You have probably met the Gita in pieces. A line on a poster, a quotation under a photograph, a verse someone sends before an exam: "You have a right to the action, never to its fruit" (Gita 2.47). It sounds wise. But what is the book it comes from?

The Bhagavad Gita is a conversation. Two friends talk on a battlefield, one of them frozen and the other driving his chariot, and the talk goes on for eighteen chapters. The one who is frozen is Arjuna, a great archer. The one who answers is Lord Krishna. Everything in the book, from the line on the poster to its last page, is part of that one talk.

The conversation sits inside the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic. It is not a list of rules or a collection of sayings. It has a beginning, a middle and an end, like any conversation that matters.

What happens just before the conversation starts?

Two sides of one family are about to fight at Kurukshetra. The book opens with a blind king, Dhritarashtra, asking his minister Sanjaya what his sons and their cousins did on that field (Gita 1.1). Sanjaya tells him. The Gita reaches us through his telling.

Arjuna asks Lord Krishna, his friend and charioteer, to stop the chariot between the two armies (Gita 1.21). He looks across and sees uncles, teachers and cousins on both sides. He throws down his bow and sits down, his mind shaken with grief (Gita 1.47). This is where the talk begins.

What does Arjuna ask, and what does Lord Krishna answer?

Arjuna stops speaking as a friend and speaks as a student.

He admits that he is confused about what is right. He asks for what is truly good for him, and he asks as someone who has come for refuge. That is the first question, and the rest of the book is the answer.

The answer has three main threads. The first is to act with all your effort and not to cling to the result (Gita 2.47). The second is that what you really are cannot be killed, even when the body ends (Gita 2.20). The third is trust: take refuge in the Lord, and do not carry the whole weight alone (Gita 18.66). Each of these has its own place in the library; here it is enough to know that they are the book's three threads.

The book calls its teaching a yoga. It does not mean only sitting postures. It means a steady way of living and acting, in which you stay even in success and failure (Gita 2.48).

Is the Gita an order to obey?

No. At the end Lord Krishna says something that surprises many first-time readers.

He has told Arjuna the deepest thing he has to say, and then he hands the choice back. Think it over fully, and then do as you wish. Arjuna answers that his confusion is gone and that he will act (Gita 18.73).

So the Gita is an offer to a thinking person. A few things it is not:

• It is not a manual for war. The battlefield is where the problem showed up. The problem itself is how to act when you are torn.
• It is not only for monks. Arjuna has a family, a duty and a job to do.
• It is not a bag of sayings to pick from. It is one talk, and each saying means more when you know what question it answers.

Who is Lord Krishna in the book?

Lord Krishna is three things at once, and the book keeps all three together. He is Arjuna's friend. He drives Arjuna's chariot. And he is the Lord, the one who teaches.

The friendship is real. Arjuna speaks to him as to a friend, and Lord Krishna tells him, "You are very dear to Me" (Gita 18.64). That is why the Gita feels personal. It is not a speech to a crowd. It is one person speaking to another who matters to him, and who is about to make a decision he cannot take back.

Who wrote the Gita?

The tradition says that Vyasa, who composed the Mahabharata, set the Gita down. The book itself gives one reason to say so: Sanjaya tells the king that he heard it by Vyasa's grace (Gita 18.75). Scholars have placed the writing in different centuries, and the book does not ask you to settle that before you read it. Its teaching stands on the page in front of you.

An example

Take Meera, a team lead. A close colleague's work has to be redone before the deadline, and she must tell him. She knows what the task is. But she keeps finding reasons to wait, and by evening she wants to put everything down.

Meera is in Arjuna's place. She knows what has to be done, and she cannot do it, because she fears what it will cost. The Gita starts from exactly this spot.

Now see what the three threads would mean for her. The first: she does the conversation as well as she can, kindly and clearly, and then lets go of how he reacts. The second: her worth does not rise or fall with his reply, because she is more than this one afternoon. The third: she does not carry the whole weight alone, and she can do her part and trust the rest. None of this makes the conversation easy. It makes it possible.

Questions readers ask

Do I need to read the Mahabharata first?

No. The Gita tells you at the start who is fighting and why Arjuna stops. All you need to know is that there is one family, two sides and a war about to begin. The rest comes with the conversation.

Why does the book begin with a blind king's question?

Because the Gita is told as a report. Sanjaya says that he heard this wonderful conversation himself (Gita 18.74), and the king's question (Gita 1.1) is what brings it out. Lord Krishna and Arjuna speak later, inside Sanjaya's telling.

Do I have to read all eighteen chapters in order?

No. The first two chapters give the situation and the first answer. After that you can choose by the question you carry. How to Read the Gita suggests ways to begin, and The Gita Chapter Map shows what each chapter is about.

Is the Gita only for religious people?

Lord Krishna speaks to a householder in the middle of his work, not to a monk. He asks him to listen, to think and then to choose (Gita 18.63). Anyone with a real decision in front of them is in Arjuna's position.

Where to read next

The detailed reading follows the four voices of the book and Arjuna's questions, and asks why the teaching is given in the middle of a war. The deeper reading looks at what the book itself says about what kind of book it is. To go on, read How to Read the Gita, the next step on the path Begin the Gita.