The Bhagavad Gita in 18 days
One chapter a day, from Arjuna's despair on the battlefield to Krishna's last words. Each day gives the Sanskrit and a plain explanation of every verse; each verse's own page also has three public-domain English translations. Read at your own pace; the next chapter waits for you.
For every tradition. Where the classical teachers read a verse differently, each reading is labelled with its school.
By tradition, Gita Jayanti marks the day Krishna spoke the Gita to Arjuna. You can start this plan on that day. The date in your city.
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Day 1: Arjuna's despair (chapter 1)
The armies stand ready at Kurukshetra. Arjuna asks Krishna to drive his chariot between them, sees his own teachers and family on the other side, and puts down his bow.
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Day 2: The teaching begins (chapter 2)
Arjuna asks Krishna to teach him. Krishna speaks of the self that is never born and never dies, of acting without being driven by results, and of the person of steady wisdom.
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Day 3: The path of action (chapter 3)
If knowledge is higher, Arjuna asks, why act at all? Krishna answers that no one can stay without acting, and speaks of work done as an offering (yajna) and for the good of the world.
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Day 4: Knowledge and action (chapter 4)
Krishna tells how this teaching was handed down, and why he takes birth age after age. He speaks of many kinds of offering, and of knowledge as the highest of them.
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Day 5: Letting go, and acting (chapter 5)
Arjuna asks again: renounce action, or act? Krishna says both lead to the goal, and describes the one who acts without attachment, like a lotus leaf untouched by water.
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Day 6: Meditation (chapter 6)
How to sit, how to steady the mind, and what to do when it wanders. Arjuna says the mind is as hard to hold as the wind; Krishna answers with practice and detachment.
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Day 7: Knowing the whole (chapter 7)
Krishna speaks of his two natures, the one that makes the world and the one that holds it, and of the four kinds of people who turn to him.
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Day 8: The imperishable (chapter 8)
Arjuna asks seven questions, among them what Brahman is and how one remembers the Lord at the hour of death. Krishna answers, and speaks of the paths of light and of smoke.
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Day 9: The royal secret (chapter 9)
Krishna calls this teaching the royal knowledge and the royal secret. He says that everything rests in him, and that he accepts even a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water offered with love.
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Day 10: Divine glories (chapter 10)
Arjuna asks where he should think of Krishna. Krishna names his glories in the world: among rivers the Ganga, among things that do not move the Himalaya, among seasons the spring.
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Day 11: The universal form (chapter 11)
Arjuna asks to see Krishna's cosmic form, and is given divine sight. He sees all worlds and all time in one body, is shaken, and asks to see the familiar form again.
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Day 12: Devotion (chapter 12)
One of the two shortest chapters, with twenty verses (chapter 15 also has twenty). Arjuna asks who is better, the devotee of the Lord with form or the seeker of the formless. Krishna then describes the devotee who is dear to him.
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Day 13: The field and its knower (chapter 13)
The body is called the field, and the one who knows it the knower of the field. Krishna lists the qualities that make up knowledge, and speaks of nature (prakriti) and spirit (purusha).
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Day 14: The three gunas (chapter 14)
Sattva, rajas and tamas: the three qualities of nature which, Krishna says, bind every being. Arjuna asks how to know the one who has gone beyond them.
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Day 15: The supreme person (chapter 15)
The world is pictured as an ashvattha tree with its roots above and branches below. A short chapter. Today some ashrams chant it before meals.
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Day 16: Two kinds of nature (chapter 16)
Krishna lists the qualities that lead to freedom, such as fearlessness, honesty and kindness, and those that bind, and names desire, anger and greed as three gates to avoid.
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Day 17: Three kinds of faith (chapter 17)
Faith, food, offering, austerity and giving, each in three kinds, by the three gunas. The chapter ends by explaining the words "Om Tat Sat".
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Day 18: Freedom through letting go (chapter 18)
The longest chapter brings the teaching together: renunciation and letting go, duty by one's own nature, and the final call to surrender. Arjuna says his doubt is gone, and Sanjaya closes the dialogue.
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Explanation written for this site and checked against the cited edition. Free to quote with credit.