Title: The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War
Author: Anonymous & Barbara Stoller Miller
Publisher: Bantam
Year: 500 BCE/1986
176 pages
A philosophical treatise presented as a discourse between Arjuna, a reluctant archer or the brink of war, and his chariotman, who turns out to be Krishna. Krishna gets most of the air time. The Bhagavad Gita was probably a separate discourse that was interpolated into the Mahabharata.
On the positive side, the Bhagavad Gita provides some religious/philosophical context for the Buddha's teachings, and shows why they were such innovations. On the down side (and I'm not criticizing anybody's beliefs but speaking for myself), its emphatically stated and restated tropes include the impossibility of change and the futility of trying to do so, because your fate is sealed; that you should keep to your place in the social hierarchy and that doing your ordained job poorly is better than doing a job you weren't assigned well; shut up and kill those other guys already, Arjuna, because they're bad guys (so forget your scruples that they're your friends and relations) and anyway both you shooting them and their deaths are preordained so do as you're told. The main "action" of this discourse, such as it is, could be used as an illustration of Milgram's findings in his obedience studies: Do as you're told because I'm the Big Guy and I say it's the right thing to do. Your empathy is an impediment and based on false premises. Even though you think you know your compatriots, I gave them lots of chances to be good guys and they blew it, so shoot already, Arjuna.
All this fixity begs the question of why one should strive to be better--is it simply a matter of snagging a better reincarnation? It can't be enlightenment, because it's made clear that only really great men can get off the wheel, and you aren't one of them.
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