Gita Jayanti is one of the most significant festivals for those who value the great spiritual essence of the Bhagavad Gita. It serves as a reminder of the importance of this holy text in a world that sinks daily into the perils of adharma. This year, Gita Jayanti will be commemorated on 1st December. The Bhagavad Gita is believed to have been revealed by Lord Krishna to a confused Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The discourse is regarded as the nectar the essence of all life-giving teachings available on Earth. Unsurprisingly, its importance continues to grow, and a large number of people across the world are encountering its ideas and studying its values and relevance. Its messages delve deeply into the complexities of human life, and more students, irrespective of social standing, prefer to read it for its invaluable guiding spirit.
The intellectual exuberance and spiritual solace one receives from the Gita surpass those offered by most other forms of literature. This is chiefly because the Gita addresses everything that concerns human life and offers ample solutions through its hundreds of verses. Before delving into its teachings, it is essential for a seeker to understand the background of this divine discourse. To comprehend the Gita, sincere spiritual preparedness is required a driving curiosity or an irresistible intellectual necessity. Warrior-prince Arjuna encountered a situation that propelled this curiosity within him. The questions he raised to Lord Krishna were genuine, and the answers sometimes intensified his predicament. But Krishna, with his meticulous and diplomatic approach, chose to guide the warrior whom people believed would restore dharma through victory. Arjuna’s collapse, however, seemed irreversible, and its consequences were disheartening.
A series of profound exchanges between Arjuna and Krishna unfolded, taking their conversation through the complexities of life and the solutions that have gained timeless relevance.
Arjuna’s dilemma, his confusion and inner exhaustion, was examined thoroughly by Krishna, and thus the Bhagavad Gita came into being. The predicament Arjuna faced is, in many ways, a condition each of us passes through at some point in life. To understand the principles the Gita offers, or to allow its meaning to trickle into our minds, we must be driven by the same inquisitiveness: an urge to understand life here and beyond, and the forces that govern its wellbeing. This curiosity is the propelling force, the passkey through which life’s knowledge enters. The Gita teaches a practical lesson—the lesson of karma. Simply put, Krishna explains that it is impossible to avoid karma; the effects of our actions are inevitable. Whatever the nature of the action we perform, its results will arise. Therefore, worrying about the outcome is unnecessary. What truly matters is the depth of attention with which the action is performed. The Gita urges us to keep our minds fresh, pure, and strong. Krishna reminds a heartbroken Arjuna repeatedly that every human situation brings challenges. Training the mind to become freer, purer, and nobler is the ultimate task and this requires sustained attention.
The impact of the Bhagavad Gita has been profound. It offers wisdom in diverse forms with remarkable applicability to different situations. India’s independence struggle provides countless stories of valor and sacrifice, and many of our freedom fighters drew inspiration from the Gita. In 1905, as the Swadeshi Movement gained momentum in Bengal, thousands took to the streets protesting colonial oppression, inspired by the Gita’s philosophy. It is said that many of them carried copies of the holy text as they vowed to boycott British goods.
Mahatma Gandhi admits in his autobiography that he had not understood the Gita’s glory earlier because he could not read it in Sanskrit or Gujarati. His theosophist friends, assuming he must have had profound knowledge of Hindu scriptures, introduced him to Edwin Arnold’s translation The Song Celestial. Through this, Gandhi entered the philosophical terrain of the Gita. He was deeply influenced by it thereafter, and his life stands as testimony to his understanding of its Dharmic values. Gandhi admired the Gita’s practicability and believed it was as accessible to a common man as to a scholar. To him, it represented a perennial philosophy guiding human life toward its ultimate purpose.
The spiritual depth of the Gita was recognized not only by Indians but also by people in the West. The British presence in India facilitated its translation into foreign languages. It became widely known after Charles Wilkins translated it into English in 1785 under the patronage of Governor-General Warren Hastings. In 1823, it was translated into German. Such translations helped the Gita achieve global recognition. Today, translations exist in nearly all major languages. In India, the Gita Press has printed and distributed millions of copies, making it one of the most widely circulated spiritual texts. Since 2014, the Gita has gained diplomatic prominence, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi often choosing it as a gift for foreign leaders—an expression of his spiritual inclination and faith in its life-affirming messages.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Gita in its original form. Witnessing the explosion of the Trinity nuclear test, he recalled a verse describing the effulgence of the Lord’s universal form—a vision narrated by Sanjaya to the blind king Dhritarashtra. Sanjaya describes the splendor of the divine light as more powerful and brilliant than a thousand suns blazing together in the sky.
The Gita’s unequivocal message on the greatness of human life needs to permeate our collective conscience more deeply. The world today needs a philosophy it can believe in and lean on, and the Bhagavad Gita offers all the essential values required for such a foundation.