Philosophy · reviewed by a teacher
The Bhagavad Gita and yoga
The Bhagavad Gita is a Sanskrit text of 700 verses, a dialogue between the prince Arjuna and Krishna set within the epic Mahabharata. It is one of the most important texts on yoga, teaching the paths of action, knowledge, devotion and meditation as ways to live well in the middle of ordinary life.
What the text is
The Bhagavad Gita, often simply called the Gita, is a section of the Mahabharata, one of the two great Sanskrit epics of India. It runs to eighteen chapters and 700 verses.
Scholars generally date it to the last few centuries before the common era, though estimates vary, and it has been copied, recited and commented on ever since.
The story
The setting is the moment before a battle at Kurukshetra, between two branches of one royal family. Arjuna, a skilled warrior, asks his charioteer, Krishna, to drive him between the two armies. Seeing cousins, friends and teachers on the other side, he loses heart, puts down his bow and says he will not fight.
Krishna’s reply is the Gita, a lesson from teacher to student that shaped what the word guru means in the yoga tradition.
Over the course of the dialogue, he explains who Arjuna really is, what duty, or dharma, means, how to act without being bound by the outcome, and how to steady the mind.
Krishna is revealed to be divine, and in the seventh chapter he calls the changing world his maya, a power of appearance that is hard to cross. In the eleventh chapter Arjuna is shown his universal form. By the end, Arjuna’s doubts are resolved and he picks up his bow.
Readers have long taken the battlefield as a picture of inner conflict: the moment when anyone has to act in a difficult situation and would rather walk away. That is also why the Gita can be a quiet companion to yoga for stress and burnout.
What the Gita says about yoga
The Gita uses the word yoga often, and in several senses. It calls yoga evenness of mind, staying steady in success and failure, and it calls yoga skill in action. Its chapters are traditionally titled as different yogas, and several paths stand out:
- Karma yoga, the path of action. Do your work fully, but let go of attachment to the result.
- Jnana yoga, the path of knowledge. Understand that the true self is not the body or the passing mind.
- Bhakti yoga, the path of devotion. Offer your love and attention to the divine; even a leaf or a flower given with love is enough.
- Dhyana yoga, the path of meditation, described in the sixth chapter: sit on a steady seat in a clean, quiet place and bring the mind to rest.
The fourteenth chapter adds a map of the mind itself, built on the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas.
The Gita does not rank these paths strictly, and its last chapter presents all of them as roads to moksha, liberation from rebirth. Many readers see them as working together, with action, understanding and devotion supporting one another.
How it shows up in a modern practice
Very little of the Gita is about physical postures. Its influence on modern yoga is in the ideas: practising without chasing results, staying even when a pose goes well or badly, and treating yoga as a way to live rather than only a form of exercise.
Many teacher trainings include it on their reading lists, alongside Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Mahatma Gandhi was among many well-known readers who wrote about it.
The Gita in a class
A small class or one-to-one session has room for a question or a short conversation that a busy class does not. A student who has started reading the Gita can bring a passage they are puzzling over.
More often, the Gita shows up indirectly: a reminder, during a hard posture, to do the work and let go of how it looks, or a few minutes of seated stillness at the end that echoes the sixth chapter.
If pressure at work is what brings you to yoga, the Gita’s teaching on action may be a useful companion. The Sanskrit yoga glossary explains the terms above, and the guide to yoga for stress relief covers the physical side.
Questions
What does Bhagavad Gita mean?
It is usually translated as "Song of the Lord" or "Song of the Blessed One". Gita means song, and Bhagavad refers to the one who is blessed or divine, here Krishna.
Is the Bhagavad Gita a religious text?
For many Hindus it is scripture and is read, recited and studied as part of their faith. It is also read widely as philosophy, and many yoga students study it for what it says about how to act and how to steady the mind.
Which translation of the Bhagavad Gita should you read?
There are many good English translations, some literal and some freer. A version that prints the Sanskrit next to the English, with short notes, is a helpful start. Reading two different translations side by side shows how much interpretation goes into each.
How many chapters are in the Bhagavad Gita?
The Bhagavad Gita has 18 chapters and 700 verses. Each chapter is traditionally titled as a kind of yoga, such as the yoga of action or the yoga of devotion. Many readers group them into three sets of six, broadly about action, devotion and knowledge.
Who wrote the Bhagavad Gita?
Tradition credits the sage Vyasa, who is also said to have compiled the Mahabharata. Historians do not know the author and generally date the text to somewhere in the last few centuries BCE, with some later additions possible. The Gita does not name a writer; it presents itself as a conversation reported to a king.
Where is the Bhagavad Gita in the Mahabharata?
It sits in the sixth book of the Mahabharata, the Bhishma Parva, just before the great battle at Kurukshetra begins. The conversation between Arjuna and Krishna is narrated by Sanjaya to the blind king Dhritarashtra, who asks what is happening on the battlefield.