MahabharataThe Gita in the epic
Where the Bhagavad Gita comes in the Mahabharata: the Bhishma Parva, the moment before the war, and how it relates to the rest of the epic.
The Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Bhishma Parva, the sixth book of the Mahabharata, in chapters 25 to 42 of that book. The two armies stand ready at Kurukshetra. Arjuna asks Krishna, his charioteer, to take his chariot between them, sees his relatives and teachers on the other side, and puts down his bow. The Gita is Krishna's answer. Read it in Sanskrit with Roman letters on our Gita section.
The Gita gives the epic its philosophical heart, but it has also been read by itself for centuries.
A retelling in our own words of a story told in many ways across India and Asia. Tellers differ on many episodes. It is not a scholarly translation.