- Composed:
- somewhere between c. 200 BCE and 200 CE, in northern India — the dating is genuinely disputed
- Tradition:
- Indian; a philosophical dialogue set inside the epic Mahābhārata, fusing Upanishadic thought with a new ethics of action
- The Big Idea:
- You cannot escape acting in the world — so act fully, do your duty with everything you have, but release your grip on the results.
- In their words:
- "You have a right to your actions alone, never to their fruits."
- If you remember one thing:
- The Gita is philosophy delivered at the worst possible moment — by God, driving a chariot, to a warrior who has just collapsed between two armies — and its answer is not to leave the world but to return to it, transformed.