← Wisdom Library
c. 200 BCE – 200 CE (as embedded in the Mahabharata)

The Bhagavad Gita

A 700-verse philosophical dialogue on a battlefield — Arjuna's crisis of conscience and Krishna's response, arguably India's most widely read text on ethics and action.

Introduction

Embedded within the sixth book of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita stages its entire philosophical argument inside a single dramatic moment: the warrior Arjuna, facing kinsmen and teachers arrayed on the opposing side of an unavoidable war, lowers his bow and refuses to fight. What follows is not a battle scene but an extended dialogue with his charioteer Krishna on duty, action, grief, and the nature of the self — read for millennia as much for its psychology of decision-making under moral conflict as for its theology.

Key Themes

  • ✦Nishkama karma — action without attachment to results
  • ✦Svadharma — the ethics of one's particular role and circumstance
  • ✦Sthitaprajna — the person of steady wisdom
  • ✦Multiple paths (jnana, bhakti, karma) to the same end

Recommended Translations

  • —Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita (Nilgiri Press) — accessible entry point
  • —Winthrop Sargeant, The Bhagavad Gita — word-by-word Sanskrit gloss for close readers