The Bhagavad Gita For Millennials

by Bibek Debroy

Hinduism has many major texts, some of the shruti variety and some of the smriti variety. Shruti means that which has been heard or revealed. Therefore, shruti texts do not have a human agent as a composer. Examples of shruti texts are Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads.

A smriti text is something that is remembered, a reference to retention through memory, as knowledge was disseminated through oral transmission. The dharmashastra texts (like Manu Samhita), the nitishastra texts (like Panchatantra), itihasa (Ramayana, Mahabharata) and the Puranas are smriti texts. Each of these was composed by a human and each of these is specific to a certain age.

there are three texts (referred to as trayi or three) that capture the essence of Hinduism, or the Vedanta variety of Hinduism—the Upanishads, Brahmasutra (composed by Badarayana) and the Bhagavad Gita. Therefore, despite being a smriti text, the Bhagavad Gita has an elevated status.

One shouldn’t form the impression that the Bhagavad Gita is the only Gita. Indeed, the qualification Bhagavad does suggest there are other Gitas. There are other such ‘songs’. It may be the case that the Bhagavad Gita was the first such Gita. It is certainly the case that it is the most important of these Gitas. Nevertheless, one should be aware that there are other such Gitas. There is a website that has Sanskrit documents. It is a very useful website to study and understand the Bhagavad Gita too. It has a list of such other Gitas and their texts.1 The list has (1) Agastya Gita (Varaha Purana); (2) Ajagara Gita; (3) Anu Gita (Mahabharata); (4) Avadhuta Gita (Padma Purana); (5) Ashtavakra Gita; (6) Utathya Gita (Mahabharata); (7) Uttara Gita (Brahmanda Purana); (8) Uddhava Gita (Bhagavata Purana); (9) Ribhu Gita (Shiva Rahasya Purana); (10) Rishabha Gita (Mahabharata); (11) Aila Gita (Bhagavata Purana); (12) Kapila Gita (Bhagavata Purana);2 (13) Karuna Gita (Bhagavata Purana); (14) Kama Gita (Mahabharata); (15) Kashyapa Gita; (16) Ganesha Gita (Ganesha Purana); (17) Garbha Gita; (18) Gayatri Gita; (19) Guru Gita (Skanda Purana); (20) Jayanteya Gita (Bhagavata Purana); (21) Tulasi Gita; (22) Devi Gita (Devi Bhagavata Purana); (23) Dharma Vyadha Gita (Mahabharata); (24) Nahusha Gita; (25) Parashara Gita (Mahabharata); (26) Pandava Gita; (27) Pingala Gita; (28) Putra Gita (Varaha Purana); (29) Pranaya Gita (Bhagavata Purana); (30) Bodhya Gita (Mahabharata); (31) Brahma Gita (...

There is another excellent Gita website maintained by IIT Kanpur.3 This mentions two more—(56) Shruti Gita (Bhagavata Purana) and (57) Rama Gita (Adhyatma Ramayana). With fifty-eight texts (including Bhagavad Gita), where does one start? Obviously, all these texts are not equally important. My favourite from the list is Ashtavakra Gita. However, notice there are other Gitas in the Mahabharata too: Anu Gita, Atathya Gita, Rishabha Gita, Kama Gita, Dharma Vyadha Gita, Parashara Gita, Bodhya Gita, Brahmana Gita, Manki Gita, Yajnavalkya Gita, Vamadeva Gita, Vichakhnu Gita, Vritra Gita, Shampaka Gita, Shanga Gita, Hamsa Gita and Harita Gita.

The question whether the Gita was composed by one or more authors has been a matter of dispute among scholars. Some Western scholars, supported by a few Indian scholars, have advanced various theories of the multiple authorship of the Gita. Firstly, they argue, the poem differs in style from beginning to end, so that the Gita cannot be regarded as the work of a single author on consideration of its metrical form. Secondly, the poem attempts to reconcile many different points of view, so that it abounds in ‘contradictions’, ‘puzzling anomalies’ and ‘philosophical inconsistencies’ and the different meanings given to the different words are indicative of its ‘patchwork origin’. There is, however, no agreement among the different scholars regarding the size and form… With the development of tests of homogeneity in the theory of statistics, it has now become possible to apply objective tests to the determination of authorship problems. A statistical study of the Anustubh style of the adhyayas of the Gita undertaken by this author shows that the variations of this style as between the eighteen adhyayas are not significant to justify the assumption of its multiple authorship… The Gita is undoubtedly the work of a single author, who worked out a broad synthesis of the schools of philosophic thought known at the time.