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Bhagvad Geetaa

Bhagavad Geetaa means "Divine Song". This is one of the holiest scriptures of the Hindoo Dharm. It is essentially a dialog between God (Krishn) and man (Arjun), in which krishn, the human incarnation of God, explains to Arjun his duty as a person and his relationship with God. This sermon was delivered by Krishn to Arjun sometime around 1100 BC. The original sermon started from the 11th verse of the 2nd chapter of the Geetaa in the present form. Vyaas Jee who was a contemporary of Krishn wrote down this message of Krishn, though some verses were added later to create a connection between the Geetaa and story of MBH and the war between the Paandav and Kaurav. With these additional verses, Geetaa was written around 450 BC and eventually incorporated into MBH which was written by Vyaas as a very small book called "Jaya" but over hundreds of years grew to a very large book.

Geetaa and Upanishad

Some people say that Geetaa is a summary of all the genuine Upanishad. This statement is not true. Geetaa contains much of the material which is not available in all the genuine Upanishad combined and vice versa.

Historically the sermon of Geetaa was delivered by Krishn to Arjun, and it was carried to posterity partly in writing and partly by oral tradition until around 5th century BC, most of it was reduced by writing. The Upanishad were composed during the later post-Vaidik period which is approximately 1100-700 BC. Surely this sermon was available to the authors of Upanishad in some form. In the same way Upanishad were also available to people who expanded Geetaa in the 5th century BC. That is why Geetaa's some verses are very similar to those of Kath, Shwetaashwar, and Eeshaavaasya Upanishad. Even though it has been included in MBH, still it is an Upanishad in itself from the viewpoint of its contents, because it contains the essence of spiritual wisdom. Geetaa preaches love and at the same time non-attachment because love is unselfish and attachment is selfish.

This book has been translated into many languages by Hindoo and non-Hindoo. The commentaries in each of these translations differ widely which proves that God's infinite wisdom cannot be bound by commentators of finite wisdom, and they generally see only limited aspects of what the verses state.
[Aangiras, p 257-258]

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