Are Arjuna's questions only the door through which the teaching enters, or do they also give the teaching its shape? A careful reading favours the second. The wording of the questions shows what holds Arjuna back, and the Lord's replies often pick up that very wording and carry on from it.

Three threads can be followed. The first is the call for one decisive answer, which returns in chapters 2, 3 and 5 (Gita 2.7, Gita 3.1–2, Gita 5.1). The second is the call for the marks of the ideal person (Gita 2.54, Gita 14.21). The third is the question "which of the two is better", which comes in chapters 5, 12 and 18, each time in a different form (Gita 5.1, Gita 12.1, Gita 18.1).

Here we read the questions along these threads, and look at where a question and its reply pull against each other, where commentators go different ways, and the questions these raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition. For the plain order of the questions, one after another, see the verse-by-verse reading. This is the fifth stop on Arjuna's Journey, and the state of mind the questions come from is described in Arjuna's Despondency.

How the fourteen questions are counted

The library counts fourteen main groups of questions: those of chapter 2, chapter 3 (two), 4, 5, 6 (two), 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17 and 18. The count is the library's own. The Gita gives no such number. There are questions outside it. After seeing the cosmic form Arjuna asks who the fierce figure is (Gita 11.31). Chapter 12 opens with the question about worshippers of the Lord with form and of the unmanifest (Gita 12.1), which is not in this count. So "fourteen" below means "the main ones", not "all".

First thread: asking for one decisive answer

The demand is there in the very first request.

Arjuna asks to be told what is surely good (Gita 2.7). What deserves notice is how this demand narrows as the book goes on.

In chapter 3 he no longer asks for "whatever is good" but for "the one path" (Gita 3.1–2). In chapter 5 the question has narrowed again: of the two paths already named, which is better, and again decisively (Gita 5.1). The request is the same each time, but each time more concrete. A confused mind, worn out by endless possibilities outside, wants to rest on one, and Arjuna's wording catches that weariness exactly.

The Lord meets the demand differently each time. In chapter 5 he chooses plainly (Gita 5.2). In chapter 3 he first shows where the confusion comes from, and only then states the way. That is the next point.

The confusion of chapter 3 starts in the Lord's own words

Arjuna's question does not come from nowhere. It is tied to three points in chapter 2.

First, the Lord had begun to speak in two ways. He said: I have told you this understanding in terms of knowledge; now hear it in terms of action (Gita 2.39). One teaching turned two corners, and Arjuna found it "mixed". In chapter 3 he says exactly this (Gita 3.2).

Second, the Lord had said that action done for the fruit is far lower than the evenness of understanding (Gita 2.49). The opening of chapter 3 echoes that sentence: if You think this evenness higher than action, why do You set me to action (Gita 3.1–2)? Arjuna hands the Lord's own conclusion back and asks what follows from it for him.

Third, the Lord had himself described the state: a mind shaken by hearing many things will come to rest when it stands unmoved in the Self, and then yoga will be reached (Gita 2.53). The Lord named the confusion before Arjuna did.

So the question of chapter 3 is less an objection to the teaching than a plain and honest reading of it. The Lord does not invent a new answer. He says that two kinds of steadiness were spoken of earlier (Gita 3.3), and sets the two streams apart. The full reply is in Is It Possible to Give Up Action?.

Second thread: the marks of the ideal person

Two questions have the same mould. In chapter 2 Arjuna asks how the person of steady wisdom speaks, sits and walks (Gita 2.54). In chapter 14 he asks by what signs one who has gone beyond the three qualities is known, what his conduct is, and how he crosses over (Gita 14.21).

There is a difference, and it is not small. The first question asks only for a picture. The second adds a third demand, for a means: how does he cross over? The Arjuna who in chapter 2 only wanted to see the ideal begins, by chapter 14, to ask for the road to it.

A third portrait joins them, which is not the direct reply to any question but belongs to the same family: in chapter 12, the devotee who is dear to the Lord (Gita 12.13–19). Set side by side, a common line appears.

From three questions and three paths one human picture is drawn: the person who stays the same in pleasure and pain, honour and dishonour, friend and foe (Gita 14.22–25). It is the same line that came as the answer to the fear of disgrace in Duty, Honour and Fear. The picture is one, and the paths lead to it from different sides.

Third thread: which of the two is better

This question appears three times, and its form changes each time.

In chapter 5 Arjuna asks which is more beneficial, renunciation or the yoga of action (Gita 5.1). The reply says that both lead to the highest good, and then that the yoga of action is better (Gita 5.2).

In chapter 12 he asks who knows yoga best, those who worship the Lord with form or those who worship the unmanifest (Gita 12.1). The reply has the same manner. First the Lord chooses: those who fix their minds on him and worship with deep faith are the best yogis in his view (Gita 12.2). Then he does not let go of the other: those who worship the unmanifest also reach him (Gita 12.3, Gita 12.4). And he adds that the path of the unmanifest is harder for those who have a body (Gita 12.5).

