahman in the text: Advaita Vedanta sees the non-dualism of Atman (Self) and Brahman (universal Self) as its essence'; Bhedabheda and Vishishtadvaita see Atman and Brahman as both different and not different; while Dvaita Vedanta sees the dualism of Atman (Self) and Brahman as its essence. The setting of the Gita in a battlefield has been interpreted as an allegory for the ethical and moral struggles of human life.

The Bhagavad Gita presents a synthesis of Hindu ideas about dharma, theistic bhakti, and the yogic ideals of moksha. The text covers Jñāna, Bhakti, Karma, and Rāja yogas (spoken of in the 6th chapter), incorporating ideas from the Samkhya-Yoga philosophy.

The Bhagavad Gita is the most revered of all the Hindu texts, and has a unique pan-Hindu influence. The Gitas call for selfless action inspired many leaders of the Indian independence movement including Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi, the latter referring to it as his "spiritual dictionary".

Nomenclature

The ''gita'' in the title of the Bhagavad Gita means "song." Religious leaders and scholars interpret the word '' Bhagavad'' in a number of ways. Accordingly, the title has been interpreted as "the word of God" by the theistic schools, "the words of the Lord", "the Divine Song", and "Celestial Song" by others.
In India, its Sanskrit name is often written as Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, श्रीमद् भगवद् गीता (the latter two words often written as a single word भगवद्गीता), where the Shrimad prefix is used to denote a high degree of respect. This is not to be confused with the Shrimad Bhagavatam, which is a Purana dealing with the life of the Hindu God Krishna and various avatars of Vishnu.

The work is also known as the ''Iswara Gita'', the ''Ananta Gita'', the ''Hari Gita'', the ''Vyasa Gita'', or the Gita.

Authorship

In the Indian tradition, the Bhagavad Gita, as well as the epic ''Mahabharata'' of which it is a part, is attributed to the sage Vyasa, whose full name was Krishna Dvaipayana, also called Veda-Vyasa. Another Hindu legend states that Vyasa narrated it when the lord Ganesha broke one of his tusks and wrote down the Mahabharata along with the Bhagavad Gita.

Scholars consider Vyasa to be a mythical or symbolic author, in part because Vyasa is also the traditional compiler of the Vedas and the Puranas, texts dated to be from different millennia. The word ''Vyasa'' literally means "arranger, compiler", and is a surname in India. According to Kashi Nath Upadhyaya, a Gita scholar, it is possible that a number of different individuals with the same name compiled different texts.

Swami Vivekananda, the 19th-century Hindu monk and Vedantist, stated that the Bhagavad Gita may be old but it was mostly unknown in Indian history till the early 8th century when Adi Shankara (Shankaracharya) made it famous by writing his much-followed commentary on it. Some infer, states Vivekananda, that "Shankaracharya was the author of Gita, and that it was he who foisted it into the body of the ''Mahabharata''." This attribution to Adi Shankara is unlikely in part because Shankara himself refers to the earlier commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, and because other Hindu texts and traditions that compete with the ideas of Shankara refer to much older literature referencing the Bhagavad Gita, though much of this ancient secondary literature has not survived into the modern era.

According to J. A. B. van Buitenen, an Indologist known for his translations and scholarship on ''Mahabharata'', the Gita is so contextually and philosophically well knit with the ''Mahabharata'' that it was not an independent text that "somehow wandered into the epic". The Gita, states van Buitenen, was conceived and developed by the ''Mahabharata'' authors to "bring to a climax and solution the dharmic dilemma of a war".

According to Alexus McLeod, a scholar of Philosophy and Asian Studies, it is "impossible to link the Bhagavad Gita to a single author", and it may be the work of many authors. This view is shared by the Indologist Arthur Basham, who states that there were three or more authors or compilers of Bhagavad Gita. This is evidenced by the discontinuous intermixing of philosophical verses with theistic or passionately theistic verses, according to Basham.

Date

Theories on the date of the composition of the Gita vary considerably. Some scholars accept dates from the 5th century to the 2nd century BCE as the probable range, the latter likely. The Hinduism scholar Jeaneane Fowler, in her commentary on the Gita, considers second century BCE to be the probable date of composition.
J. A. B. van Buitenen also states that the Gita was likely composed about 200 BCE. According to the Indologist Arvind Sharma, the Gita is generally accepted to be a 2nd-century-BCE text.

