.

Bhagavad Gita comprises 18 chapters (section 25 to 42)^{[32][web 2]} in the Bhishma Parva of the epic Mahabharata and consists of 700 verses.^[33] Because of differences in recensions, the verses of the Gita may be numbered in the full text of the Mahabharata as chapters 6.25–42 or as chapters 6.23–40.^{[web 3]} According to the recension of the Gitacommented on by Adi Shankara, a prominent philosopher of the Vedanta school, the number of verses is 700, but there is evidence to show that old manuscripts had 745 verses.^[34]The verses themselves, composed with similes and metaphors, are poetic in nature. The verses mostly employ the range and style of the Sanskrit Anustubh metre (chhandas), and in a few expressive verses the Tristubh metre is used.^[35]

The Sanskrit editions of the Gita name each chapter as a particular form of yoga. However, these chapter titles do not appear in the Sanskrit text of the Mahabharata.^{[web 3]} Swami Chidbhavananda explains that each of the eighteen chapters is designated as a separate yoga because each chapter, like yoga, "trains the body and the mind". He labels the first chapter "Arjuna Vishada Yogam" or the "Yoga of Arjuna's Dejection".^[36] Sir Edwin Arnold translates this chapter as "The Distress of Arjuna"^[37]