When Arjuna asks "which is better", the Lord's method has three steps: put one forward, count the other as also arriving, and give the reason for preferring the first in terms of ease or fitness. He neither avoids the choice nor throws the other path out. This is why the two questions have separate pages: Renunciation or Karma Yoga? and Devotion or the Unmanifest.

In chapter 18 the question changes shape.

Now Arjuna does not ask "which is better" but "what are these two, each separately" (Gita 18.1). The move from comparing to defining shows that he is no longer anxious about choosing. Before, he did not know which to take. Now he wants to know the thing itself. The reply takes the same form: giving up actions driven by desire is renunciation, and giving up attachment to the fruit of all actions is relinquishment (Gita 18.2). The detail is in Relinquishment and Renunciation of Action.

Questions of fear and failure

The questions of chapter 6 form their own class, for they carry neither dilemma nor curiosity. They are admissions of weakness.

In the first, Arjuna says that the mind is restless and that holding it is like holding the wind, so he does not see this yoga standing (Gita 6.33–34). The Lord first concedes the point and then gives the way (Gita 6.35). Look at the order of the reply: its first move is acceptance, not denial.

The second question is larger, because the fear in it is deeper: what happens to the seeker who set out in faith and fell away partway (Gita 6.37–39)?

Arjuna says that only the Lord can remove this doubt (Gita 6.39). The reply first gives one sentence of assurance: such a seeker is destroyed neither here nor hereafter (Gita 6.40). Then the assurance unfolds. The seeker dwells long in the worlds of the pure and is then born in a pure and prosperous family (Gita 6.41). There he regains the understanding of the earlier life and strives harder than before (Gita 6.43). Through steady effort over many births he reaches the highest goal (Gita 6.45). The question held the fear of a scattered cloud; the reply draws the opposite picture, a journey that keeps going forward.

Questions that ask to know, and the order of their replies

The question of chapter 8 has seven parts (Gita 8.1–2), and the reply keeps to the same order, which is rare. One verse answers the first three: the supreme imperishable reality, the self's own nature, and the creative act that brings beings into being, called action (Gita 8.3). The next verse answers the following three: the perishable world, the divine person, and the Lord himself in this body as the one behind sacrifice (Gita 8.4). The seventh, about knowing the Lord at the time of death, is the subject of the rest of the chapter. The Lord follows the order in which Arjuna asked, as if he had kept a place for each item.

In chapter 10 the reply can be smaller than the question. Arjuna wants all the glories told (Gita 10.16), and the Lord says he will tell the chief ones, because there is no end to his extent (Gita 10.19). This is not a refusal. It gives the question its true size. In chapter 13 the reply opens with a definition: this body is the field, and one who knows it is its knower (Gita 13.1, Gita 13.2). The question of chapter 17 is about faith-filled worship without the rule of scripture (Gita 17.1), and the reply ties it to the three kinds of faith that arise from one's nature.

The request of chapter 11 is of another kind, for it asks for sight, not information (Gita 11.3–4). Arjuna first accepts that the Lord is as he has said, and then adds humbly: if You think I can see it. The Lord gives not words but divine eyes (Gita 11.8).

The question about the teacher (chapter 4)

The question of chapter 4 stands apart, for it is about the teacher, not the teaching (Gita 4.4). Arjuna argues that the Lord was born later and the sun-god earlier. The Lord does not cut the argument down. He changes its ground. The difference is not in time but in memory: many births of his and Arjuna's have passed, and he knows them all, while Arjuna does not (Gita 4.5). Then he speaks of the kind of birth it is: though unborn and imperishable, he appears by his own power (Gita 4.6).

Here for the first time a reply changes the question that was asked. Arjuna asked "how can both be", and the Lord told him "what kind of birth this is". The question was honoured, and deepened.

The names Arjuna uses for the Lord

The way he addresses the Lord in each question is worth watching, for it shows how Arjuna sees him at that moment. The early questions use everyday, family names: Keshava (Gita 2.54), Janardana and Keshava (Gita 3.1–2), Vrishneya (Gita 3.36), and, in chapter 5, a plain address by his own name (Gita 5.1). In chapters 8 to 11, where the questions are of glory and vision, the names turn to lordship: Supreme Person (Gita 8.1), Supreme Lord (Gita 11.3), Master of yoga (Gita 11.4). Chapter 14 has "Lord" (Gita 14.21), and in his last words Arjuna says Achyuta, the one who never slips (Gita 18.73).

The line is not straight. Keshava returns in chapter 13 (Gita 13.1), and in chapter 6 Arjuna voices his most private worry with two forms of address, Madhusudana and his own name (Gita 6.33–34). Still, it is clear that as the questions move from "what shall I do" to "what are You", reverence joins friendship in how Arjuna speaks.

Pairs across the questions

The pairs show that the questions do not rise in a straight line. The fifth recalls the third, and the eighteenth recalls the fifth. The same worry returns and gets a deeper answer each time, like climbing a spiral path.

Where readers of the Gita differ

At two points the commentators truly part ways, and each stream is stated here with equal confidence.

