Who wrote the Bhagavad Gita?
The Gita was spoken by Shri Krishna and set down by the sage Vedavyasa as part of the Mahabharata.
Answer
According to tradition, the speaker of the Gita is Shri Krishna himself and the listener is Arjuna. The sage Vedavyasa recorded this dialogue in the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata. A well-known tradition about the Mahabharata says that Vyasa dictated it and Lord Ganesha wrote it down.
There is another layer of narration inside the Gita. Vyasa granted divine sight to Sanjaya so that, while sitting in Hastinapura, he could see and hear everything on the battlefield. It was Sanjaya who related the entire dialogue to King Dhritarashtra. This is why the very first verse of the Gita is a question asked by Dhritarashtra.
Modern historians and scholars hold different views about when the Mahabharata and the Gita were composed. For the devotional tradition, the Gita is the word of the Lord himself, which is why it is called the Bhagavad Gita, the song of the Lord.
- Source
- Mahabharata, Bhishma Parva