The Bhagavad Gita

Inspiring and disturbing. There are passages of beauty and insight. There are long descriptions of an obscure cosmology. And there are passages whose purpose seems to be social control: the perpetuation of a culture of war and exploitation. Consider these lines, from Krishna's side of the dialogue: "but he whose mind dwells beyond attachment...though he slay these thousands, he is no slayer" and "if I did not continue to work untiringly as I do...The result would be caste-mixture and universal destruction."

I understand that the Gita has been interpreted as an allegory. In such interpretations, the battlefield represents the struggle in the mind between good and evil, and the castes aren't the basis of a rigid social system, just show more inherent abilities. But after reading the Gita myself, those interpretations are hard to accept as the original intent of this work. show less

I've seen many translations of the Gita that lose themselves in minutiae... they try to accurately translate and explain every single subtle concept of Hindu philosophy, and, in doing so, make the actual main message hard to follow. I've started so many translations of the Gita and given up part-way through because I couldn't really connect it all together.

This is the first time I've read a translation all the way through and could confidently tell you what the core message was, and how that core message continues, emphasizes and repeats across the text.

I'm giving it 5 stars for being the only translation I've ever read that has left a full, easy to understand, coherent, straightforward theme in my mind.

Well, I’ve seen the movie and I’ve read the “book” some time in the past. I remember buying the book at Tyrell’s Bookshop on George Street Sydney in 1958...one of my first purchases of “serious books” and I did read it then. But it absolutely went over my head. Yes, I got the battlefield stuff but not the mystical dimensions of the conversation ...even though I was into mysticism at that stage. And, to be clear, this is a review of the Blinkist summary of the Bhagavada-gita. I’m not reviewing the full book. But I’ve found these Blinkist summaries to be exceptionally good at extracting the main essence of a book.
What jumped out at me from my reading this time is the blatant way that duty to the secular powers is show more emphasised over duty to family. And my reaction was : “Well the ruling elite would say that wouldn’t they?”
I get the feeling that our fairy stories in the western tradition, and many similar cultural traditions in other regions are very much about cementing the position of the elite and keeping the workers from getting “ideas above their station”. Anyway, I’ve extracted a few segments that encapsulate the story, below: “
The battlefield that Arjuna surveys at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita is called Kurukshetra, about a hundred miles north of today’s New Delhi.....The work recounts one episode of a larger story. That story is told in the 200,000-verse epic known as the Mahabharata, which recounts the civil war in the ancient kingdom of Bharata in today’s northern India......It starts with the death of Bharata’s king. Two camps form around his potential successors. On one side is the king’s younger brother, Pandu; on the other, his older brother, Dhritarashtra,
Both camps rush to assemble allies across India, and both court Krishna, the ruler of a kingdom with links to both sides.....Ajuna recruits Krishna as his charioteer but when he sees the opposing ranks of soldiers, Arjuna loses all appetite for battle. A wave of despair sweeps over him and he casts his famous bow to one side. It’s at this point that one of the most important dialogues in the religious and philosophical history of India–and the world–begins. It falls to Arjuna’s charioteer, Krishna, to persuade Arjuna to overcome his doubts.
Krishna, though, is an incarnation of the Supreme Lord.....What he tells Arjuna goes to the heart of what it means to live and die–and the truth of the universe.
Arjuna never doubted the righteousness of the Pandavas’ cause–until the day of the battle.
“Oh, what a crime we are about to commit,” he says, “from our desire to enjoy kingship, we are ready to kill our kinsmen.”.....His taste for battle gone, he throws aside his bow and slumps into the chariot.....If the Pandavas are to triumph, they need Arjuna, so Krishna tries to persuade him to take up his arms again..He succeeds:
But the hundreds of lines of verse spoken by Krishna before that add up to much more than an ad-hoc pep talk for a doubtful soldier. “What is the reason for your distress?” asks Krishna.......Arjuna's mind is spinning and his body trembles, but he's able to formulate an answer.....He identifies two causes. The first is psychological: he's overcome by horror and grief.....The second is moral: Arjuna doesn't understand how to fulfill his duties.......It's his duty to engage in battle. But he's also obliged to protect his family......Krishna's answer
A learned person, he says, "does not grieve over those who are dead......the dead do not cease to exist. Our essential spirits-our souls-exist before we are born and continue existing after we die.....The warrior only extinguishes the bodies of the men he kills in battle-their souls remain untouched.....[This is always a comforting thought ..and we carry the same sort of tradition in Christian society when we talk of the soul living on in heaven (hopefully) after death...and being able to “catch-up” when we are reunited in heaven. Seems rather dodgy idea to me]. ....Arjuna's duty as a male member of the warrior class to fight in righteous battle trumps his obligations to his family.
Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism-the three great religious offshoots of this intellectual tradition-don't see the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in positive terms.....For these religions, the material world is illusory......The aim of existence is to achieve a form of consciousness that penetrates divine and eternal truths-truths transcending this world.
How, the Bhagavad Gita asks, can we relate to the divine?.....It is contained in a single Sanskrit word: bhakti, which means,,,,"devotion."....The path of devotion, Krishna tells Arjuna, is selfless: the devotee's obligation is to the act of devotion, not its fruits....[It sounds very much like the local elite ..especially the king wold be very supportive of this view]. Over the course of the dialogue contained in the Bhagavad Gita, it becomes clear that Krishna is that worthy recipient......The revelation of Krishna's divinity begins when Krishna tells his unsuspecting friend that he has taught everything he is about to teach Arjuna many times before......Many eons ago, he says, he taught them to the Sun, the first man, and the first king of the solar dynasty.......Both Krishna and Arjuna have "gone through many births,"
Krishna, by contrast, chooses to enter into this cycle. He can do this, we learn, because he is divine.....a manifestation of a deity in bodily form on Earth.[sound very like the idea of Christ being divine and human]....He is the Supreme Being.
How does one devote oneself to such a god?.....The discipline of devotion, Krishna answers, involves both action and knowledge.....It isn't the action that's important, but the mindset of the person performing it....."If a person sees me in everything, and sees everything in me," Krishna tells Arjuna, "I will not disappear from that person”.....[It also sounds like the ultimate escape clause....because if the God doesn’t grant you your wishes, then, clearly, you had the wrong attitude].
The destroyer of worlds....Arjuna sees Krishna as an infinite assemblage of arms and eyes, bellies and mouths, stretching out in all directions to fill the whole universe......But the vision isn't over. As Arjuna trembles, Krishna morphs into a world-destroying fire.....Arjuna now sees all the sons and soldiers of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, the two leaders of the armies assembled on the plains of Kurukshetra, rushing headlong into Krishna's infinite mouth.....like moths rush into blazing fire........Arjuna cries out: What kind of God is this? "I am Time," says Krishna,......"powerful destroyer of worlds, [the phrase immortalised by Oppenheimer when the first atomic bomb was exploded]...... grown immense here to annihilate these men."
Krishna is absolute in two senses: he is the creator and the annihilator of all life....It is the Supreme Lord, not the contending armies of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, who will decide the outcome of the battle.......Krishna now commands Arjuna: go and conquer your enemies
Understanding that he is nothing but an instrument of divine will, Arjuna picks up his bow and resolves to fight. Everything has already been decided; all he can do is his duty. [In Christian/Muslim terms this is predestination..... God has already determined all the outcomes].
Final summary: One of Hinduism's most important texts centres on a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and the god Krishna, who serves as his charioteer.
On the battlefield, Arjuna experiences a moral crisis about fighting in the war. Krishna imparts spiritual wisdom and guidance on duty, righteousness, and the nature of the self, ultimately revealing his divine form, and emphasizing the importance of selfless action and devotion.
What’s my final take on the book. Well, I’m really impressed with the Blinkist summary. I think they do a remarkable job of condensation and extraction of the main messages. But have great reservations about the “truth” of the message, I have the uncomfortable feeling that it’s like many of the other myths and teachings around the world. They seem to always re-enforce the position of the elites and lock the peasants into doing their duty to the local king.....where duty means paying taxes and dying in wars of succession etc.
Five stars from me. show less

The Bhagavad-Gita, subtitled, Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War, if taken literally, is a little difficult to abide with. A young prince, Arjuna, is on a battlefield, but sees “no good in killing my kinsmen in battle”, and thus lays down his arms. This seems like a very good and enlightened thing to do. However, the lord Krishna, in the form of his charioteer, then instructs him through various teachings that it’s his sacred duty to fight, that he must do so, and in the end Arjuna agrees; his “delusion is destroyed”, something we may have difficulty accepting.

Along the way Krishna flexes his might, pointing out in one chapter that among other things he is Vishnu, Shiva, the Ganges, “the thunderbolt among weapons”, death, show more “indestructible time”, “the dice game of gamblers”, “everywhere at once”, “the beginning, middle, and end of creations”, etc etc. This heavy-handed commanding of Arjuna, similar to God in the Old Testament with Abraham and Job, is also off-putting at first glance.