Kashi Nath Upadhyaya, in contrast, dates it a bit earlier. He states that the Gita was always a part of the ''Mahabharata'', and dating the latter suffices in dating the Gita. On the basis of the estimated dates of ''Mahabharata'' as evidenced by exact quotes of it in the Buddhist literature by Asvaghosa (c. 100 CE), Upadhyaya states that the ''Mahabharata'', and therefore the Gita, must have been well known by then for a Buddhist to be quoting it. This suggests a ''terminus ante quem'' (latest date) of the Gita to be sometime prior to the 1st century CE. He cites similar quotes in the dharmasutra texts, the ''Brahma sutras'', and other literature to conclude that the Bhagavad Gita was composed in the fifth or fourth century BCE.

According to Arthur Basham, the context of the Bhagavad Gita suggests that it was composed in an era when the ethics of war were being questioned and renunciation to monastic life was becoming popular. Such an era emerged after the rise of Buddhism and Jainism in the 5th century BCE, and particularly after the semi-legendary life of Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. Thus, the first version of the Bhagavad Gita may have been composed in or after the 3rd century BCE.

Linguistically, the Bhagavad Gita is in classical Sanskrit of the early variety, states the Gita scholar Winthrop Sargeant. The text has occasional pre-classical elements of the Sanskrit language, such as the aorist and the prohibitive ''mā'' instead of the expected ''na'' (not) of classical Sanskrit. This suggests that the text was composed after the Pāṇini era, but before the long compounds of classical Sanskrit became the norm. This would date the text as transmitted by the oral tradition to the later centuries of the 1st-millennium BCE, and the first written version probably to the 2nd or 3rd century CE.

According to Jeaneane Fowler, "the dating of the Gita varies considerably" and depends in part on whether one accepts it to be a part of the early versions of the ''Mahabharata'', or a text that was inserted into the epic at a later date. The earliest "surviving" components therefore are believed to be no older than the earliest "external" references we have to the ''Mahabharata'' epic. The ''Mahabharata'' – the world's longest poem – is itself a text that was likely written and compiled over several hundred years, one dated between "400 BCE or little earlier, and 2nd century CE, though some claim a few parts can be put as late as 400 CE", states Fowler. The dating of the Gita is thus dependent on the uncertain dating of the ''Mahabharata''. The actual dates of composition of the Gita remain unresolved. While the year and century is uncertain, states Richard Davis, the internal evidence in the text dates the origin of the Gita discourse to the Hindu lunar month of ''Margashirsha'' (also called ''Agrahayana'', generally December or January of the Gregorian calendar).

Composition and significance

The Bhagavad Gita is the best known, and most influential of Hindu scriptures. While Hinduism is known for its diversity and its synthesis therefrom, the Bhagavad Gita has a unique pan-Hindu influence., Quote: "Its hagavadgita'simportance as a religious text is demonstrated by its uniquely pan-Hindu influence". Gerald James Larson – an Indologist and scholar of classical Hindu philosophy, states that "if there is any one text that comes near to embodying the totality of what it is to be a Hindu, it would be the Bhagavad Gita."

The Bhagavad Gita is part of the Prasthanatrayi, which also includes the Upanishads and Brahma sutras. These are the three starting points for the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy.NV Isaeva (1992), Shankara and Indian Philosophy, State University of New York Press, , p. 35 with footnote 30 The Brahma sutras constitute the ''Nyāya prasthāna'' or the "starting point of reasoning canonical base", while the principal Upanishads constitute the ''Sruti prasthāna'' or the "starting point of heard scriptures", and the Bhagavad Gita constitutes the ''Smriti prasthāna'' or the "starting point of remembered canonical base". The Bhagavad Gita is a "summation of the Vedanta", states Sargeant. It is thus one of the key texts for the Vedanta, a school that provides one of the theoretical foundations for Hinduism, and one that has had an enormous influence over time, becoming the central ideology of the Hindu renaissance in the 19th century, according to Gavin Flood – a scholar of Hinduism.

Some Hindus give it the status of an Upanishad, and some consider it to be a "revealed text". Others consider the Bhagavad Gita as an important Smriti, or secondary text that exist in alternate versions such as one found in Kashmir though it does not affect the basic message of the text.

