He was formally educated within the Spanish system of his father and for the most part, "Garcilaso interpreted Inca and Andean religion from the European and Christian point of view that he had been taught to adopt from infancy, and that provided him with most of his historical and philosophical terminology.

Garcilaso had previously published a Spanish translation of the Dialogos de Amor and had written La Florida del Inca.

[5] The ten sections or books of the work have the following subject matter: He wrote the account from memories of what he had learned in Peru from his mother's people and in his later years.

The second part of the Comentarios was published posthumously, one year after the author's death, in 1617, under the title of Historia General del Peru.

More than 150 years later, when the native uprising led by Tupac Amaru II in 1758 gained momentum, Charles III of Spain banned the Comentarios from being published in Lima in Quechua because of its "dangerous" content.