One asks, how can this be a spiritual book, versus an alternate story which might have Arjuna remaining a nonviolent pacifist to the very end, accepting whatever punishment from this overbearing God that resulted?

One must read the Gita as countless others have throughout history, as a parable. I believe the “time of war” is the war within one’s own heart in times of difficulty, which are inescapable in life; the enemies one must kill are the desires and attachments which lead to suffering. The way to overcome these is through discipline and a sense of detachment from one’s emotions. This includes losing one’s fear even of death, since it is inevitable for all things, and in fulfilling one’s sacred duties (one’s Dhama) without regard for rewards or consequences. It takes discipline and a steadfastness to do this, but it’s through these means that one can have a tranquil mind, and transcend the limitations of worldly existence.

I believe the reason Krishna “flexes his muscles” in the text is to remind us that these things we feel, these powerful emotions which seem so important and like the entire world to us when we feel them, are nothing when compared against the eternity of time and the infinity of space. When put in that context, one sees that we shouldn’t concentrate on them, that they (and we ourselves) are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but we can ironically use this knowledge to become stronger, and to overcome suffering.

Doing one’s sacred duty may in fact require one to be nonviolent, and it’s notable that Gandhi and other spiritual men have appreciated the Gita. As Thomas Merton wrote: “Arjuna has an instinctive repugnance for war, and that is the chief reason why war is chosen as the example of the most repellent kind of duty. The Gita is saying that even in what appears to be the most ‘unspiritual’, one can act with pure intentions and thus be guided by Krishna consciousness. This consciousness itself will impose the most strict limitations on one’s own use of violence because that use will not be directed by one’s own selfish interests, still less by cruelty, sadism, and blood-lust.”

It’s an impressive text at 2200-2500 years old, and also poetic. I still recall reading the line “I see…the moon and sun in your eyes” while camping in Yosemite National Park long ago, and thinking of it as recently as this past week. Oppenheimer is famous for having quoted the Gita when he saw the first nuclear test: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. I don’t think it’s necessarily the pinnacle of philosophical or religious works, but it is profound and certainly worth reading.

Quotes:
On doing one’s duty, without regard for the results; just doing it:
“Be intent on action,
Not on the fruits of action;
Avoid attraction to the fruits
And attachment to inaction!”

On enlightenment:
“Truly free is the sage who controls
His senses, mind, and understanding,
Who focuses on freedom
And dispels desire, fear, and anger.”

On love:
“O Arjuna, only by the
unswerving love of a human heart,
can my supreme state be seen,
and known, and attained.” show less

Easwaran’s best-selling translation of the Bhagavad Gita is reliable, readable, and profound. His 55-page introduction places the Gita in its historical context, presents key concepts, and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. This edition includes chapter introductions, notes and a Sanskrit glossary.

Easwaran grew up in the Hindu tradition in India, learned Sanskrit from a young age, and became a professor of English literature before coming to the West. He is a gifted teacher and an authority on the Indian classics and world mysticism.

The Gita opens, dramatically, on a battlefield, as the warrior Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life. show more Yet the Gita is not what it seems – it’s not a dialogue between two mythical figures at the dawn of Indian history. “The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the Gita’s subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious.” show less

श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता*
Review of the Phoenix Books audiobook edition (2018 via Audible) narrated by the adaptor/translator Stephen Mitchell from the original Harmony hardcover (2000) translated from the original Sanskrit (circa 400 BCE)

[A 3.5 rating with reservations, as this is likely a 4 to 5, but an audiobook edition is not recommended if you have no prior familiarity with the text]

The Bhagavad Gita is now Book Six of the massive Indian national epic The Mahabharata, but it is thought to have been initially composed separately. The overall epic tells of a war** between rival clans of a royal family in Northern India and...

The Gita takes place on the battlefield of Kuru at the beginning of the war. Arjuna

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has his charioteer, Krishna (who turns out to be God incarnate), drive him into the open space between the two armies, where he surveys the combatants. Overwhelmed with dread and pity at the imminent death of so many brave warriors - brothers, cousins and kinsmen - he drops his weapons and refuses to fight. This is the cue for Krishna to begin his teaching about life and deathlessness, duty, nonattachment, the Self, love, spiritual practice, and the inconceivable depths of reality. - excerpt from the Introduction by translator Stephen Mitchell.

