Bhagavad Gita

First published:Bhagavadgita, 200 b.c.e.-200 c.e. (The Bhagavad Gita, 1785)

Type of Philosophy: Ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, Hinduism

Authorship and Context

Although the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita cannot be traced to an individual, someone inserted the Bhagavad Gita into the Mahabharata, an ancient and highly popular Indian Hindu epic. The Mahabharata, which consists of some 180,000 lines, is the product of a process of oral transmission and was probably written down by 400 b.c.e. The title means the great story of the Bharatas, and it recounts the tale of the Kauravas (depicted as demons incarnate) and the Pandavas (depicted as sons of gods or as gods incarnate). The Kauravas and the Pandavas are cousins fighting one another for the Bharata kingdom with the latter enjoying the advice and support of Krishna (who is depicted as the god Vishnu incarnate). The Mahabharata describes itself as the fifth Veda, the Vedas being viewed as eternal, unauthored schruti (spoken revelation) or authoritative scripture. Unlike the four other Vedas, the Mahabharata was available to the poor, the low caste, and the uneducated as well as to the affluent, the high caste, and the learned; it was also available to women as well as to men. Its focus--at least on one very plausible reading, is bhakti (devotion) to Vishnu or Krishna.

The Bhagavad Gita (the song of the blessed lord) became part of the great Indian epic and shared in its popularity. Strictly, it is not officially schruti or scripture according to the Hindu Vedantic tradition, but smriti--a remembered, traditional text. Not only is its author unknown; some scholars believe that the work had multiple authors. Nonetheless, its practical status is that it is a fully authoritative Hindu text. It is highly popular among ordinary believers, and it is nearly mandatory that the leading Vedantic scholars comment on it. Thus Samkara, Ramanuja, and Mahdva--leading scholars in different Hindu schools of thought--all wrote commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. Its relative brevity--some seven hundred verses--makes it easy to separate from the Mahabharata as a devotional text with its own powerful influence.

The Bhagavad Gita is a mainstream text in the Hindu religious tradition in which reincarnation and karma are basic assumptions. This tradition is based on two basic assumptions: that every person is subject to the law of karma and that every person is subject to a beginningless and potentially endless cycle of reincarnation. The law of karma guarantees that each person will reap the benefits and suffer the costs of his or her actions; good actions yield benefits and bad actions yield costs. The benefits and costs do not all come in any one lifetime, and whenever one dies with benefits or costs due to one, one must be born into a new life with a new body and receive the benefits and costs still due from past lives. It is difficult but possible in a given lifetime to have suffered all the costs due to one, to avoid wrong actions, to have received all the benefits, and to perform good actions without concern for their effects (and thereby avoiding generating benefits). Thus it is possible to die without benefits or costs remaining due to one, in which case one escapes the cycle of reincarnation, which is the goal of religious belief and practice.

Salvation is conceived in terms of escape from the cycle of reincarnations and freedom from all karmic benefits and costs. In monotheistic Indian religions, the supreme being can release one from the cycle of rebirths given one's repentance of wrong actions and trust in the supreme being's grace. One's body, in this view, is merely the vehicle that one takes through the course of a given life, to be left behind at death and replaced by another body that is one's vehicle in the next life. One way in which one's karmic benefits and costs can bear fruit is in the quality of the vehicle in which one takes the next ride, specifically in features such as the health, strength, and beauty of one's body and more significantly, the caste into which one is born.

The Bhagavad Gita examines some of the tenets of Hinduism through the characters of Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna is a member of the warrior class; it is his caste duty to participate in a war that his community is waging. However, Arjuna--dressed for battle and observing his army and the enemy forces gather for conflict--is himself unwilling to fight because he has relatives on both sides. He may well be called upon to kill some family member that he loves. Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer, argues that Arjuna's duty is to fight. Even if he kills a relative, he merely destroys that person's body. The real person will not die. Each person must do his duty as defined by his caste; only this will further his progress to liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Not inactivity, but disinterested activity done as sacrifice to God and in accord with the duties that are consequent on one's status in society, lead to escape from the cycle of reincarnation. This doctrine involves the idea that it is desire for consequences that keeps one attached to this world and the notion that detachment is essential to escape. This is also occurs in the Buddhist tradition.

