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.
A term is counted here when the verse’s Sanskrit contains it — including inside a compound, where sandhi often hides it. That makes every figure below checkable: open the verse and the word is there. It also makes them 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.
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.
मनस्manas
The mind
The mind — restless, and the Gita’s account of mastering it.
ब्रह्मन्brahman
Brahman
The Absolute — the one reality the Gita says everything rests on.
मोहmoha
Delusion
Confusion — the state Arjuna opens in and closes out of.
सुखsukha
Happiness
Pleasure and happiness, sorted by the Gita into three kinds.
भक्तिbhakti
Bhakti
Devotion — love given to God without a price on it.
बुद्धिbuddhi
Discernment
The faculty that decides — and what the Gita says steadies it.
सङ्गsaṅga
Attachment
Clinging — and the letting-go the Gita asks for instead.
यज्ञyajña
Yajna
Sacrifice — work done as an offering rather than for a return.
कामkāma
Desire
Wanting — which the Gita names as the first of three gates.
मोक्षmokṣa
Moksha
Release — the end of being bound to birth and death.
सत्त्वsattva
Sattva
Clarity, lightness, truthfulness.
गुणguṇa
Guna
The three strands — sattva, rajas and tamas — that nature is woven from.
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.
रजस्rajas
Rajas
Restlessness, craving, drive.
मृत्युmṛtyu
Death and birth
Death — and the Gita’s claim that what dies was never the person.
तपस्tapas
Tapas
Austerity — chosen difficulty that burns off what is soft.
तमस्tamas
Tamas
Heaviness, inertia, darkness.
प्रकृतिprakṛti
Prakriti
Nature — everything that changes.
भयbhaya
Fear
Fear, and the fearlessness named first among the divine qualities.
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.
क्रोधkrodha
Anger
Anger — what desire turns into when it is blocked.
इन्द्रियindriya
The senses
The senses, and the chariot-image of holding their reins.
शान्तिśānti
Peace
Peace — what the Gita says follows the giving-up of craving.
शोकśoka
Grief
Sorrow — what Krishna tells Arjuna he is spending on the wrong object.
ध्यानdhyāna
Dhyana
Meditation — the mind gathered and held on one thing.
लोभlobha
Greed
Greed — the third of the three gates.
मायाmāyā
Maya
The veil — what makes the changing look like the real.
अहङ्कारahaṅkāra
Ego
The I-maker — the sense of being a separate doer.
स्थितप्रज्ञsthitaprajña
Sthitaprajna
The steady mind — a person no longer moved about by wanting and fearing.
स्वधर्मsvadharma
Svadharma
One’s own duty — the work that is actually yours, rather than another’s.
दयाdayā
Daya
Compassion, and the non-injury that goes with it.
अवतारavatāra
Divine descent
The Gita’s statement of why and when the Divine takes birth.
लोकसङ्ग्रहlokasaṅgraha
The holding-together of the world
Acting for the sake of the world’s order rather than one’s own account.
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.