Bhagavad Gita Flashcards
BG: What language was the Bhagavad Gita originally written in.
Sanskrit.
BG: What does the name Bhagavad Gita mean?
Bhagavad = God
Gita = Song
=Song of the Lord
BG: What is Dharma according to Gita?
Dharma means “law of the universe” or “social and religious rules”.
Similar concept to Fate in Odyssey-Aeneid.
BG: What are the four key concepts in the Bhagavad Gita?
- Look to your Dharma (fate)
- Do it full out (absolute commitment)
- Let go of the fruits of your labor (what iss real is ‘self’, the divine within all life, we are entitled to work but not the fruits of our work)
- ^Offer it all up to the divine , every moment, God is acting through the self.
Ultimately, reduce your wants, devote yourself to your pursuits, fate, and to the divine.
BG: What conflict does Arjuna face?
- He returns home to fight the evil Kauravas.
- His biggest concern, which he asks his cahrioteer, Krishna, for guidance about, is not wanting to kill anyone - particularly friends and relatives.
BG: What does Krishna advise Arjuna to do?
- Assures him that the soul cannot be killed, so he need not be afraid of death.
- To rid himself of the three gunas: Sattva (light), Rajas (Fire), and Tamas (Darkness)
- To transcend these he must follow his Dharma, to be a warrior.
BG: What are the three gunas?
The basic forces of nature that bind people to the temporal world.
-Sattva (Light) Binds people to happiness and lower knowledge.
Rajas (Fire) Binds people
Tamas (Darkness)
BG: Who is the main conflict between
Pandavas, Arjuna and his brothers, and the evil Kauravas.
Depicted as sons of gods, versus demons.
Cousins fighting one another for the Bharata kingdom.
BG: What makes up the Bhagavad Gita?
Krishna’s guidance to Arjuna on the eve of battle.
Krishna is disguised as his charioteer.
BG: What religion is the Bhagavad Gita a sacred text for?
Hinduism.
It aims to move its readers towards salvation.
Secondarily concerned with doctrine.
BG: What collection was the Bhagavid Gita in and what is its significance?
- The Mahabharata.
- Unlike the other four Vedas, it was available to the poor, the low caste, and the uneducated as well as to the affluent, high caste, and the learned.
- Also available to women.
- Its focus is bhakti (devotion) to Vishnu or Krishna.
BG: How popular was the Bhagavad Gita?
- Highly popular among ordinary believers.
- Nearly mandatory that the leading Vedantic scholars comment on it, making it easy to separate from the Mahabharata as its own devotional text.
BG: What basic assumptions does the Bhagavad Gita subsist on?
- Reincarnation and Karma.
- Every person is subject to a beginningless and potentially endless cycle of reincarnation.
BG: What class does Arjuna belong to?
- The warrior class
- It is his caste duty to participate in a war that his community is waging.
BG: When was the Bhagavad Gita written?
-Somewhere between 5th and 2nd Century BCE
