Each chapter is a yoga — a path. Together they form one of the greatest works of philosophy ever composed.
अर्जुनविषादयोगः
On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the warrior Arjuna sees his own family, teachers and friends arrayed against him. Overwhelmed by grief and moral confusion, he lays down his bow and refuses to fight. His breakdown becomes the doorway to the entire teaching of the Gita.
साङ्ख्ययोगः
Krishna begins the teaching. He reveals the immortality of the soul, the temporary nature of the body, and introduces the two great paths — knowledge and selfless action. This chapter contains the essence of the whole Gita, including the famous verse on the right to action but not its fruits.
कर्मयोगः
Why act at all, if knowledge is supreme? Krishna answers: no one can remain without action for even a moment. He teaches how to act without selfish desire, how work becomes worship, and how desire and anger arise as the great enemies of the self.
ज्ञानकर्मसंन्यासयोगः
Krishna reveals the ancient lineage of this wisdom and his own divine descents: whenever righteousness declines, he manifests himself. The chapter teaches how to see inaction in action, and how the fire of knowledge burns all karma to ashes.
कर्मसंन्यासयोगः
Which is better — renouncing action or performing it? Krishna declares both lead to the highest, but acting selflessly is superior. The sage who works without attachment, like a lotus leaf untouched by water, finds peace that renunciation alone cannot give.
ध्यानयोगः
The most practical chapter on meditation ever written. Krishna describes the posture, place and discipline of practice, the balanced life it requires, and the mind 'like a lamp in a windless place'. When Arjuna protests that the mind is restless as the wind, Krishna offers the two keys: practice and detachment.
ज्ञानविज्ञानयोगः
Krishna describes his divine nature — how he pervades everything like pearls strung on a thread. He explains his two energies, material and spiritual, the veil of illusion that hides him, and the four kinds of people who seek him.
अक्षरब्रह्मयोगः
What happens at the moment of death? Krishna teaches that whatever one remembers at the end, that state one attains — so remember the Divine always. The chapter maps the journeys of the soul and the cosmic cycles of creation and dissolution.
राजविद्याराजगुह्ययोगः
Krishna shares 'the most secret knowledge': he pervades the entire universe, yet is not contained by it. Whoever offers even a leaf, a flower, fruit or water with love, he accepts. His promise rings through the ages — my devotee never perishes.
विभूतियोगः
Where can the Divine be seen? Everywhere excellence appears. Krishna names his manifestations — the radiance of the sun, the intelligence of the intelligent, the Himalaya among mountains — and concludes: whatever is glorious, brilliant or powerful springs from a spark of his splendour.
विश्वरूपदर्शनयोगः
The most awe-inspiring chapter. Granted divine sight, Arjuna beholds Krishna's cosmic form — all worlds, all beings, all time contained in one infinite body. Terrified and humbled, he understands that the friend beside him is the Infinite itself.
भक्तियोगः
The shortest chapter, and among the sweetest. Krishna describes the devotee he loves: friendly and compassionate to all, free from ego, equal in pleasure and pain, content, self-controlled and unshaken — the same to friend and foe, in honour and disgrace.
क्षेत्रक्षेत्रज्ञविभागयोगः
The body is the field; the consciousness that knows it is the knower. Krishna teaches the difference between matter and spirit, lists the qualities of true knowledge — humility, non-violence, steadiness — and reveals the Supreme dwelling equally in all beings.
गुणत्रयविभागयोगः
All of nature moves through three qualities: sattva (clarity), rajas (restlessness) and tamas (inertia). Krishna explains how they bind the soul, how to recognize them in daily moods and habits, and how to transcend all three through unwavering devotion.
पुरुषोत्तमयोगः
Using the image of an inverted banyan tree — roots above, branches below — Krishna describes the world of samsara and how to cut it down with the axe of detachment. He reveals himself as the Supreme Person beyond both the perishable and the imperishable.
दैवासुरसम्पद्विभागयोगः
Two tendencies live in every human heart. Krishna contrasts the divine qualities — fearlessness, honesty, compassion, humility — with the demonic ones of arrogance, greed and cruelty, and warns of the three gates of self-destruction: lust, anger and greed.
श्रद्धात्रयविभागयोगः
A person is made of their faith: as their faith is, so are they. Krishna shows how the three gunas shape everything we do — the food we prefer, the discipline we keep, the charity we give — and teaches the purifying mantra 'Om Tat Sat'.
मोक्षसंन्यासयोगः
The grand finale gathers every thread of the teaching: action, knowledge, devotion, duty and surrender. It ends with the Gita's most tender promise — 'Abandon all varieties of dharma and surrender to me alone; I shall liberate you from all sin, do not grieve' — and Arjuna rising, doubts dispelled, ready to act.