---
type: Reference
title: "Bhagavad Gītā"
description: "Kṛṣṇa's teaching to Arjuna; the locus of karma-yoga (2.47-48), svadharma (3.35, 18.47), and the threefold typologies of tapas and dāna (17.14-22)."
darshana:
  - pan-dharmic (sādhāraṇa-dharma)
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
tags:
  - primary-source
  - smriti
  - karma-yoga
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Bhagavad Gītā

## What It Is

The dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna embedded in the Mahābhārata's Bhīṣma Parva. It teaches karma-yoga, the path of desireless action: the right to action but not its fruits (2.47), yoga as skill in action (2.50), and the superiority of one's own dharma to another's (3.35, 18.45-48). Its seventeenth chapter grades tapas (17.14-19) and dāna (17.20-22) by guṇa, providing the tradition's clearest account of how the manner of an act determines its worth. It also locates surrender (īśvara-praṇidhāna, 9.27; the charama-śloka 18.66) at the heart of the path.

## Why It Matters Here

The primary source for the Tier 3 concepts (nishkama-karma, svadharma, dana) and a key witness for tapas and ishvara-pranidhana. The sāttvic/rājasic/tāmasic gradings of tapas and dāna are the textual ground for the bundle's insistence that dharmic ethics is measured by the manner and the inner orientation, not the outward act alone.
