The Bhagavad Gita is one of the central texts of yoga and the Indian tradition. Its name means "the Song of the Lord", and its content takes the form of a conversation: the one between Arjuna and Krishna just before a battle. It consists of 700 verses divided into 18 chapters, and each chapter has the word yoga in its title, used here in different senses: union, discipline, path.

The Gita is part of a larger work, the Mahabharata. This epic poem tells of the conflict between two branches of the same family, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and the Gita occupies a section of its sixth book, the Bhishma Parva. It appears as a pause in the narrative: time stands still between the two assembled armies, and throughout the dialogue the war waits.

The date of its composition is not known with certainty. Modern scholarship proposes broad timeframes and debates whether the text was incorporated into the epic at a later stage, while tradition considers it much older. What is well established is its place: commented on over the centuries by very different schools, it is one of India's most studied works.

It all begins with a crisis. Arjuna, one of the Pandavas, asks his charioteer Krishna to drive the chariot between the two armies. There he sees his relatives, teachers, and friends on the other side, and loses heart: he says he does not want to fight and cannot see the point of winning at such a cost. This is the first chapter, and the only one in which Krishna barely speaks. The actual teachings begin with verse eleven of the second chapter.

Krishna's first response distinguishes what changes from what remains. In the second chapter, he explains that the self, atman, is neither born nor dies, and that the body is merely its clothing. On this basis, he introduces the idea that runs throughout the book: acting without attachment to the result. Arjuna has a right to action, the text says, but not to its fruits, and this distance is what makes it possible to act with clarity and without anguish.

The Gita defines yoga in ways that connect with this series. In that same chapter, it describes yoga as equanimity in the face of success and failure, and also as skill in action. This definition does not refer to postures or techniques, and it resembles what we have emphasized when discussing Viniyoga: what matters is the quality with which an action is performed, not the complexity of the form.

The eighteen chapters are commonly read in three groups of six. One traditional interpretation assigns the first six to the path of action, karma yoga; the next six to the path of devotion, bhakti yoga; and the final six to the path of knowledge, jnana yoga. This is an approximate division, since all three elements appear in every chapter, although devotion takes up more space as the book progresses. Other interpretations organize the text differently.

Meditation appears in the sixth chapter. Krishna describes the posture for sitting and the process leading to samadhi, in a practical tone that is close to what we explored in the articles on asana and Samyama. This is one of the passages where the Gita and the Yoga Sutras meet, although their historical relationship is still debated.

The text reaches its highest point in the eleventh chapter. Arjuna asks Krishna to show him his true form, and Krishna reveals the universal form, vishvarupa, in which the entire cosmos appears contained within a single vision. It is a scene of great intensity within the narrative, after which the book returns to everyday matters: devotion, the nature of the mind, and the three gunas, sattva, rajas, and tamas, a framework that Ayurveda also uses to describe the mind.

The ending is a decision. In the final chapter, Krishna summarizes what he has taught and asks Arjuna to place in his hands what is causing him anguish. Arjuna's response brings the book to a close: his doubt has vanished, and he is ready to act. The battle continues afterward, outside the Gita, but what changes is not the situation itself, but the way of being in it.

The Gita does not impose a single path. It recognizes that each person has a different temperament, and presents action, devotion, knowledge, and meditation as paths that can be followed separately or combined. The standard version of 700 verses was already established by Shankara's time; he wrote a commentary on it in the eighth century. Since then, each tradition has read it through its own vocabulary, which helps explain why it remains a text open to new interpretations.