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Updated: May 21, 2025
Yet side by side with this magnetic figure, a second, strangely different Krishna is also known. This second Krishna is the preacher of the Bhagavad Gita, the great sermon delivered on the battle-field of Kurukshetra. It is a cardinal document of Indian ethics, and consoled Mahatma Gandhi during his work for Indian independence.
What actions are absolutely moral is determined by application of the same law, those only which repose wholly in themselves, being to themselves at once motive and reward. "Miserable is he," says the "Bhagavad Gita," "whose motive to action lies, not in the action itself, but in its reward."
"I know I was hanged upon a tree shaken by the winds for nine long nights. I was transfixed by a spear; I was moved to Odin, myself to myself." And so on. The instances are endless. "I am the oblation," says the Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, "I am the sacrifice, I the ancestral offering."
He is cut off from all hope or aspiration; he cannot rise from the thraldom of his fate. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna declares to Arjuna that it is "Better to do the duty of one's caste Though bad or ill performed, and fraught with evil, Than undertake the business of another, However good it be."
And for a long period, extending from three or four centuries B.C. onward far into the Christian era, it was ever ready to receive modifications from the fertile brain and skilful hand of any devout Brahman. A striking example of this was the introduction of the Bhagavad Gita.
Ours the glory of giving the world Its science, religion, its poetry and art. No other portion of Hindu literature has made so great an impression on Western minds as the Bhagavad Gita, "The Lord's Lay," or the "Song of the Adorable." It has derived its special importance from its supposed resemblance to the New Testament.
If the former, even though you may imagine you worship God, the god of your heart is self. If the latter, even though you may withhold your lips from worship, you are dwelling with the Most High. The signs by which the Truth-lover is known are unmistakable. Hear the Holy Krishna declare them, in Sir Edwin Arnold's beautiful rendering of the "Bhagavad Gita":
And it must be confessed that in many respects this doctrine is inferior to the Vedantic, which emphasizes the spiritual character, and the divine origin and destiny, of the soul. The doctrine of Liberation, or of Redemption, as found in the Bhagavad Gita, is a strange combination of all the ways which Brahmanism has inculcated through its many schools, with other ways here added.
The master's omnipresence was demonstrated one day before a group of disciples who were listening to his exposition of the BHAGAVAD GITA. As he was explaining the meaning of KUTASTHA CHAITANYA or the Christ Consciousness in all vibratory creation, Lahiri Mahasaya suddenly gasped and cried out: "I am drowning in the bodies of many souls off the coast of Japan!"
Nothing is said of Krishna's sermon the Bhagavad Gita. No mention is made of Krishna's role as charioteer to Arjuna. Nothing further is said of its deadly outcome. Krishna's career as a warrior, in fact, is ended and with this episode the Purana enters its final phase. As Krishna lives at Dwarka, surrounded by his wives and huge progeny, he wearies of his earthly career.
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