The Bhagavad Gita Blog

I created this Blog to post my thoughts, inspirations and interpretations while going through the Bhagavad Gita and its various translations.
The Bhagavad Gita or "the Song Divine" is a book in sanskrit of about 700 verses spread over 18 chapters that is a conversation between Arjuna (the seeker) and Lord Krishna. It appears in the Bhishma Parva of the great epic of Mahabharata (reportedly the longest poem in the world).
I was introduced to the book itself at a very young age of 10 when as part of school we memorized and recited chapters or parts of it - the favourite chapters were of course 12 & 15 since they were very short with only 20 verses or so.
I was exposed to the more deeper significance of the book and to the vast amount of the spiritual truths contained in the book when I started reading an english translation of the book by Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, in my college days (around 1997 - 2000). The timely nature of the teaching and the situational discourse that addresses the personal and the profound parts of spiritual teaching at once and at equal measure is what kept me very drawn to the book.
Apart from the esoterics around the story of the gita and the spirituality contained within it, the chanting of Gita itself is a moving experience by itself. The conversational nature of the poem is clearly brought out by the separate stanza's punctuated with "arjuna uvAca" (meaning "arjunA said" ) and "Sri BhagavAn uvAca" (meaning "Lord Krishna Said") to denote the dialogue.
I would like to close this post with a nice sloka about the Gita that I liked the first time I heard it. It is one of the dhyana slokas and goes like this :

savOpanishadO gAvO gOptA gOpAlanandanah |
pArthO vatsassuDIr bhOktA duGDam gItAmrtam mahat ||

I understand the verse to mean: The upanishads are the cows and the Lord (here referred to as the son of the protector of cattle) is the cowherd. With Arjuna as the calf the Lord Cowherd is milking the scripture for its lofty truths for the benefit of the wise student; the milk which is the essence of the upanishads is the great Bhagavad Gita. The metaphor of Arjuna as the vatsa really strikes me perfect here since it is out of his diligent pursuit in the spirit of inquiry into all the Lord's teachings that the Gita came to be so clear and accessible that even mere mortals like us can enjoy!
Om namO BhagavatE vAsudEvAya!
Om Sri gurubhyO namah!