See image at https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-acbcc578866b03ca0604f9549b6f5ea2
Lord Krishna reciting the Baghavad Gita to Prince Arjuna on the Kuru Field of Justice. Image sourced from Quora.

I have a regular interest in ancient texts and picked up this audiobook through an Audible Daily Deal, thinking of it as a 'starter pack.' I remember enjoying Stephen Mitchell's adaptation of Gilgamesh: A New English Version (2006), but also remembered that many of Mitchell's translations are considered controversial in the sense that he doesn't fully read in all of the ancient languages such as Akkadian, Sumerian and in the present case Sanskrit, but rather that he crafts his adaptations based on reading several other translations of the work. This is something that he fully acknowledges in his note 'About the Translation' in the print copies of this work, but which is not included in the audiobook edition.

That is one of the issues about the audiobook. The 'About the Translation' explanation note is missing, the Introduction which provides needed context is unhelpfully placed at the very end (the audiobook is 3 hours, of which the first 2.5 hours is the Baghavad Gita, followed by a 1/2 hour Introduction), Notes are not included at all (although this is the usual standard in audiobooks) and a informative Appendix 'The Message of the Gita' by Mohandas K. Gandhi is also dropped. I know all of that because soon after starting the audiobook I realized that I'd need a text to follow and sourced the print version as well.

So all that being said, Stephen Mitchell does provide an excellent and calmly mannered reading of the text, perhaps too calm (I even got ASMR vibes at times) as I did find my mind wandering. If you are going to listen to audiobooks of the Bhagavad Gita, I would definitely recommend having a print edition close at hand to follow along.

Although this is my first time reading and listening to the Baghavad Gita, I've had a partial knowledge of its verses ever since I heard Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha*** (1979) which uses selections from the Baghavad Gita in the original Sanskrit as its text.

* Hindi Sanskrit, romanized as śrīmadbhagavadgītā, English translation 'The Song of the Blessed One.'
** It was a coincidence, but it somehow seems appropriate that I was reading/listening to the Gita while the current Ukrainian / Russian War (Feb 24, 2022 - ?) began, with its smaller Ukrainian forces defending against a massive Russian assault, somewhat in parallel with Prince Arjuna and his 4 brothers of the Pandavas clan vs. the hundreds of cousins in the 'evil' Kauravas clan.
*** Romanized from the Hindi Sanskrit सत्याग्रह, English translation 'Truth Force' or 'Insistence on Truth', the name for Mohandas Gandhi's pacifist resistance movement for Indian human rights and Indian independence.

Trivia and Links
There are 16 language translations of the Baghavad Gita available at Ghagavad Gita.org where you can also listen to audioclip readings of each verse.

The English language libretto of the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha is available at Met Opera here (opens as a pdf file). It does not provide cross-references as to which verses of the Baghavad Gita are used.

Soundtrack
I particularly enjoy the ascending voice patterns of the Act 3 Evening Song / Conclusion of the Philip Glass opera which you can listen to on YouTube here. The Conclusion has also been arranged for solo organ or solo piano, without the vocal text. show less

A philosophical treatise presented as a discourse between Arjuna, a reluctant archer or the brink of war, and his chariotman, who turns out to be Krishna. Krishna gets most of the air time. The Bhagavad Gita was probably a separate discourse that was interpolated into the Mahabharata.

On the positive side, the Bhagavad Gita provides some religious/philosophical context for the Buddha's teachings, and shows why they were such innovations. On the down side (and I'm not criticizing anybody's beliefs but speaking for myself), its emphatically stated and restated tropes include the impossibility of change and the futility of trying to do so, because your fate is sealed; that you should keep to your place in the social hierarchy and that show more doing your ordained job poorly is better than doing a job you weren't assigned well; shut up and kill those other guys already, Arjuna, because they're bad guys (so forget your scruples that they're your friends and relations) and anyway both you shooting them and their deaths are preordained so do as you're told. The main "action" of this discourse, such as it is, could be used as an illustration of Milgram's findings in his obedience studies: Do as you're told because I'm the Big Guy and I say it's the right thing to do. Your empathy is an impediment and based on false premises. Even though you think you know your compatriots, I gave them lots of chances to be good guys and they blew it, so shoot already, Arjuna.

All this fixity begs the question of why one should strive to be better--is it simply a matter of snagging a better reincarnation? It can't be enlightenment, because it's made clear that only really great men can get off the wheel, and you aren't one of them. show less