The Book That Claims To Change Life Over Anything

The Bhagavad Gita  often referred to as the Gita,is a 700-verse Hindu Scripture, which is part of the epic mahabharata. The Bhagavad Gita is dated to the second half of the first millenium bce. Even though hinduism includes several denominations, the Gita holds a unique pan-Hindu influence as the most prominent sacred text. It has been said that if there is any one text that comes near to embodying the totality of Hindu thought, it is the Bhagavad Gita.

The Bhagavad Gita is set in a narrative framework of dialogue between the Pandav prince Arjuna and his charioteer guide Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu. At the start of the Kurukshetra war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, Arjuna despairs thinking about the violence and death the war will cause in the battle against his kin and becomes emotionally preoccupied with a dilemma. Wondering if he should renounce the war, Arjuna seeks the counsel of Krishna, whose answers and discourse constitute the text. Krishna counsels Arjuna to “fulfil his Kshatriya (warrior) duty” for the upholding of dharam. The Krishna–Arjuna dialogue covers a broad range of spiritual topics, touching upon moral and ethical dilemmas, and philosophical issues that go far beyond the war that Arjuna faces. The setting of the text in a battlefield has been interpreted as an allegory for the struggles and vagaries of human life.

Summarizing the Upanishedic conceptions of god, the Gita posits the existence of an individual self and the supreme self within each being.The dialogue between the prince and his charioteer has been interpreted as a metaphor for an immortal dialogue between the human self and God.Commentators of Vedanta read varying notions in the Bhagavad Gita about the relationship between the individual Self and supreme Self; advaita affirms on the non-duality of Atman and Brahman, whereas  asserts qualified non-dualism with Atman and Brahman being related but different in certain aspects, while dvaita vedanta declares the complete duality of Atman and Brahman.

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