On the confusion of chapter 3. One stream holds that the Lord taught two different steadfast paths for two kinds of seekers (Gita 3.3), and that Arjuna's mistake is to join them for a single person. So the Lord keeps them apart. Another stream holds that the Lord teaches one path in which knowledge and action work together, and that Arjuna's confusion is only about order: what first, what next.

On "better" in chapter 5. The words of the verse are the same for both: the yoga of action is better than renunciation (Gita 5.2). One stream reads this as: better because it purifies the mind and leads to knowledge, so it is the means. Another reads it as: better because it is a complete path in itself, not a means to anything else.

At both points it is right to take both streams as equally serious, for the words of the text leave room for each.

Objections and replies

If the Lord knows everything, why does he wait for questions?

Because a question gives the teaching its address. Teaching is useful when it lands on Arjuna's actual condition, and the question shows that condition. Yet not all teaching in the Gita comes from a question. In several places the Lord speaks unasked: you are dear to me, so I shall speak for your good (Gita 10.1, Gita 18.64). The last word of surrender too is given without a question (Gita 18.66). Questions give the teaching an address, but they are not its source.

Did Arjuna's delusion go in chapter 11 or in chapter 18?

The text says it went in both places. In chapter 11 Arjuna says that by the supreme secret teaching his delusion is gone (Gita 11.1). Yet in the middle of the vision his mind is shaken by fear and he asks to see the familiar form (Gita 11.45). In chapter 18 he says again that his delusion is destroyed and that he now stands free of doubt (Gita 18.73). The two statements measure different things. In chapter 11 the delusion of understanding breaks, which the teaching achieved. In chapter 18 comes the resolve to stand and act, which follows. The ending of doubt is not one moment. It is several.

Do the questions really move straight from refusal to wonder?

Not entirely. The early questions have a tone of challenge and the later ones a tone of asking. But the fifth repeats the third, the eighteenth repeats the fifth, and the question of chapter 4 comes at a point where there is no struggle at all. So it is better read as a spiral: the worry returns, and Arjuna asks each time with more trust.

Does the Lord ever decline to answer?

No, but he changes the shape of the question. On the glories he speaks of telling the chief ones (Gita 10.19); on his birth, of memory (Gita 4.5); on the request to see, he gives divine sight instead of words (Gita 11.8). In every case the question stays, and the answer comes in the form in which it can truly be given.

After all the answers, is Arjuna free to choose?

He is, and this is the weightiest point of the text. After the final teaching the Lord says: I have told you this; now reflect on it fully and do as you wish (Gita 18.63). The line of replies ends in a choice. Arjuna's last words answer that choice (Gita 18.73).

Questions the verses raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition

Four questions rise from Arjuna's questions: how many there are, why the question about the steady-minded comes where it does, whether Arjuna's way of asking is a model for everyone, and how a firm answer fits a free choice. The Gita answers all four.

How many questions are there?

The Gita does not number them; it marks each one by Arjuna speaking and asking, and the count here follows those marks. What the Gita itself gives is the measure of the series: the questions go on until the doubt is gone, and at the end Arjuna says that his delusion is destroyed and his doubts are over (Gita 18.73). So the count that matters is the one that ends in that sentence.

Why does the question about the steady-minded come where it does?

The cause is in the verse before it. The Lord says that when Arjuna's intellect, shaken by many things heard, stands unmoving in the Self, then he will reach yoga (Gita 2.53). Arjuna takes the Lord's own words and asks what such a person looks like: how he speaks, sits and walks (Gita 2.54). The question is drawn out by the reply that came before it.

Is Arjuna's way of asking a model for everyone?

Yes, and the Gita names the way itself: approach with humility, ask the right question, and serve (Gita 4.34). Arjuna begins exactly so, as a disciple who has taken refuge and asks what is truly better (Gita 2.7). The Lord's own rule is to answer people as they come to Him (Gita 4.11), and at the end He says that He speaks because Arjuna is dear to Him (Gita 18.64). So the welcome is for the one who asks in that spirit.

The Upanishadic tradition also runs on questions. The Prashna Upanishad is built on the questions of six seekers put to one teacher.

How can a firm answer fit a free choice?

They are two parts of one act. The answer is firm: in chapter 5 the Lord plainly says which of two is better (Gita 5.2). The assent is free: at the end He asks Arjuna to reflect on it fully and then do as he wishes (Gita 18.63), and Arjuna, his doubts gone, chooses to act on the Lord's word (Gita 18.73). The Lord gives an answer meant to be understood, not imposed, and the one who hears it takes it as his own.

So no question these verses raise is left empty. The verses give the direction, the rest of the Gita develops it, and the tradition explains it through examples and streams.

From questions to a choice

Arjuna's questions give the Gita its shape, because their words show where the confusion lies and the reply lands exactly there. Three threads came into view: the call for a decisive answer, which became more concrete each time; the marks of the ideal person, which reached the question of means; and "which of two", which changed from comparing to defining. Doubt does not end in one moment. It ends in understanding, in fear, and in resolve, each in its own time. And at the close the Lord does the greatest thing: having answered, he places the choice in Arjuna's hands (Gita 18.63).