Disinterested right action is one among several suggested ways to liberate the self from reincarnation. Another suggested path is asceticism, which, in one of its more extreme forms, might require wandering through India clad only in a loin cloth with a beggar's bowl as one's only other possession, eating only what one is given. Less austere versions involved abstinence from all sexual activity, no use of alcoholic beverages, and dedication to meditation. Still another path is that of esoteric knowledge gained from learning the language in which the sacred texts are written and studying those texts under the guidance of recognized pundits. Neither of these paths, of course, are likely to be attractive or available to most people. The path that Krishna recommends does not require a change of caste, a forsaking of family or society, a lifetime of scholarship, an embracing of impoverished asceticism, or membership in a separate sacred society.

Another path is that of devotion--trust in the supreme being's gracious willingness to forgive the repentant sinner. This path is not difficult to combine with the path of disinterested good action, particularly insofar as one's failures are at least in principle forgivable. This path is, of course, monotheistic--it requires that a god exists and can be prayed to, is willing to forgive a repentant sinner, and to release the devotee from karmic consequences and the cycle of reincarnations--to provide enlightenment in the form of salvation from karma and rebirth.

Given its popularity, it is not surprising that the various religious and philosophical traditions provide interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita that accord with their own fundamental tenets. Two major readings of the Bhagavad Gita's content derive from the Advaita Vedanta, which sees the work as a monistic text, and the Vsistadvaita and Dvaita Vedanta, which see it as a theistic text.

Advaita (nondual) Vedanta offers a monistic reading of the Vedas and Upanishads, which serve as the central doctrinal scriptures of Hinduism. A monistic view of the world holds that there is one kind of thing and only one thing of that kind. All that exists is nirguna ("not quality," or "qualityless") Brahman. While admittedly there seems to be a plurality of things, all of them possessing qualities, how things seem is held to be illusion, and the reality is that there is only qualityless Brahman. There are passages in the Bhagavad Gita that seem to teach this.

Vsistadvaita (qualifiedly nondual) Vedanta holds that Brahman has qualities and is distinct from all else in the sense that Brahman with qualities could exist in the absence of all else. It also regards the world (the things that exist and are not Brahman) as Brahman's body. Dvaita (dualistic) Vedanta also holds that Brahman possesses qualities, but it denies that the world is properly said to be Brahman's body. It is not clear that in the end the doctrinal differences between Vsistadvaita Vedanta and Dvaita Vedanta are as deep as they may seem, but it is quite clear that they are much closer to one another than either is to Advaita Vedanta. For example, each is theistic rather than monistic. For both, Brahman has qualities, is an appropriate object of worship, and can and does answer prayer, forgive sins, and provide release from the reincarnation cycle. Brahman is not viewed as qualityless. There are Bhagavad Gita passages that seem to teach that the theistic view of Brahman is correct.

The Bhagavad Gita is often interpreted as a text intended to bring about a synthesis of competing religious positions and to make religious enlightenment available to everyone rather than simply to monks or Brahmans. If so, this puts certain features of the work into a different perspective. For example, the work contains both monistic and theistic passages, so it appears that the Bhagavad Gita teaches contradictory doctrines. However, if the text aims at synthesis and making enlightenment widely available, then another interpretation of this apparent contradiction may be correct. Although the assertion of these two logically incompatible doctrines cannot be termed synthesis, a doctrine that says that monism is true but those who embrace theism come as close to the truth as they are able and they too will receive enlightenment (or the reverse case), would provide a synthesis of means of salvation without proposing that contradictions are true. Of course, monists will interpret the Bhagavad Gita as stating that monists receive enlightenment by seeing the truth and theists receive enlightenment in spite of not doing so, and theists will interpret the work as stating that theists receive enlightenment by seeing the truth and monists receive enlightenment in spite of not doing so, but through these ideas, the presence of contradictory passages is explained. The theistic version of this sort of reading has at least one advantage: It can explain how false belief can still lead to enlightenment (God's grace is deep) whereas it is hard to see what sort of explanation monism could give of false belief leading to enlightenment. This suggests that perhaps, in the end, the Bhagavad Gita is a fundamentally theistic text.

OVERVIEW

The Bhagavad Gita, the most revered text in Hinduism, literally means the "song of the blessed lord." The spiritual poem consists of the god-incarnate Krishna's discourse with a despondent warrior, Arjuna. Throughout the discourse, the Bhagavad Gita attempts to synthesize the various ideas in the Hindu philosophy of its time into its own brand of theism. Yet, in spite of its philosophical profundity, it remains a delightfully easy-to-read poem with an almost lyrical beauty. This is one important reason for its appeal to people of all levels of understanding.

