The Bhagavad Gita For Millennials

by Bibek Debroy

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.