Bhagavad Gita As It Is - BBT Edition cover

श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता · धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे

The song of the Divine, presented as it is.

Five thousand years ago, on a battlefield at the crossroads of history, Śrī Kṛṣṇa spoke seven hundred verses that changed the world. Bhagavad-gītā As It Is by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda delivers that conversation undiluted — as it was spoken, as it has been carried, as it is.

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  • 700

    Sanskrit Verses

  • 80+

    Languages

  • 30M+

    Copies in Print

  • 5,000

    Years of Wisdom

A TIMELESS CONVERSATION

What is the Bhagavad-gītā?

The Bhagavad-gītā — “The Song of God” — is the essence of India's Vedic wisdom and one of the great spiritual classics of the world. It is a dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His friend Arjuna, spoken in the moments before a world war, when Arjuna's courage dissolves into despair.

In answering Arjuna's crisis, Kṛṣṇa answers ours: who am I, why do I suffer, what is my duty, what happens at death. In eighteen chapters, the Gītā moves from the yoga of action to the yoga of knowledge to its crowning teaching — the yoga of devotion, bhakti.

It is not a book of abstract philosophy. It is a call to live with clarity, courage, and love for the Divine — in the middle of the battlefield of life.

Bhagavad-gītā 2.13

देहिनो’स्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा । तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति ॥

dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṃ yauvanaṃ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāptir dhīras tatra na muhyati

On what happens when the body changes from one age to the next — and why a steady mind doesn't panic when it happens one final time. Full translation and purport in the book.

Why “As It Is”?

  • Complete & Unabridged

    All 700 verses with the original Devanagari, Roman transliteration, word-for-word Sanskrit equivalents, English translation, and purport — nothing abridged, nothing left out.

  • In the Line of Teachers

    Presented through the paramparā — the disciple succession descending from Kṛṣṇa Himself — so the meaning arrives unbroken, not reinterpreted by each generation.

  • Kṛṣṇa at the Center

    Where other editions obscure the speaker, this one honors Him — the Gītā's own conclusion is that surrender to Kṛṣṇa is the point, not a footnote.

  • Purports for Real Life

    Śrīla Prabhupāda's commentary connects each verse to lived experience — work, family, doubt, death, joy — making the Gītā a practical guide, not a museum piece.

  • A Global Standard

    Used in university courses and translated into 80+ languages, it is the most widely distributed edition of the Gītā in history — the reference edition worldwide.

  • A Living Tradition

    This edition sparked a worldwide movement of Gītā study and devotional practice. Its readers don't just admire the book — they live it.

Spiritual Books for the Modern Seeker

WORDS THAT HAVE CROSSED MILLENNIA

Hear the Gītā Speak

Seven hundred verses. Every one available in the original Sanskrit, with word-for-word meanings and a note on what it's really asking of you.

Open the Verse Explorer

HIS DIVINE GRACE

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda delivered Bhagavad-gītā As It Is to the West exactly as he received it from his own teacher — without dilution, without reinterpretation. Founder-ācārya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, he spent the last twelve years of his life carrying this one conversation to the entire world.

A Life in Service of the Word

  • “The purpose of Bhagavad-gītā is to deliver mankind from the nescience of material existence.”

    — Śrīla Prabhupāda, Preface to Bhagavad-gītā As It Is

  • 1896 · Calcutta

    Born Abhay Charan De, the day after Janmāṣṭamī, the appearance day of Lord Kṛṣṇa.

  • 1922 · First Meeting

    Meets his spiritual master, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura, who asks him to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness through the English language.

  • 1965 · The Crossing

    At age 69, sails alone to New York aboard the steamship Jaladuta, suffering two heart attacks en route, to fulfill his guru's order.

  • 1968 · The Gītā Published

    Macmillan publishes Bhagavad-gītā As It Is; the complete edition follows in 1972, becoming the best-selling edition of the Gītā in the Western world.

  • 1966–1977 · A World Movement

    Founds ISKCON, circles the globe fourteen times, establishes over 100 temples, and writes some seventy volumes of translation and commentary before his passing in 1977.

A GIFT TO THE WORLD

One Book. Every Continent.

From university lecture halls to Himalayan villages, from prison libraries to parliament houses, this one book has found its way into hands on every continent on Earth.

  • 30M+

    Copies Distributed Worldwide

  • 80+

    Languages in Print

  • 50+

    Years in Continuous Publication

  • 7

    Continents, One Message

Readers, Thinkers, Seekers

  • Henry David Thoreau

    “In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta... in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.”

    Author, Walden

  • Mahatma Gandhi

    “When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavad Gītā.”

    Independence leader

  • Albert Einstein

    “When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe, everything else seems so superfluous.”

    Physicist

  • Aldous Huxley

    “The Bhagavad-Gita is perhaps the most systematic scriptural statement of the Perennial Philosophy.”

    Author, Brave New World

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