The Bhagavad-Gita has been an essential text of Hindu culture in India
since the time of its composition in the first century A.D. One of the
great classics of world literature, it has inspired such diverse
thinkers as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and T.S. Eliot; most
recently, it formed the core of Peter Brook's celebrated production of
the Mahabharata.