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Just imagine you are on the battlefield, the two armies facing each other eager to strike. Everyone is agitated and in the midst of this chaos the knowledge of Geeta is being sermonized.
It will take long time to preach a spiritual treatise consisting of nearly 700 slokas.
What were the armies doing, while the discourse is going on?
Were they just waiting patiently for the discourse to be completed (or) went back to their respective tents and took rest?
Not more than 2 hours.
Actually recitation of Gita was in form of plain Q&A where Arjuna is clearing his doubts one by one. Arjuna was gifted with concentration abilities (e.g. aiming bird's/fish's eye or his understanding of other martial arts). Whatever Krishna told as Gita, he was able to grasp with similar swiftness based on his then knowledge of society & scriptures. He could have been quite clear about certain concepts like Swa-Dharma, Paap-Punya, Varnashram.
In today's time, many things are no more trivial. We require detailed explanations to understand Gita better. Hence we see purports in TV or various commentaries online.
Many slokas can be omitted because they were just descriptions:
Let's assume that there are 650 slokas worth of text which had to be recited either by Krishna & Arjuna. A sloka recited with a moderate pace takes average 10 seconds from a fluent Sanskrit speaker.
650 x 10 seconds = 6500 seconds = 108 minutes
What were the armies doing?
Many people claim that the time of battle ground was frozen or slowed down by Krishna during the discourse of Gita. But that's a flawed notion, because Sanjaya, Dhritarashtra & VyAsa heard Gita in their real time.
According to this reference, Dhritarashtra didn't hear Gita in real time. Rather Sanjaya would have told him later on about those events due to his capabilities to see past/present/future through Divya Drishti. However, still there are many reasons which are against the notion of time-pause:
Personally, I don't see a need of making the time still for < 2 hours event.
One may ask, why armies din't start fighting even ShankhnAds were done? Here are the reasons:
Going back to own camps may not be practical because no one knew when Arjuna's doubts will be cleared. So we can safely assume that both armies waited for that much time. PAndavas in hope of Arjuna coming back and Kauravas in hope of Arjuna backing off.
References
[1] Then the Kurus, the Pandavas, and the Somakas made certain covenants, and settled the rules, O bull of Bharata's race, regarding the different kinds of combat. Persons equally circumstanced must encounter each other, fighting fairly. And if having fought fairly the combatants withdraw (without fear of molestation), even that would be gratifying to us. Those who engaged in contests of words should be fought against with words. Those that left the ranks should never be slain. A car-warrior should have a car-warrior for his antagonist; he on the neck of an elephant should have a similar combatant for his foe; a horse should be met by a horse, and a foot-soldier, O Bharata; should be met by a foot-soldier. Guided by considerations of fitness, willingness, daring and might, one should strike another, giving notice. No one should strike another that is unprepared or panic-struck. One engaged with another, one seeking quarter, one retreating, one whose weapon is rendered unfit, uncased in mail, should never be struck. Car-drivers, animals (yoked to cars or carrying weapons) men engaged in the transport of weapons, players on drums and blowers of conches should never be struck.
There are multiple factors to consider , before arriving into conclusion that , krishna recited 650/700 shlokas to arjuna.
Bhagavadgita which is part of mahabharata , was initially written as Jaya which had only 8000 shlokas. Since original one is no longer available , we are not sure how many shlokas in the original was written on bhagavadgita.
Moreover mahabharata what we have is not even complete . Its written in mahabharata itself that http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m18/m18005.htm
“Vyasa made compilation consisting of sixty lakhs of verses. Thirty lakhs of these were placed in the region of the deities. In the region of the Pitris fifteen lakhs, it should be known, are current; while in that of the Yakshas fourteen lakhs are in vogue. One lakh is current among human beings.”
There are now two possibilities
what was taught by krishna to arjuna, was more concise.
Presumably, Since Vyasa being himself avatar of vishnu , written in
such poetic way in his Jaya. Vyshampayana expanded the same thing ,
so that we human can understand it.
Krishna Taught more stuffs to arjuna than in bhagavadgita. Some other details are in other parts of mahabharata(Out of 60 lakh verses, which we dont have access.
In the second Case , I believe both arjuna and krishna arrived in kurukshetra early . It normally takes time during first day to arrive in the ground , prepare themselves in proper position etc. During this preparatory stage krishna taught arjuna bhagavadgita.
Swami Samarpananda in his Gita Introduction Page 3 writes :
Is Gita really the words of the Lord? Many wonder how Sri Krishna went on talking for more than two hours (the time taken to recite the entire Gita) when the two great armies were raring to cut down each other. This misconception has been cleared by Acharya Shankara who wrote in his commentary that Vyasa composed the 700 verses of Gita to elucidate the Lord's words spoken to Arjuna just before the war. Thus Gita can be treated both as the words of the Lord, as is commonly believed; or can be treated as the view of Lord Krishna expressed faithfully by Vyasa. In either case it is Lord's words only.
