analysis BG

 The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the major scriptures of Hinduism. Originally written in Sanskrit, it is part of the larger Hindu epic, Mahabharata, which tells the story of the Kurukshetra War, a real conflict which historians believe occurred somewhere between 1000 and 700 BCE. But the Gita’s tone is quite different than the rest of the epic—instead of a the details of an outside war, its focus is instead on the inward war for self-mastery and spiritual fulfillment.

The Gita is told as a conversation between a prince, Arjuna, and his military counselor, Lord Krishna, who also happens to be a Hindu deity. Krishna is believed to have been the eighth incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu, and is worshipped as a god in his own right. Through their conversation, Krishna teaches Arjuna about topics such as Dharma and Karma, which would form much of the basis of both Hindu and Buddhist thought. He also teaches Arjuna about humanity’s true nature and the path and practices required to attain it.

Analysis

Like my analysis of the Bible, I wanted to analyze the words used in the Bhagavad Gita to see if we could gain some insight into its key themes. I found an English translation by Ramanand Prasad, and  used a tool from www.writewords.org to count the occurrences of each word. I then filtered out common and less meaningful words—mostly pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners.

From here, I began to visualize the data in Tableau, starting with the top 10 words (you can find the full visualization).

The book as a whole has 9,839 words after filtering out the list of common words (including common words, it has 20,826). The top word is “Arjuna”, appearing 175 times, followed “Supreme” at 143, and “Knowledge” at 118. From this top ten list alone, we can confirm the fact that Arjuna and Lord Krishna are the main characters. Also, assuming the characters regularly address each other by name, we can also infer that Krishna does most of the talking since “Arjuna” is the number 1 word and “Krishna” is number 9. Additionally, we can get a very good feel for the major themes of the scripture—Knowledge, Mind, Self, Spirit, Nature, Being.

There are many interesting words in Bhagavad Gita. Some people study it devotedly without understanding the meaning. Some people read it with the help of commentaries. Whatever you do it is useful in one way or other. But if you do word study in Bhagavad Gita and do your own research regarding those words you can retain them in memory. It will lead you towards better understanding. For instance if you look for these words in Marathi or Telugu or Hindi Bhakti literature you will definitely get some good cross references. I have done so with Tamil Bhakti literature just for some words.

1.Jnana Agni =Fire of Knowledge= fire of wisdom 4-19

“He whose undertakings are all devoid of desires and selfish puposes, and whose actions have been burn by the Fire of Knowledge, --him the wise call a sage”.(4-19)

 

2.Jnana Chakshu= Eye of Wisdom (15-10)

The deluded do not see Him who departs, stays and enjoys; but those who possess the Eye of Wisdom behold Him (15-10)

 

 

3.Jnana Tapasa = Austerity of Wisdom (4-10)

“Freed from attachment, fear and anger, absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, purified by the austerity of wisdom, many have attained to My Being”. (4-10)

 

 

4.Jnana Dipena=  Lamp of Wisdom (10-11)

“Out of mere compassion for them, I, dwelling within their Self, destroy the darkness born out of ignorance by the luminous Lamp of Wisdom” (10-11)

5.Jnana Plavena = Boat of Wisdom (4-36)

“Even if thou art the most sinful of all the sinners, yet thou shalt verily cross all sins by the Boat of Wisdom” (4-36)

Tamil saint Appar alias Tirunavukkarasu of seventh century AD also used a simile like this:

He is Narayanan; He is Brahma

He is in the four Vedas;

He is the perfect one

Who is like a ship on the great ocean of wisdom  - 78, 6th Tirumurai

 

 

6.Jnana Yoga= Path of Knowledge (3-3)

“In this world there is a twofold path, as I said before, O Sinless one, -- the Path of Knowledge of the Sankhyas and the path of action of the Yogis” (3-3)

7.Jnana Yajna= Wisdom Sacrifice (4-33, 9-15, 18-70)

“Superior is Wisdom –Sacrifice to the sacrifice with objects, O,Parantapa! All actions in their entirety, O,Arjuna, culminate in wisd0m” (4-33)

 

Tamil devotional poets kept this beautiful Sanskrit word Jnana intact wherever they used divine knowledge or wisdom. They did not translate it in to Tamil. Like Dharma, it is an untranslatable word.

 

Bhuthathalvar, one of the 12 Vaishnavite saints used Lamp of Wisdom in his hymns. Tirumular, one of the 18 Tamil Siddhas (enlightened souls) used Sword of Wisdom. Sambandar ,one of the Four Great Saivite saints, used the word Flame of Widom in his Thevaram hymns. Bharati, the greatest of the modern Tamil poets, used the word Sword of Wisdom in his poems. There are hundreds of places where they used this Jnana with other words as similes or metaphors.