Composed of eighteen chapters, the Bhagavad Gita is a small part of the popular Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, which is believed to have been an orally transmitted text written down about 400 b.c.e. The epic, one of the Vedas (authoritative scripture), was available to the poor and members of the lower caste. A tale of cousins fighting for the Bharata kingdom, it emphasizes bhakti (devotion) to Vishnu or Krishna.

The Hindu Tradition

To understand the Bhagavad Gita's importance in the Hindu tradition requires some familiarity with dominant trends and ideas in Hinduism. Broadly speaking, the Hindu tradition makes a distinction between the pursuit of God as the personified supreme being, to be reached primarily through devotion, and the mystical quest for the undifferentiated One. In the latter, monistic, tradition, it is believed that any characterization of the supreme reality, including identifying it as God with his various attributes in their perfection, is an attempt to impose limitations on the absolute, which is beyond name and form. The supremely real is to be known through an exalted type of direct intuitive awareness that transcends all relativity and conceptual limitations. In ancient India, this view was taught in the Upanishads, which asserted an identity between a person's true self (atman). According to this philosophy, a mystical, nondiscursive knowledge of such an identity is the ultimate experience of one's life. Such a realization liberates one from material bondage.

A seeker of God in theistic Hinduism, on the other hand, strives for God-realization through self-surrender, devoted service, and rituals. This seeker sees God as the supreme person with many-splendored attributes who never lets a devotee down. This view finds its most definitive expression in the philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, composed at a time when the Hindu religion was trying to make a comeback with its own answer to the Buddha's practical philosophy. The Buddha's emergence had been made possible mainly because of the post-Upanishadic slump in the Hindu tradition. At that time, the common people were bewildered by the excesses of the Vedic sacrificial ritualism and by the all-too-nebulous metaphysical teachings of self-realization (atma-jnana) as found in the Upanishads. What they needed and were looking for was a practical guide to everyday living and a philosophy of salvation understandable in human terms, which they found in the Buddha and, a few centuries later, in a resurgence of Hinduism, made possible through the popular appeal of the Bhagavad Gita and through the emergence of the dharma texts, which contained systematic explanations of household and social duties.

The Bhagavad Gita emphasized the element of loving devotion (bhakti) to a personal God. As opposed to the Vedic hierarchy, the promise of salvation was offered to all people who would put their faith in Krishna. The importance of self-knowledge was deemphasized but not denied; rather, such knowledge was to be blended with selfless action and devotion. The Bhagavad Gita found meaning in diverse spiritual orientations and put them together into its own broad conception of religious quest, thereby making its philosophy appeal to a wide range of people.

Krishna and Arjuna

The Bhagavad Gita's story is set in the dramatic context of a war in which the good and the evil sides are clearly marked. Krishna, the human-incarnate of the Hindu god Vishnu, is the charioteer of Arjuna, who is the most gifted warrior on the good side that is destined to overcome the evil forces. When the two sides are about to engage in the war, Arjuna, realizing that the war means killing some of his own relatives and benefactors who are members of the other side, becomes dejected and refuses to fight. In order to advise Arjuna that he should do what must be done, Krishna gives a sermon that constitutes the body of the Bhagavad Gita. The dramatic setting of the story in the battlefield is highly symbolic, suggestive of the spiritual struggle of a human soul in which Arjuna, the confused self, looks for an excuse to withdraw from the battle, but Krishna, the divine in humanity, charioteers the soul.

To get Arjuna back to his task, Krishna starts his teaching with the Sāmkhya idea that a person's true self, which is the soul, is eternal and indestructible. The initial thrust of his message is to persuade Arjuna to get out of his despondency; hence, some of Krishna's points, at this stage, are meant more as persuasive appeals than as spiritual insights. Accordingly, the idea that a person's true self is eternal is used, to start with, to convince Arjuna that he should not be perturbed by the prospect of the mere physical death he might cause people to undergo; after all, their souls are indestructible. Although this ploy seems to be a rationalization for killing, it should be understood in its proper perspective. Arjuna is faced with a crisis of resolve: He is rightfully assigned to do something that he now finds unnerving, improper, and distasteful. To show him the importance of doing his duty (svadharma) and of not being swayed by external considerations in the face of what must be done, Krishna teaches him how to accept the inevitable in the right spirit.

