This summary is an introduction to the Gita: what it is, who is speaking to whom, and why it happened on a battlefield. It is the first step on Begin the Gita. After it comes How to Read the Gita, and then The Eighteen Chapters at a Glance.
The answer in one line
The Gita is a conversation. It is not a sermon. Four voices carry it. Dhritarashtra asks, Sanjaya tells what he saw and heard, Arjuna lays out his confusion and asks, and Lord Krishna explains.
The battlefield is there because Arjuna has to decide now, so the teaching has to be one that holds under pressure. And the book ends not on an order but on Arjuna's own choice (Gita 18.63, Gita 18.73).
What question this answers
Sitting down to read the Gita, two questions come first. Who is speaking here, and to whom? And why such teaching when armies stand on both sides?
The Gita is a conversation of eighteen chapters and seven hundred and one verses. It is part of the Mahabharata, told by Sanjaya to the blind king Dhritarashtra. That is why the first verse is the king's question (Gita 1.1).
The four voices
Dhritarashtra asks, in verse 1.1. Sanjaya tells what he saw, at the end, in verses 18.74 to 18.78. Arjuna lays out his confusion and asks, as in verses 2.7, 3.2 and 18.73. And Lord Krishna explains, from verse 2.11 to verse 18.66.
The main points to remember
Place in the Mahabharata
By tradition the Mahabharata has eighteen books. The Gita is in the sixth, just before the fighting begins. The story is of two branches of one family, the Kauravas and the Pandavas, and the quarrel over the right to the kingdom. The Gita is the eighteen-chapter pause in that story, at the moment when the armies are about to move.
The first verse is a question, not a teaching
Dhritarashtra asks: what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do (Gita 1.1)? He names his own sons first, and a glimpse comes of where his worry leans.
Sanjaya
At the end Sanjaya himself says that he heard this wonderful, thrilling dialogue directly from the mouth of Lord Krishna, by the grace of Vyasa (Gita 18.74–75), and that remembering it again and again he rejoices (Gita 18.76). In tradition Vyasa had given him the sight and hearing to perceive distant things.
What we get from its being told this way
The first gain is that we hear the dialogue from a distance, as a witness, and it stays as it happened. The second is that the answer to the king's "what did they do?" is not in the events of the field. It is in what is going on inside the warrior, and the whole teaching of the Gita is that.
Arjuna puts down his bow
Arjuna asks to have the chariot taken between the two armies (Gita 1.21), and Krishna does so (Gita 1.24). Both sides show his own people. Full of despondency, Arjuna drops the bow with its arrows and sits down in the chariot (Gita 1.47).
The teaching has not yet begun. Krishna is silent, and does not speak until Arjuna himself asks. This sets the nature of the whole Gita.
The Gita does not hide the breakdown
The limbs fail, the mouth dries, there is trembling, the bow slips (Gita 1.29–30). Arjuna wants neither victory nor kingdom (Gita 1.31–32). Even the richest kingdom on earth cannot remove this grief (Gita 2.8). Then he says "I will not fight" and falls silent (Gita 2.9).
In this silence, between the two armies, Krishna speaks, smiling (Gita 2.10). No argument, no scolding, a calm meeting. That is His first gift. The Gita begins with an honest admission of weakness. A reader who is afraid, grieving or stuck does not stand outside the book.
From friend to disciple
In verse 2.7 Arjuna says: my mind is bewildered about dharma, tell me what is surely good, I am Your disciple, I have come to You for refuge (Gita 2.7). Until now Krishna was charioteer and friend. From here He is teacher.
Krishna's first words are a gentle rebuke. You grieve for those not to be grieved for, and speak words of the learned. The wise grieve neither for the dead nor for the living (Gita 2.11). He begins not with a rule or an order but with "who we are". The teaching starts only after the asking.
Arjuna's questions carry the Gita forward
In verse 3.2 Arjuna says mixed words are confusing the mind, tell me one road (Gita 3.2). In verse 5.1 he asks about renunciation and karma yoga (Gita 5.1). In verse 8.1, about Brahman, the self and action (Gita 8.1). In verse 12.1, about the worshipper of form and the seeker of the formless (Gita 12.1). In verse 17.1, about those who set aside the scriptural rule and worship with faith (Gita 17.1). And in verse 18.1, about renunciation and relinquishment (Gita 18.1).
