The Bhagavad-Gita

Gita is the highest expression of philosophical Hinduism. It is a chapter of the immense Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the saga of the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Arjuna, hero of the Pandavas, is about to confront the army of the Kauravas on the battlefield of Kuruksetra. Among the opposing army are his friends and relatives. Convinced that it would be wrong to kill his own kinsmen, Arjuna is overcome by despair. He lays down his bow and declares that he will not fight. God Vishnu, incarnated as the charioteer Krishna, explains that Arjuna should do his duty (Dharma) and do battle. The human soul, which is part of the universal soul, is immortal - therefore no one is actually slain. If people perform the duties appropriate to their station, without attachment to success or failure, then they cannot be stained by action. The rest of the poem provides the full philosophy underlying this insight. The essence of karma yoga and of self-abnegation through yoga of renunciation as well as yoga of meditation, mysticism and devotion are discussed in eighteen chapters as conversation between Arjuna and Krishna. Detached action along with the fruits of this action is consecrated to God and this forms the basis of karma yoga. Bhagavad-Gita teaches the causation and the effects of karma and how to deal with its manifestations. It also teaches that the human being has a free will that permits him to make intelligent choices, which in turn may alter the manifestation of the karma. The ultimate goal of every Hindu is to reduce the bad karma that he may have to carry with him into his next cycle of birth.

The Gita is variously dated between the third century B.C.E. and the fourth century C.E. The reason for uncertainty is that the Gita is not always consistent and may be the work of several hands. A follower of the philosophy expressed in the Upanishads probably wrote one strand, in which Brahmana/Brahmin is the highest unity underlying reality. A devotee of the supreme god Vishnu may have added another strand, focused on a more personal deity, later. The Gita may originally have been written as a separate document and later incorporated into the Mahabharata.

God is in all things, and all things are in God. But the visible universe springs from only a fraction of Vishnu’s glory. There is also a hidden part of God, which extends beyond the universe.

Nevertheless, the Gita contains probably the most powerful and thoroughgoing expression of pantheism in world scripture. The one God is the pinnacle of all things – the radiant sun of lights, the thought organ of sense organs, the intellect of beings, the ocean of waters, the Himalayas of mountain ranges, the Ganges of rivers. He is also the inherent essence of everything - including evil. He is the gambling of rogues, the courage of the courageous, the rod of disciplinarians, and the statecraft of politicians, the Knowledge of the knowing.