Bhagavad Gita
भगवद्गीता
Eighteen chapters on how to act when every action has consequences you cannot control.
Seven hundred verses set inside the Mahabharata, at the moment a war is about to begin. The warrior Arjuna, seeing cousins and teachers on the other side, drops his bow and refuses to fight. His charioteer—who is also Krishna, God in human form—spends eighteen chapters answering him. The answer is not really about war. It is about how to act at all, when every action has consequences you cannot control and cannot escape. The Gita's central move is to separate doing from grasping at the result of doing; it then offers several paths to the same freedom—through action, through knowledge, through disciplined attention, through love. It has been the most commented-upon text in India for a thousand years, and every master in this library read it.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi
Your right is to the action alone, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruit of action be your motive; and do not be attached to inaction either.
The most quoted verse in the text, and the one most people need first.
मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः ।
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत ॥
āgamāpāyino 'nityās tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata
The contacts of the senses, Arjuna, give cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go; they do not last. Bear them.
Not a promise that pain will stop—only that it passes.
न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन्
नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः ।
अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो
न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे ॥
nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ
ajo nityaḥ śāśvato 'yaṁ purāṇo
na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre
It is never born and never dies; having been, it will never cease to be. Unborn, eternal, everlasting, ancient—it is not killed when the body is killed.
The Gita's claim about what you are. The Dhammapada disagrees; see the contrast below.
वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय
नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि ।
तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा-
न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥
navāni gṛhṇāti naro 'parāṇi
tathā śarīrāṇi vihāya jīrṇāny
anyāni saṁyāti navāni dehī
As a person puts off worn-out clothes and takes new ones, so the embodied one puts off worn-out bodies and enters new ones.
The image the tradition reaches for at every deathbed.
ध्यायतो विषयान्पुंसः सङ्गस्तेषूपजायते ।
सङ्गात्सञ्जायते कामः कामात्क्रोधोऽभिजायते ॥
क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोहः सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः ।
स्मृतिभ्रंशाद् बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति ॥
saṅgāt sañjāyate kāmaḥ kāmāt krodho 'bhijāyate
krodhād bhavati sammohaḥ sammohāt smṛti-vibhramaḥ
smṛti-bhraṁśād buddhi-nāśo buddhi-nāśāt praṇaśyati
Dwelling on the objects of the senses, a person grows attached to them. From attachment comes desire; from desire, anger. From anger, confusion; from confusion, loss of memory; from loss of memory, the ruin of discernment; and when discernment is ruined, the person is lost.
The most psychologically exact thing in the text: the chain from a thought to a catastrophe, link by link.
योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय ।
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते ॥
siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga ucyate
Established in yoga, do your work, Arjuna, letting go of attachment, the same in success and failure. That evenness is called yoga.
The Gita's definition of yoga: not a posture, an evenness.
श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुणः परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात् ।
स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेयः परधर्मो भयावहः ॥
sva-dharme nidhanaṁ śreyaḥ para-dharmo bhayāvahaḥ
Better one's own duty, done imperfectly, than another's duty done well. Better to die in one's own duty; another's is full of fear.
On finding one's work: the Gita's answer is that it is already yours.
उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं नात्मानमवसादयेत् ।
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः ॥
ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ
Let a person lift themselves by themselves; let them not lower themselves. For the self alone is the friend of the self, and the self alone is its enemy.
Vivekananda's whole gospel of strength is in this verse.
यथा दीपो निवातस्थो नेङ्गते सोपमा स्मृता ।
योगिनो यतचित्तस्य युञ्जतो योगमात्मनः ॥
yogino yata-cittasya yuñjato yogam ātmanaḥ
As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker—that is the image given for the yogi whose mind is controlled, absorbed in the yoga of the self.
The image of a still mind that every later tradition borrowed.
चञ्चलं हि मनः कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढम् ।
तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम् ॥
असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् ।
अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते ॥
tasyāhaṁ nigrahaṁ manye vāyor iva su-duṣkaram
asaṁśayaṁ mahā-bāho mano durnigrahaṁ calam
abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate
Arjuna: The mind is restless, Krishna—turbulent, strong, obstinate. To restrain it seems to me as hard as restraining the wind. Krishna: Without doubt, the mind is hard to restrain and restless. But by practice, Arjuna, and by non-attachment, it is held.
Arjuna's complaint is everyone's; Krishna's reply is two words, and they are the whole method.
अनन्याश्चिन्तयन्तो मां ये जनाः पर्युपासते ।
तेषां नित्याभियुक्तानां योगक्षेमं वहाम्यहम् ॥
teṣāṁ nityābhiyuktānāṁ yoga-kṣemaṁ vahāmy aham
Those who think of me and no other, who worship me always joined to me—I carry what they need, and I keep what they have.
The verse of trust. Shirdi Sai Baba's whole teaching is a commentary on it.
अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च ।
निर्ममो निरहङ्कारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी ॥
सन्तुष्टः सततं योगी यतात्मा दृढनिश्चयः ।
मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धिर्यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः ॥
nirmamo nirahaṅkāraḥ sama-duḥkha-sukhaḥ kṣamī
santuṣṭaḥ satataṁ yogī yatātmā dṛḍha-niścayaḥ
mayy arpita-mano-buddhir yo mad-bhaktaḥ sa me priyaḥ
One who hates no being, who is friendly and compassionate, free of “mine” and free of “I”, the same in pain and pleasure, forgiving; always content, self-controlled, firm in resolve, with mind and understanding given to me—that devotee is dear to me.
A portrait of the person the text is trying to make. Read it as a checklist, slowly.
सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज ।
अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः ॥
ahaṁ tvā sarva-pāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
Abandon all duties and come to me alone for refuge. I will free you from all wrong. Do not grieve.
The last instruction. The whole path of devotion turns on it, and it ends with two words: do not grieve.
Is there a self that survives?
A. Gita 2.20 — “It is never born and never dies … not killed when the body is killed.”
B. Dhammapada 279 — sabbe dhammā anattā: “All things are without self.”
These are incompatible claims about the same question, made by two of the most serious traditions on earth, and this library will not pretend otherwise. The Gita locates what you are in something unborn; the Buddha's teaching says the search for such a thing is itself the trap. Both agree on what follows practically: hold the body loosely, act without grasping, do not be ruled by fear. Where they part is on what, if anything, is doing the holding.
- Telang's translation, 1882 (public domain) ↗
- Edwin Arnold's verse translation, 1885 ↗
- Besant & Das, word-by-word, 1905 ↗
- Gita Supersite (IIT Kanpur) — commentaries in 11 languages ↗
Where the translation is marked “Aumidhra”, the English is our own plain rendering from the original, made with the public-domain translations above as reference. Where a translator is named, the wording is theirs.
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