The rightness of Arjuna's fighting the battle, because he is a warrior by caste, is not really in question. It was already decided that to fight was the only right and honorable option available to Arjuna and his clan. Arjuna's last-minute self-doubt and his consequent decision not to fight are, then, indications of failure of nerve and weakness of resolve on his part. As a result, it is Krishna's task to see that Arjuna comes out of his confusion and secures the necessary strength to do what must be done. Being Arjuna's guru and a shrewd judge of human character, Krishna knows that a confused person like Arjuna who is in need of help will not be impressed by a reasoned discourse on the rightness of a proposed course of actions or by a gospel of spiritual wisdom. Rather, what he needs is some reassurance and practical persuasions. Accordingly, Krishna tries to provide them both by using, almost to the point of sophistry, the deeply cherished Hindu ideas of the imperishability of soul and the inevitability of death and reincarnation. He also tries to appeal to Arjuna's honor by reminding him of his caste duty to fight a just war and by citing the possible consequence of his being branded as a coward if he backs out of the battle at the last moment.

Gradually, however, Krishna takes Arjuna to progressively higher planes of awakening by leaving out sophistry and the appeal to his base emotions and by providing more substantive discourses on human nature, life's goal, and God. This practical teaching procedure, in which the teacher comes down to the disciple's level and then gradually takes him to a deeper understanding of the issues commensurate with his ability, is a standard feature in a guru-disciple relationship in Hinduism. In such teaching, many of the earlier points of persuasion, meant to take one out of one's spiritual lethargy, are to be ignored or grown out of in a later phase of realization. Krishna's initial effort to make Arjuna come back to his senses, together with his later offering of more profound discourses, serves as an excellent demonstration of this progressive teaching technique.

It is seemingly ironic that the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the most definitive texts on love and nonviolence, starts with an apparent rationalization for killing. However, the irony disappears when it is understood that Arjuna is not really given a lesson on killing but is told to differentiate between real love and false compassion, to understand death and not be afraid of it, and to realize that there is much more to a person than his fleeting nature and perishable body--namely, his undying soul that is divine in nature. Because these points are presented in the context of a battle and in the initial guise of the advice to kill, they illustrate the real-life import of the teachings and dramatize the importance of spiritual serenity in the midst of unnerving situations. Like the progressive teaching method, the advocacy of spirituality in juxtaposition to material concerns is another technique in the Hindu tradition.

Detachment

In order to emphasize the need for even-mindedness as a prelude to having control over oneself in the midst of action and hence to being able to better perform action, Krishna moves on to a discourse of detachment in action. In the course of his teaching, it becomes clear that such detachment is not only necessary if one is to be unperturbed by extraneous considerations while performing action, but also if one is to attain purity of soul and conquest of passion and ego-consciousness. These in turn are said to be conducive to spiritual liberation (moksha), humanity's ultimate salvation.

Krishna initially develops the idea of detachment by elaborating on the nature of work and its "fruit" (phala). He advocates right attitude toward work to avoid its inherent bondage and illustrates the fundamental difference between eternal, nonactive human souls and transient, ever-active matter, which is the real locus of action. Perhaps the most celebrated account of detachment in any Hindu scripture is contained in the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna asks Arjuna to set his heart only on his work and never on its fruit or result. A person who is moved by success or failure, Arjuna is told, is not an even-minded person settled in wisdom. To be mentally detached from one's work one need not renounce work or be indifferent to what must be done; rather, one is asked to be indifferent to the fruits of one's action. That is, after taking utmost care to do what is right, one must not worry or be apprehensive about the results, for, according to Krishna, one has access only to one's work, not to its results.

In the later chapters, Krishna points out that the results of work must be surrendered to God as sacrifice; any outcome must be acceptable as God's gift. The emergence of the totality of God in the Bhagavad Gita is a gradual but sure one: It starts in chapter 4 and goes on until chapter 15, climaxing in the eleventh chapter where Krishna reveals his divine form to Arjuna in all its terrifying majesty. These chapters contain discourses on God's nature, the nature of soul and matter and their relation to God, and, above all, the importance of loving self-devotion to God. They also dwell on the idea of work in the spirit of sacrifice as a means to detachment.

