The Bhagavad-Gita is part of the Hindu Mahabharata, an epic Sanskrit scripture about the history of the ancient world, the story of a great war between cousins over the succession to the throne of an Aryan state. The Bhagavad-Gita, however, is widely published and read by itself, separate from the Mahabharata.
Hindu scriptures are some of the oldest in the world. The Vedas, developed by ancient Aryans and brought to India around 1500 bce, are myths of ancient gods (devas, or "shining ones"). The Upanishads of about 500 bce deal with levels of consciousness and the practice of meditation. In effect, the Upanishads moved the outward myth inward.
But after Buddhism split away from Hinduism a concern arose among Hindus to govern and organize society. This concern was stressed, at about 100 bce, first in the Laws of Manu (the "Way of Society") that detail the four ends of man: pleasure (kama), gain (artha), righteousness (dharma), and liberation (moksha). These translate loosely into the four stages of life: student, householder, hermit, and renuncient.
The Laws of Manu were followed, four hundred years later, by the Yoga Sutras (the "Way of the Yogi"), an attempt to delve further into techniques of yoga meditation. The practitioner needs to follow eight limbs, or steps: nonviolence (truthfulness, celibacy, refraining from stealing, and avoiding greed), purity (contentment, mortification, study, and devotion), posture, breath control, withdrawal of attention from the senses, concentration, meditation, and contemplation. When the practice is mastered, the result is a heightened awareness not even suspected by most people. The Yoga Sutras tell how to read minds and discern thoughts, walk on water, fly through the air, levitate, become as small as an atom, and be impervious to hunger and thirst.
Both of these responses to Buddhism, the Laws of Manu and the Yoga Sutras, come together in the Bhagavad-Gita ("Song of the Lord").
Robert S. Ellwood and Barbara A. McGraw, in their book Many Peoples, Many Faiths, eloquently sum up the story told in the Bhagavad-Gita:
Prince Arjuna, whose charioteer is the heroic god Krishna in human form, is setting out to lead his army into bloody battle against the foe. Appalled at what he is about to do, Arjuna pauses in deep moral distress. The book is a series of answers that Krishna gives the prince in answer to his irresolution. It discourses on why Arjuna can and must fight, but its implications go much further than this. The pacifist Gandhi greatly treasured this book, taking it as an allegory of nonviolent struggle against injustice and for spiritual purity.
(See also Agni; Aryans; Brahman/Atman; Hinduism)
Sources: Ellwood, Robert S., and Barbara A. McGraw. Many Peoples, Many Faiths. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanata Swami. Bhagavad-Gita As It Is. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1986.
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