The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is a very important ethical-text in ancient India. It captures the essence of Hinduism and offers us a glimpse of the ancient Indian civilization.

The Bhagavad Gita, believed to be written around 500 BCE, is a text from Sanskrit taken from the chapter Bhishma Parva of Mahabharata epic which contained 700 verses. Krishna was considered as the Bhagavan or the divine one.

The text centers on the conversation between Krishna and Arjuna that took place before the war of Kurukshetra started. Arjuna has mixed feelings. He was about to wage war against his own family, closest friends, relatives and beloved teachers. Krishna enlightened Arjun by offering Yogic and Vedantic philosophies providing analogies and examples. Krishna then reveals that he is the Supreme Being.

Krishna’s Advice to Arjuna

In The Bhagavad Gita, the five Pandava brothers returned from the exile only to find their 100 cousins laying claim to what is rightfully their lands. The brothers requested that their cousins, the Kauravas, return a few villages to them to prevent war. But their cousins refused. This forced Arjuna to declare war against them.

Arjuna did not want war so he talked with Krishna, one of the ten incarnations of the Universal Hindu God, Vishnu. Krishna told Arjuna in the Gita that the soul is immortal. Therefore, death on the battlefield only means the shedding of body.

Arjuna hesitated to go to war because he didn’t understand the nature of things. His fear prevented him attaining balance in dharma or universal harmony. Refusing to go to war would cause disorder because action is higher than inaction.

To prove his point, Krishna talks about the Yoga processes. Yoga enables the follower to detach from the material self and become one with his immortal self. The physical self is important but it should conform to eternal truths. The war that is about to take place is a righteous war because it is to attain justice. In essence, the Bhagavad Gita talks about focusing on the deed and not the results.

The Six Darshans

Religion and the concept of God was essential in ancient Hindu religious literature. The concept of God and how to achieve salvation was not clear in ancient Hinduism. To solve this problem, they chose Lord Krishna as the symbol of God to ‘humanize’ the idea of a Higher Being. The Gita was written to reconcile two of the six important ancient Indian philosophies (Darshans).

The Six Darshans were different to each other although their concepts revolved similarly on the ways of attaining salvation. The six Darshans are divided into three groups: Nyaya and Vaisesika; Sankhyya and Yoga; and Mimamsha and Vedanta.

The Bhagavad Gita is a marriage of the concepts of Sankhyya and Vedanta. Interestingly, Sankhyya is the basis for Buddhism while Vedanta is the basis for modern Hinduism. The Sankhyya is the oldest Darshan and Vedanta is the most important. Sankhyya followed the origin of everything. Vedanta talks about Brahman or the permanent and ultimate reality beyond what mind and reason can comprehend.

Religion, politics and society in the Ancient Indian civilization were closely intertwined. We can see in the Bhagavad Gita a society at war because of the transgression of several political and religious tenets. In essence, it was not merely a struggle over the kingdoms but more importantly, it was a fight between good and evil. This divided the once peaceful society where Arjuna lived as cousins, relatives, teachers and students clashed in their ideologies.