1. Introduction - Background and Battleground
Over centuries, the Bhagavad Gita has been considered an important spiritual guidebook and has influenced many thought leaders in human history. The Gita is a conversational poetry and is part of the great Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’, which is a story about the families of two brothers who inherit a kingdom from their father. These cousins are known as the ‘Pandavas’ and the ‘Kauravas’. The Kaurava brothers are 100 in number and the Pandavas are 5. The Kauravas, not wanting to share the kingdom with their cousins invite them to a game of deuce. They use dubious means to defeat the Pandavas and annex their kingdom as a result of winning the bet. As per the rules of the bet, the Pandavas complete their stay outside the kingdom and come back to ask for their fair share of the kingdom so they can rule with dignity. The Kauravas refuse to honor the agreement and even deny the Pandavas a settlement of 5 villages so that they can live in peace. As the Kauravas refuse to budge an inch the Pandavas have no choice but to declare war on them to get back their fair share of the kingdom. During this period, The Lord who has incarnated as Krishna offers the cousins a choice between His army and Himself, but makes clear that He Himself would not be participating in the war. The Kauravas choose His army as Krishna would not be fighting, and the Pandavas are happy to just have Krishna on their side. Krishna takes on the role of charioteer to Arjuna’s chariot (Arjuna is the middle brother among the five Pandavas).
Before the war starts, the two armies assemble on the battlefield, facing each other. At this point, Arjuna requests Krishna to place his chariot in the middle so he can get a full view of the warring forces. Since this is a war between cousins, Arjuna sees his cousins, uncles, grandfathers, great grandfathers, nephews, friends, classmates etc on both the sides. He is overcome with emotion and grief at the prospect of bloodshed among his family and friends for the sake of a kingdom. He declares his intention to renounce from fighting and let the Kauravas keep the kingdom, thus abdicating his responsibility as a prince and a warrior. It is at this stage that Krishna teaches him the ‘Gita’ which is structured as a series of questions from Arjuna and answers from Krishna. Krishna extols the virtues of performing one’s duties regardless of the outcome and not getting attached to the action itself even when the work is difficult and unpleasant. As Krishna starts to talk to Arjuna on the virtues of doing one’s work (in this case Arjuna needing to fight a rightful war), Arjuna asks a series of questions on the bigger issues of life, individual souls, the Lord Almighty, the universe, the circle of life etc, for which Krishna provide clear, unambiguous answers. He finally convinces Arjuna that his fears were unfounded and that he should fight to free the Kingdom from the Kauravas and provide a just and compassionate administration to his citizens.
At first it would appear that a battleground is hardly the place for someone to be preaching philosophy. However, many of the questions that we have in life are about choices we make, especially in challenging times. It is interesting to note that Sanskrit verses lend themselves to multiple meanings and in one interpretation, the battleground in The Gita is compared to the human body (and mind), and the battle between Pandavas and the Kauravas is compared to the constant strife between good and evil thoughts that we encounter on a daily basis. The Gita is indeed a teaching for all of us with Arjuna acting as an example of an individual at cross roads desperately looking for guidance and support.
The Gita is one of the most widely read and commented upon spiritual works in human history. There are several excellent books on this topic in various languages. Given that the original work is in Sanskrit, most of the scholarly commentaries have been in Sanskrit or other Indian languages which are closer to Sanskrit. There are relatively few books in English on this topic. To read and comprehend many of them, one would need some training in Indian spiritual studies as many of them liberally use Sanskrit words albeit transliterated in English. It was felt that there is a need to present the key concepts of The Gita in plain English for everyday folks without using many Sanskrit words. Further, since The Gita itself is a conversational poem and is actually a series of sermons from the Lord to questions raised by prince Arjuna, it was felt that a Q&A format would be useful. This would be hugely helpful to many of us who have natural questions about the concepts in The Gita. These observations led to the development of this manuscript.
While there are many learned commentaries on the Gita written over the centuries, this author has been greatly influenced by the authoritative commentary and lucid explanations of difficult concepts by Sri Madhwacharya, the 12th century ascetic who propounded the philosophy of dualistic theism (concept of difference between the almighty Lord and individual souls at all times and places). Sri Madhwacharya’s commentary has been further elaborated and summarized by later day savants such as Sri Raghavendra Swamy (17th century) and others. The key concepts appearing in this work are based on the works by these savants and many other derivative works by their followers.
The book is organized as a series of questions and answers in keeping with the spirit of the conversational poem that The Gita is. This book is not meant to be a translation of The Gita in its entirety. The Gita has 700 verses (hymns) organized into 18 chapters. The chapters in this book are organized largely based on topics rather the chapters numbered in the Gita so as to make it easy for the reader to pick and choose the topic of his/her interest.
The book chapters are organized as follows. The chapter ‘Work is Worship’ deals with issues related to performing one’s chosen activities (or work or career), under all circumstances. Given that the genesis of The Bhagavad Gita is Prince Arjuna’s attempted withdrawal from waging a rightful war and Krishna’s sermon to Arjuna extolling the needs and virtues of performing one’s duties, this chapter covers various questions one would have on the conduct of day to day activities. The chapter ‘Mind Matters’ covers various questions concerning the human mind, its voracious appetite and how to control one’s mind. After all, for one to perform any activity it is important that the mind be in a settled state. The chapter titled ‘The Universe – Five Fold Differences’ provides a summary of the contents of the universe and the relationship among its constituents. The chapter ‘Glory of God’ attempts to summarize the principle attributes and characteristics of the Lord Almighty as enunciated in The Gita by the Lord Himself. The chapter titled ‘Circle of Life’ answers common questions on the cycle of life as experienced by living beings. The chapter ‘Mother Nature’ summarizes the constituents of nature that is an integral component of the universe and how living beings interact with each other. The short chapter on ‘Yoga, Meditation and Diet’ summarizes some key concepts appearing in The Gita on these topics. The chapter on ‘Final Frontier’ is meant as a summary and a ‘bottom line’ on the various concepts covered in The Gita.