The Vedas prescribed undertaking sacrificial rituals to obtain the desirables from the gods. The Upanishads deemphasized the rituals, substituting inward subjective quest in their place. The Bhagavad Gita reintroduced the notion of sacrifice, but not in the Vedic sense. If work cannot be avoided because the world is sustained by work, and yet if attachment to its fruit creates fetters (karma), then the way out, according to the Bhagavad Gita, is through a detached performance of one's work where God is the object to whom the result is offered as sacrifice. The cardinal teaching in the Bhagavad Gita seems to be that doing one's work in the right spirit, as sacrifice, involves an integrated discipline (yoga) of action, knowledge, and, above all, devotion, and that such a yoga not only enables one to undertake activities without anxiety for gain and safety but also is a spiritual exercise that takes one closer to God.

Divine Incarnation

Accompanying the idea of personal devotion in the Bhagavad Gita is the notion of divine incarnation (avataravada). In chapter 4, Krishna declares that whenever righteousness declines and lawlessness arises, he appears in this world in human form to set things right. This idea is especially important to a devotee because it provides a personal touch to one of the persistent themes of the Bhagavad Gita, which is that God's laws are moral laws and whoever strives to establish righteousness (dharma) is actually doing God's service and is dear to him. It reveals that God is concerned about what goes on in his creation, and, therefore, it conveys hope to the faithful. In the context of this declaration, it makes all the more sense why Arjuna is asked to engage in action to uphold righteousness, and why, in the Bhagavad Gita, so much emphasis is placed on the importance of devoted performance of righteous work, in the spirit of sacrifice, as the preferred means to God-realization.

The idea of divine incarnation, popular among the Hindus, has helped them view all prophets of all religions as fulfilling the divine promise, and thus it has made them generally tolerant toward other religions. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita itself champions this attitude: Throughout the gradual unfolding of the supremacy and priority of God, Krishna repeatedly mentions that whenever one shows devotion to God in whatever form, God responds to one in the same manner. Although the Bhagavad Gita favors an integrated yoga of devotion that is to be carried through wisdom and proper action, it leaves room for other forms of devotion; and, what is more, it also acknowledges paths to spiritual freedom even without devotion. In chapter 12, Krishna admits that the seekers of wisdom who strive after the Upanishadic "Unmanifest" also reach God; but he thinks that the path of devotion to a personal God is an easier one. However, he declares that if the Bhagavad Gita's preferred path is not suitable for someone, then that person should resort to another method.

The Bhagavad Gita repeatedly asserts the fundamental difference between one's true self, which is one's soul and which is nonactive by nature, and the ever-active material nature (prakrti) that forms one's body and mind (the subtle body). However, the Bhagavad Gita avoids a Sāmkhya-type dualism, which is the basis of the later philosophy of the yoga, by postulating a personified absolute being, God, who manifests himself both in selves and matter (which are parts of him) and yet remains distinct from them in power and personality. Isvara, the personal god who is symbolized as Lord Vishnu and whose incarnate is Krishna, is the creative aspect of this supreme being; it is through Isvara that God creates and sustains the world and dwells in everything. Brahman, the Upanishadic absolute, is said to be the unmanifest form of the Bhagavad Gita's God, the supreme person (purusottama), yet the Bhagavad Gita insists that God is more than all his forms.

Consistent with this position that asserts the supremacy of God over everything else, the Bhagavad Gita makes God the abode of Brahman. Philosophical difficulties aside, what is clearly evident in these characterizations is an attempt to meet the Upanishadic challenge by making a personified absolute being the foundation of all possible beings, including the one immutable Brahman, and by making devotion not only a viable but also the most important path to the realization of this highest reality. The Bhagavad Gita's whole idea is to demonstrate that love of God, so far from being just a convenient device disposable at the dawn of knowledge, is also the very anchor of such knowledge, which, without it, is inadequate.

Additional Reading

Carr, Brian, and Indira Mahalingham, eds. Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1997. First-rate presentation of Indian philosophy, and Asian philosophy generally, including the context of the Bhagavad Gita.

Deutsch, Elliot. The Bhagavad Gita. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968. Translation, with introduction, of the Bhagavad Gita.

Lipner, Joseph. The Face of Truth. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. Excellent account of Ramanuja's Vsistadvaita theology and philosophy.

Mahadevan, T. P. The Philosophy of Advaita. Wiltshire: Compton Russell, 1997. Highly recommended study of Samkara's Advaita Vedanta perspective.

Sharma, B. N. K. Philosophy of Sri Madhvacarya. Delhi: Motilal Barnasidas, 1986. Excellent study of Madhva's Dvaita Vedanta philosophy and theology.

Yandell, Keith E. "On Interpreting the Bhagavad Gita." Philosophy East and West 32, no. 1 (January, 1982): 37-46.