Hindu synthesis

The Bhagavad Gita is the sealing achievement of the Hindu synthesis, incorporating its various religious traditions. The synthesis is at both philosophical and socio-religious levels, states the Gita scholar Keya Maitra. The text refrains from insisting on one right ''marga'' (path) to spirituality. It openly synthesizes and inclusively accepts multiple ways of life, harmonizing spiritual pursuits through action (''karma''), knowledge (''gyaana''), and devotion (''bhakti''). According to the Gita translator Radhakrishnan, quoted in a review by Robinson, Krishna's discourse is a "comprehensive synthesis" that inclusively unifies the competing strands of Hindu thought such as "Vedic ritual, Upanishadic wisdom, devotional theism and philosophical insight". Aurobindo described the text as a synthesis of various Yogas. The Indologist Robert Minor, and others, in contrast, state that the Gita is "more clearly defined as a synthesis of Vedanta, Yoga and Samkhya" philosophies of Hinduism.

The synthesis in Bhagavad Gita addresses the question of what constitutes the virtuous path that is necessary for spiritual liberation or release from the cycles of rebirth (''moksha''). It discusses whether one should renounce a householder lifestyle for a life as an ascetic, or lead a householder life dedicated to one's duty and profession, or pursue a householder life devoted to a personalized God in the revealed form of Krishna. Thus Gita discusses and synthesizes the three dominant trends in Hinduism: enlightenment-based renunciation, dharma-based householder life, and devotion-based theism. According to Deutsch and Dalvi, the Bhagavad Gita attempts "to forge a harmony" between these three paths.

The Bhagavad Gitas synthetic answer recommends that one must resist the "either-or" view, and consider a "both-and" view. It states that the dharmic householder can achieve the same goals as the renouncing monk through "inner renunciation" or "motiveless action". One must do the right thing because one has determined that it is right, states Gita, without craving for its fruits, without worrying about the results, loss or gain. Desires, selfishness, and the craving for fruits can distort one from spiritual living. The Gita synthesis goes further, according to its interpreters such as Swami Vivekananda, and the text states that there is Living God in every human being and the devoted service to this Living God in everyone – without craving for personal rewards – is a means to spiritual development and liberation. According to Galvin Flood, the teachings in the Gita differ from other Indian religions that encouraged extreme austerity and self-torture of various forms (''karsayanta''). The Gita disapproves of these, stating that not only is it against tradition but against Krishna himself, because "Krishna dwells within all beings, in torturing the body the ascetic would be torturing him", states Flood. Even a monk should strive for "inner renunciation" rather than external pretensions.

The Gita synthesizes several paths to spiritual realization based on the premise that people are born with different temperaments and tendencies (''guna''). According to Winthrop Sargeant, the text acknowledges that some individuals are more reflective and intellectual, some affective and engaged by their emotions, some are action driven, yet others favor experimentation and exploring what works. It then presents different spiritual paths for each personality type respectively: the path of knowledge (''jnana yoga''), the path of devotion (''bhakti yoga''), the path of action (''karma yoga''), and the path of meditation (''raja yoga''). The ''guna'' premise is a synthesis of the ideas from the Samkhya school of Hinduism. According to Upadhyaya, the Gita states that none of these paths to spiritual realization is "intrinsically superior or inferior", rather they "converge in one and lead to the same goal".

According to Hiltebeitel, ''Bhakti'' forms an essential ingredient of this synthesis, and the text incorporates ''Bhakti'' into ''Vedanta''. According to Scheepers, The Bhagavad Gita is a Brahmanical text which uses Shramanic and Yogic terminology to spread the Brahmanic idea of living according to one's duty or ''dharma'', in contrast to the ascetic ideal of liberation by avoiding all karma. According to Galvin Flood and Charles Martin, the Gita rejects the Shramanic path of non-action, emphasizing instead "the renunciation of the fruits of action". The Bhagavad Gita, according to Raju, is a great synthesis of impersonal spiritual monism with personal God, of "the ''yoga'' of action with the ''yoga'' of transcendence of action, and these again with the ''yogas'' of devotion and knowledge".

Manuscripts

The Bhagavad Gita manuscript is found in the sixth book of the ''Mahabharata'' manuscripts – the ''Bhisma-parvan''. Therein, in the third section, the Gita forms chapters 23–40, that is 6.3.23 to 6.3.40. The Bhagavad Gita is often preserved and studied on its own, as an independent text with its chapters renumbered from 1 to 18.

