महाभारत

The Mahābhārata (महाभारत) is a vast epic, by tradition the work of Vyasa. It tells of the conflict between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. On the field of Kurukshetra the two armies stand facing each other, and there, just before the fighting begins, Lord Krishna and Arjuna have the conversation we know as the Bhagavad Gita. Tradition places the Gita in the epic's Bhishma Parva.

The Gita's first verse (1.1) takes up the thread of that story. King Dhritarashtra asks Sanjaya what his sons and the sons of Pandu did at Kurukshetra. Sanjaya's reply carries, in time, the conversation between Lord Krishna and Arjuna to us.

Common misreading: that the Gita is a free-standing book of teachings with no connection to the Mahabharata, or that the Mahabharata is only a story of war.

Better sense: the Gita comes inside the epic, at one of its decisive moments. So its words are best read in the context of that crisis, those strained relationships and that decision. The war is the backdrop of the Gita, not its subject.

To read more, see the topic What Is the Gita?.