The Bhagavad-Gita has been the exemplary text of Hindu culture for centuries, both in India and in the West. The Sanskrit title Bhagavad-Gita has usually been interpreted to mean "Song of the Lord," but this is misleading. It is not a lyric but a philosophical poem, composed in the form of a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, the god Krishna.

As we read the Bhagavad-Gita today we can undemtand the paralyzing conflict Arjuna suffers knowing that the enemies it is his warrior duty to destroy are his own kinsmen and teachers. We can sympathize with his impulse to shrink from the violence he sees in the human condition, and we can learn from the ways Krishna teaches him to understand his own and others’mortality...

The BHAGAVAD-GITA has been an essential text of Hindu culture in India since the time of its composition in the first century A.D. As one of the great religious classics of world literature, it has inspired such diverse thinkers as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, T. S. Eliot, and Thomas Merton.

Set on an ancient battlefield where the armies of rival cousins stand ready to do battle, the GITA recounts the epic tale of the warrior-prince Arjuna as he contronts a life-or-death moral dilemma. What is the purpose or justice of war? Where does the right path of action lie when one duty conflicts with another? Gradually, through the intercession of his charioteer, the god Krishna, Arjuna is led to a higher understanding of the spiritual nature of man and the world. Encompassing both the personal and the transcendent, Arjuna’s dialogue with Krishna has resonated through the ages with the terrible beauty of ultimate revelation.

Introduction: The Bhagavad-Gita: Context and Text

Translator’s Note

The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Tune of War

Aferword: Why Did Henry David Thoreau Take the Bhagavad-Gita to Walden Pond? "

Key Words in the Bhagavad-Gita