To me, works like the Bhagavad Gita operate on three levels simultaneously – history, mythology, and metaphor.
I accept its battlefield dialog as an actual historical event.
But considering in particular the presence of Krishna, the “actuality” cannot be limited to our usual notions of time and space. The scene is also being acted out on a divine plane. In that sense, it is a myth.
And given this expanded view of the drama, anything specific can furthermore be understood as general. It’s a metaphor. For instance, the word kshetra (field) is used for the battlefield, and for the body – the field of the senses. Thus the body is a battlefield where the soul struggles against ignorance.
What’s more, we may read the Gita as a war story where Arjuna is being convinced to fight. But then it’s also a religious treatise promoting non-violence. Is that a contradiction? Not if you perceive that the same thing is being said, on different levels of discourse.