There are questions in between too. How does the man of steady wisdom speak and move (Gita 2.54)? By what is a person driven to sin (Gita 3.36)? How did You teach yoga to the Sun (Gita 4.4)? How is the restless mind to be held (Gita 6.33–34)? What are the field and its knower (Gita 13.1)? What marks one beyond the qualities (Gita 14.21)?
Some are honest doubts and some are plain objections. The Gita welcomes both. The mind is restless, but there is a way (Gita 6.35). The name of that power is desire and anger (Gita 3.37). The question about the Sun is answered in the very next verse (Gita 4.5). Not every chapter begins with a question, but the book keeps returning to what is still unsettled in Arjuna's mind. So a good way to read is to walk along with Arjuna's question.
Why the teaching is on a battlefield and not in a quiet hermitage
There are three reasons. First, Arjuna's confusion is about action, and the moment for action is now. A teaching that does not work under pressure is no use to him.
Second, action with equanimity, that is, giving up attachment and staying the same in success and failure (Gita 2.48), cannot be tested in a quiet place. The test is where the result is truly at stake.
Third, this yoga came down by an old tradition but was nearly lost over a long time (Gita 4.2). It is told to Arjuna because he is a devotee and friend (Gita 4.3). And the one receiving it is no forest seeker. He is a householder with family and responsibilities.
Is Krishna a friend or the Lord? Both
At the start He is a friend who drives the chariot. In the fourth chapter He says that many births have passed and He knows them all (Gita 4.5), that though unborn He appears by His own power (Gita 4.6), whenever dharma declines (Gita 4.7–8). After the universal form Arjuna sees that he had spoken lightly, thinking Him a friend, and asks forgiveness (Gita 11.41–45). He cannot bear the terrible form and asks for the gentle one. When the form is drawn in he says his mind is steady again (Gita 11.51).
Why does this matter? A god sitting far away would be a speech to obey or to avoid. With a close friend, questions can be asked and arguments held. The Lord stays near so that the conversation can go on.
How the Gita ends
The Lord says that He has told the most secret knowledge, and now, reflecting on it fully, Arjuna should do as he wishes (Gita 18.63). The last counsel is complete refuge, and do not grieve (Gita 18.66). Then He asks: have you heard with a single mind, is your delusion destroyed (Gita 18.72)?
Arjuna says that his delusion is destroyed, his memory is back, his doubts are gone, and he will act as the Lord has said (Gita 18.73). Sanjaya says that where Krishna and the archer Arjuna are, there are prosperity, victory and firm policy (Gita 18.78). The book does not stop on an order. It ends on Arjuna's own freedom and his action.
Common misunderstandings
The first misunderstanding is that the Gita is there to justify war. That is not so. The war is the place where the question rises. The answer is about how to act under pressure without breaking and without hardening.
The second is that the Gita is just Krishna's speech. That is not so. Arjuna's questions shape every turn.
The third is that the Gita is a book apart from the Mahabharata. That is not so. It begins with the Mahabharata's first question, and Sanjaya's last verse looks again toward the war.
Questions people ask
Why does such a great warrior keep asking questions? Even the capable can get stuck. Arjuna's questions are honest (Gita 2.7, Gita 3.2, Gita 5.1). Asking is not weakness. It is readiness to learn.
Why is Krishna the charioteer and not the commander? Because He is a teacher standing beside the one who acts, not above him (Gita 1.24, Gita 4.3).
Does Krishna answer the first question at once? No. First who we are and what grief rests on (Gita 2.11). Then action: the right is to action and not to the fruit (Gita 2.47), and it is to be done with equanimity, giving up attachment (Gita 2.48). First the understanding is set right, then the action.
Is the Gita only for someone in a battle? No. Arjuna is a householder, and his question, "how do I act when my mind is pulled two ways?", comes in every life.
If you have to explain it in thirty seconds
The Gita is a conversation in the middle of the Mahabharata. The blind king Dhritarashtra asks, Sanjaya tells, Arjuna lays out his confusion and Krishna explains. Arjuna himself asks to have the chariot taken between the two armies, breaks down at the sight of his own people and puts down his bow. Krishna does not speak until Arjuna, as a disciple, asks. The battlefield is there because the decision has to be made now, and the teaching has to hold under pressure. At the end Krishna gives no order. He says, "Reflect fully, and then do as you wish," and Arjuna says his doubts are gone and he will act.
Related hubs: Begin the Gita (path) · How to Read the Gita (next) · The Eighteen Chapters at a Glance · Arjuna's Despondency · Arjuna on the Field