40 terms · 700 verses searched
The words the Gita uses.
Sanskrit does not translate cleanly, and the usual English words for these terms carry the wrong weight. Here is what each one means, and every verse in which the Gita actually says it.
What are the key Sanskrit terms in the Bhagavad Gita?
Forty of them are set out here — dharma, karma, yoga, atman, guna, moksha, sthitaprajna and the rest — each with what the word carries in Sanskrit, why the usual English rendering is wrong, and the verses of the 700 whose Devanagari actually contains it. The counts are a lexical fact about the text and are re-checked against the Sanskrit on every build; they are a floor and not a total, because the Gita teaches an idea in verses that never name it.
Hansi Gita Bhawan Trust · counted from the Bhagavad Gita
A term is counted here when the verse’s Sanskrit contains the word itself — including inside a compound, where sandhi often hides it. That makes every figure below checkable: open the verse and the word is there. Words that belong to the same idea but are different words — nirvāṇa under mokṣa, janma under mṛtyu — are named on the card and counted separately, never folded into the headline figure. Every number is a floor rather than a total: the Gita teaches non-attachment in verses that never use saṅga, and no word-count can find those. For that, the nine themes are where the Trust has written.
The forty terms
कर्मkarma
Karma
Action, and what action leaves behind.
115 versesfirst at 1.15
आत्मन्ātman
Atman
The Self — what a person is underneath the body and the mind.
110 versesfirst at 2.41
योगyoga
Yoga
Yoking — the disciplines that join a person to the real.
ज्ञानjñāna
Jnana
Knowledge — not information, but seeing a thing as it is.
with ज्ञेय: 71 in all
ब्रह्मन्brahman
Brahman
The Absolute — the one reality the Gita says everything rests on.
सुखsukha
Happiness
Pleasure and happiness, sorted by the Gita into three kinds.
बुद्धिbuddhi
Discernment
The faculty that decides — and what the Gita says steadies it.
कामkāma
Desire
Wanting — which the Gita names as the first of three gates.
यज्ञyajña
Yajna
Sacrifice — work done as an offering rather than for a return.
इन्द्रियindriya
The senses
The senses, and the work of holding them — ranked below the mind and the intellect at 3.42.
गुणguṇa
Guna
The three strands — sattva, rajas and tamas — that nature is woven from.
भक्तिbhakti
Bhakti
Devotion — love given to God without a price on it.
with भज्: 39 in all
दुःखduḥkha
Suffering
Pain — and the evenness the Gita asks for between it and pleasure.
धर्मdharma
Dharma
What holds things together — duty, right order, the way a thing rightly acts.
पुरुषpuruṣa
Purusha
The one who witnesses — what does not change.
मोहmoha
Delusion
Confusion — the state Arjuna opens in and closes out of.
with मूढ: 43 in all
तपस्tapas
Tapas
Austerity — chosen difficulty that burns off what is soft.
मनस्manas
The mind
The mind — restless, and the Gita’s account of mastering it.
with चित्त · चेतस्: 51 in all
सङ्गsaṅga
Attachment
Clinging — and the letting-go the Gita asks for instead.
with सक्त · वैराग्य: 39 in all
प्रकृतिprakṛti
Prakriti
Nature — everything that changes.
सत्त्वsattva
Sattva
Clarity, lightness, truthfulness.
with सात्त्विक: 32 in all
दानdāna
Dana
Giving — and the three grades the Gita sorts it into.
श्रद्धाśraddhā
Shraddha
Faith — and the Gita’s claim that a person is made of theirs.
भयbhaya
Fear
Fear, and the fearlessness named first among the divine qualities.
with भीत: 18 in all
क्रोधkrodha
Anger
Anger — what desire turns into, in the chain at 2.62.
अहङ्कारahaṅkāra
Ego
The I-maker — the sense of being a separate doer.
शान्तिśānti
Peace
Peace — what the Gita says follows the giving-up of craving.
मोक्षmokṣa
Moksha
Release — the end of being bound to birth and death.
with मुक्त · मुच्यते · निर्वाण: 34 in all
रजस्rajas
Rajas
Restlessness, craving, drive.
with राजस: 25 in all
तमस्tamas
Tamas
Heaviness, inertia, darkness.
with तामस: 23 in all
मृत्युmṛtyu
Death and birth
Death — and the Gita’s claim that what dies was never the person.
with मरण · अन्तकाल · जन्म: 25 in all
लोभlobha
Greed
Greed — the third of the three gates.
मायाmāyā
Maya
The veil — what makes the changing look like the real.
शोकśoka
Grief
Sorrow — what Krishna tells Arjuna he is spending on the wrong object.
with शुच् · विषाद: 7 in all
स्वधर्मsvadharma
Svadharma
One’s own duty — the work that is actually yours, rather than another’s.
ध्यानdhyāna
Dhyana
Meditation — the mind gathered and held on one thing.
with ध्यायति: 5 in all
लोकसङ्ग्रहlokasaṅgraha
The holding-together of the world
Acting for the sake of the world’s order rather than one’s own account.
स्थितप्रज्ञsthitaprajña
Sthitaprajna
The steady mind — a person no longer moved about by wanting and fearing.
with स्थितधी · स्थिरबुद्धि: 4 in all
दयाdayā
Daya
Compassion, and the non-injury that goes with it.
with करुणा · अहिंसा: 5 in all
अवतारavatāra
Divine descent
The Gita’s statement of why and when the Divine takes birth.
with सम्भवामि · सृजामि: 2 in all
Reading, not counting
A word is a door, not an answer.
Knowing that dharma appears in twenty-seven verses tells you where to look. It does not tell you what the Gita means by it — and the Gita means several things, in different places, to different questioners. The nine themes are where that is worked through, verse by verse, in the Trust’s own words.