The Prime Minister of India presents a special edition of the Bhagavad Gita as a diplomatic gift to the President of the United States.  The External Affairs Minister of India proposes that the Bhagavad Gita be declared a "national scripture" for the (secular) Republic of India.  When and why has the Bhagavad Gita been elevated to the status of a Bible of Hinduism?  How does it figure, in India and around the world, in the global age?

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Richard H. Davis is Professor and Chair of Religion and Asian Studies at Bard College, Annandale, New York, USA.  He is the author of Lives of Indian Images (1997) and editor of Picturing the Nation: Iconographies of Modern India (2006).  His most recent publications are A Priest's Guide for the Great Festival: Aghorasiva's Mahotsavavidhi (2010) and Global India circa 100 CE: South Asia in Early World History (2010). Current projects are a history of the receptions of the Bhagavad Gita and a cultural history of early India.