The Bhagavad Gita summary

What, Krishna asks, is the cause of Arjuna’s sudden distress? Arjuna’s mind is spinning and his body trembles, but he’s able to formulate an answer.  

He identifies two causes. The first is psychological: he’s overcome by horror and grief at the impending loss of so many members of his family. What good, he asks, can come of a war in which brother slays brother? The second is moral: Arjuna doesn’t understand how to fulfill his duties. As a member of the Indian warrior class, it’s his duty to engage in battle. But he’s also obliged to protect his family. When this responsibility is forgotten, he says, society as a whole collapses. How, then, should he reconcile these competing obligations? 

What does Krishna mean by the “bondage of action?” To unpack this idea, we need to take a brief detour through ancient Indian thought.  

Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism – the three great religious offshoots of this intellectual tradition – don’t see the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in positive terms. Though it’s a form of immortality, it’s not an attractive one. Let’s break that down.  

It’s no surprise that the relationship between humanity and divinity plays a prominent part in a work called the “Song of the Lord.” How, the Bhagavad Gita asks, can we relate to the divine? The answer it develops would go on to become a cornerstone of Hinduism and other Indian religions. It is contained in a single Sanskrit word: bhakti, which means “devotion.” 

The path of devotion, Krishna tells Arjuna, is selfless: the devotee’s obligation is to the act of devotion, not its fruits. It is the action of, say, making a sacrifice to a god that is important, not the reward or favor one hopes to gain from that action. Of course, Krishna continues, devotion requires a worthy recipient. Over the course of the dialogue contained in the Bhagavad Gita, it becomes clear that Krishna is that worthy recipient. 

Krishna doesn’t only reveal his divinity to Arjuna in words – he also grants the doubtful warrior a terrifying vision of the Supreme Being’s all-encompassing power. 

Arjuna sees Krishna as an infinite assemblage of arms and eyes, bellies and mouths, stretching out in all directions to fill the whole universe. Every god known in the Indian pantheon is contained within his body. Arjuna can’t bear this sight. “I quake in my innermost being,” he says, “and I cannot find firm ground or peace.” But the vision isn’t over. As Arjuna trembles, Krishna morphs into a world-destroying fire. It is a premonition of the battle to come.