The Bhagavad Gita manuscripts exist in numerous Indic scripts. These include writing systems that are currently in use, as well as early scripts such as the now dormant Sharada script. Variant manuscripts of the Gita have been found on the Indian subcontinent Unlike the enormous variations in the remaining sections of the surviving ''Mahabharata'' manuscripts, the Gita manuscripts show only minor variations.

According to Gambhirananda, the old manuscripts may have had 745 verses, though he agrees that “700 verses is the generally accepted historic standard." Gambhirananda's view is supported by a few versions of chapter 6.43 of the ''Mahabharata''. According to Gita exegesis scholar Robert Minor, these versions state that the Gita is a text where "Kesava rishnaspoke 574 slokas, Arjuna 84, Sanjaya 41, and Dhritarashtra 1". An authentic manuscript of the Gita with 745 verses has not been found. Adi Shankara, in his 8th-century commentary, explicitly states that the Gita has 700 verses, which was likely a deliberate declaration to prevent further insertions and changes to the Gita. Since Shankara's time, "700 verses" has been the standard benchmark for the critical edition of the Bhagavad Gita.

Content

Structure

The Bhagavad Gita is a poem written in the Sanskrit language. Its 700 verses are structured into several ancient Indian poetic meters, with the principal being the ''shloka'' (''Anushtubh chanda''). It has 18 chapters in total. Each ''shloka'' consists of a couplet, thus the entire text consists of 1,400 lines. Each ''shloka'' has two quarter verses with exactly eight syllables. Each of these quarters is further arranged into two metrical feet of four syllables each. The metered verse does not rhyme. While the ''shloka'' is the principal meter in the Gita, it does deploy other elements of Sanskrit prosody. At dramatic moments, it uses the ''tristubh'' meter found in the Vedas, where each line of the couplet has two quarter verses with exactly eleven syllables.

Narrative

The Gita is a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna right before the start of the climactic Kurukshetra War in the Hindu epic ''Mahabharata''. Two massive armies have gathered to destroy each other. The Pandava prince Arjuna asks his charioteer Krishna to drive to the center of the battlefield so that he can get a good look at both the armies and all those "so eager for war". He sees that some among his enemies are his own relatives, beloved friends, and revered teachers. He does not want to fight to kill them and is thus filled with doubt and despair on the battlefield. He drops his bow, wonders if he should renounce and just leave the battlefield. He turns to his charioteer and guide Krishna, for advice on the rationale for war, his choices and the right thing to do. The Bhagavad Gita is the compilation of Arjuna's questions and moral dilemma and Krishna's answers and insights that elaborate on a variety of philosophical concepts. The compiled dialogue goes far beyond the "rationale for war"; it touches on many human ethical dilemmas, philosophical issues and life's choices. According to Flood and Martin, although the Gita is set in the context of a wartime epic, the narrative is structured to apply to all situations; it wrestles with questions about "who we are, how we should live our lives, and how should we act in the world". According to Sargeant, it delves into questions about the "purpose of life, crisis of self-identity, human Self, human temperaments, and ways for spiritual quest".

Characters

* Arjuna, one of the five Pandavas
* Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer and guru who was actually an incarnation of Vishnu
* Sanjaya, counselor of the Kuru king Dhritarashtra (secondary narrator)
* Dhritarashtra, Kuru king (Sanjaya's audience) and father of the Kauravas

Chapters

Bhagavad Gita comprises 18 chapters (section 23 to 40) in the Bhishma Parva of the epic ''Mahabharata''. Because of differences in recensions, the verses of the Gita may be numbered in the full text of the ''Mahabharata'' as chapters 6.25–42 or as chapters 6.23–40. The number of verses in each chapter vary in some manuscripts of the Gita discovered on the Indian subcontinent. However, variant readings are relatively few in contrast to the numerous versions of the ''Mahabharata'' it is found embedded in.

The original Bhagavad Gita has no chapter titles. Some Sanskrit editions that separate the Gita from the epic as an independent text, as well as translators, however, add chapter titles.see For example, Swami Chidbhavananda describes each of the eighteen chapters as a separate yoga because each chapter, like yoga, "trains the body and the mind". He labels the first chapter "Arjuna Vishada Yogam" or the "Yoga of Arjuna's Dejection". Sir Edwin Arnold