Restoring Faith, Curing Doubt: Kṛṣṇa’s Instruction in the Bhagavad Gītā

Abstract

The Bhagavad Gītā is often read as a classic portrayal of necessary doubt as the vehicle of mature faith, and as such, it is valued in our times. By this telling, Arjuna, the traditional warrior, loses his bearings and comes to doubt the very norms that define the warrior ideal. Kṛṣṇa’s teaching restores to him a sense of well-being, with a much deeper personal faith no longer bound by tradition. But a careful reading of the Gītā with a sense of how it has been read over the millennia shows that the “faith over belief” reading of the Gītā is largely a modern one. If we read more closely, we see that the Gītā indicates that faith becomes manifest by the removal of erroneous beliefs and the reassertion of correct (and traditional) beliefs about self and world, duty and right action, death and God. Correct beliefs are therefore requisite to the rectification of faith. While today’s reader cannot merely adopt the Gītā’s ancient view of faith and may prefer a valuing of faith that relegates beliefs to second rank, neither should we assume that this religious classic confirms our current views. Indeed, the Gītā challenges contemporary ways of thinking at a fundamental level; this is, of course, a good reason for reading it anew today.