ध्रुवतारा · Dhruvatara
The Bhagavad Gita, read slowly
Seven hundred and one verses in eighteen chapters. One verse at a time, paced to a breath. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to pay, and it works with the network off.
About nine hours of reading if you go straight through — or eighteen verses a day for forty days. There is no wrong pace, and nothing is lost by stopping.
Who speaks
Every verse in order, banded by voice. Arjuna asks a great deal early, thins through the middle, and by the last chapters has almost stopped — the book becomes a monologue, and the shape of that is visible.
- Krishna 574
- Arjuna 86
- Sanjaya 40
- Dhritarashtra 1
The shape of the eighteen
Verses per chapter. The book is nothing like evenly paced — Chapter 18 runs to 78 and Chapter 12 to 20. The filled portion is how much of each chapter carries written commentary here, which thins out as the chapters go on.
- 1अर्जुनविषादयोगArjuna's Despair47 verses
- 2साङ्ख्ययोगThe Eternal72 verses
- 3कर्मयोगAction43 verses
- 4ज्ञानकर्मसंन्यासयोगThe Lineage of Knowing42 verses
- 5कर्मसंन्यासयोगThe Unwetted Leaf29 verses
- 6ध्यानयोगThe Windless Place47 verses
- 7ज्ञानविज्ञानयोगThe Thread30 verses
- 8अक्षरब्रह्मयोगThe Two Paths28 verses
- 9राजविद्याराजगुह्ययोगThe Simple Offering34 verses
- 10विभूतियोगThe Glories42 verses
- 11विश्वरूपदर्शनयोगThe Cosmic Form55 verses
- 12भक्तियोगDevotion20 verses
- 13क्षेत्रक्षेत्रज्ञविभागयोगThe Field and Its Knower35 verses
- 14गुणत्रयविभागयोगThe Three Strands27 verses
- 15पुरुषोत्तमयोगThe Inverted Tree20 verses
- 16दैवासुरसम्पद्विभागयोगTwo Natures24 verses
- 17श्रद्धात्रयविभागयोगThree Kinds of Faith28 verses
- 18मोक्षसंन्यासयोगRelease78 verses
Other ways in
- What are you carrying? Pick a feeling — anxious, grieving, betrayed, stuck — and read the verses that meet it.
- Search All 701 verses, by word or half-remembered line. Works offline.
- The word garden Every Sanskrit word, with each verse that uses it. Vocabulary accrues as you read.
- Your journal A question for each chapter. Private, and exportable as a file.
