Reading the Bhagavad Gita…

Excellent post. Bhagavad Gita is incomparable. Every tenet expounded by Bhagavaan through the Gita is applicable in our day-to-day life.

However, an excellent translation is marred by translating “Janaardana” or “Krshna” as “God” and “Bhagavaan” as “Lord” – this is jarring. The term “Lord” is used as a title for highly placed personages in foreign cultures! (“Bhagavaan” has not been “knighted” by the English queen). I hope you will use some of the Hindu terms (like Bhagavan, atma, ahimsa, karma, Paramatma etc) unchanged (and encourage others to do so too) so that the other languages adopt them instead of reducing these terms to fit into the limited vocabulary of those languages. After all, English adopted quite a large number of Indian words as there were no equivalents. They did not just term “curry” as “gravy”!

Perhaps you may like to forward the suggestion to the original website. In fact, I notice that most websites carrying translations of Hindu religious works tend to use such terms and thus lose the grandeur of the philosophical concepts of Sanatana Dharma.

LS
http://sanskritdocuments.org/sites/completenarayaneeyam/

The first sentence savage war is also figment of imagination for कर्म्णि घोरे can translate to savage war only in imagination of writer who lacks the basic understanding that Mahabharata is not about savage war but धर्म युद्ध The first sholaka of Bhagwad Gita is “धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे…॥” by Dhritrashtra to Sanjay… It would be better Shantanu, if you remove this post altogether… That’s my humble request to you. and read bhagwad gita available at gitapress dot org.

Shantanu, some words should be left as it is for assimilation into language… For example there is no word to translate scooter in sanskrit so a scooter should remain scooter in sanskrit too. The above translation is filled with extreme flaws like कर्म्णि घोरे may translate better to “extremely painful and difficult karm” than savage war. Better to have a correct post than a post filled with blatant and glaring flaws where one doesn’t have required mastery and skill to edit and remove flaws. Take some inputs from incognito. For example, what is “Hey God”? I don’t think so anywhere the Gita has got something which would translate to “Hey God” (हे and hey are poles apart)

Based on my above comment, here are some fillers/corrections.

a. About Swami Nikhilananda’s translation: Please read “… and was one of the good English translations …” as “… was one of the first good English translations …” (You could read the amazon reviews of Swami Nikhilananda’s translation to see how good it is. I just meant that it was

b. Swami Dayananda’s Home study course is available from His Pittsburg Ashram at the following link
http://www.arshavidya.org/programs_homestudy.html
He has an Ashram in India in Annikatti and Hrishikesh too. In these Indian Ashrams, the above is available at very affordable prices.
http://arshavidya.in/index.html

c. Swami Gambhirananda translates the second verse as “by which I may attain the highest Good.”, which I think is the correct translation of shreyas. Because Arjuna wanted shreyas, like nachiketa, He used the word in the right sense. The word fame there is incorrect, as Rohit pointed out. It is in words like these that the truly great translators leave others behind!

d. There is another book by Prof. V Krishnamurty (fondly called as Prof. VK), titled “Live Happily the Gita way”. The series of 12 chapters are very Adhyatmic and very profound. Fortunately, the book is available online at the following link:
http://www.krishnamurthys.com/profvk/gohitvip/contentsbeach11.html
Read and grow wise!

Hello All! I am not an expert on “GITA” to carry on the arguements as above. To begin with I find it great to know that we are at last discussing the subject which is a forgotten one to most of us. Here I am bound to generalize the practice of the people belong to Sanatana Dharma. Today, our youth even hate to talk about “GITA” which isn’t a good sign at all. To save our history and culture we all have to come forward and stride towards the future which would be cohesive for our next generations. I really thank you all for this cause. But our toughest challenge would be to be as one forever.

I remember an answer from the Governor of Himachal Pradesh when asked about the challenge of Indian democracy. She rightly quoted that we people don’t come under one umbrella when needed as the differences in caste, creed and practice come into effect. Whereas in other countries people do unite more often.

For the last few years, I have been nursing a dream to read the Bhagavad Gita.But never could manage to achieve it. There were plenty of reasons, I gave myself.
a) I wanted to read it in Sanskrit
b) I wanted to find time to do it
c)Too busy today maybe some other day. I kept fooling myself.

Till the other day, While on youtube, i heard the famous musician Shankar Mahadevan talk about Pandit Bhimsen Joshi.
When Shankar was asked in a Marathi program to comment on Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and what he would recommend would-be singers. Shankar said ‘Though in today’s world, we don’t see the old Guru-Shishya
schooling of music, where a shishya would stay with the Guru and learn. We are in generation of MP3 players and IPOD’s where you can load Panditji’s music and listen to it to your hearts content”.

This struck a bell and I thought, what if I could do the same and listen to a Bhagavad Gita discourse from a learned Guru. A search on the internet and found what I required. As they say, “Dhoond ne se
Bhagwan bhi milte hai”( maybe not online yet).

I enjoyed the first few chapter’s myself and then realised, that the reap the profits from these teachings better, I should share this with everyone I know.

So people. Here is the Link.

http://www.archive.org/details/BhagavadGitaCommentary_Chapter03_by_Swami_Parmarthananda

This Bhagavad Gita discourse is by Swami Paramarthananda of the Vedanta Vidyarthi Sangha. The explanation is in English and some lines of Tamil( very few).

I found it excellent and it has already answered some of my questions.

Many respected people here have mentioned that a guru is needed to learn the Bhagavad Gita. That is the big catch. Its not that just by reading the book one can become self-realised.

Krishna has stressed this point in Bhagavad Gita a couple of times. Refer the verse BG 4.34 (Chapter 4 Verse 34) http://vedabase.net/bg/4/34/en (“Bhagavad Gita As It Is” by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)

also some references from Puranas about the neccessity of approaching the spiritual master:

extracted from link : http://www.krishna.com/finding-genuine-guru

Madhusudan,

May get dissapointed in this Kaliyuga if you really search for a guru. You know the concept of Guru is a relative one. There are so many types of the Gurus or a single Guru assumes the different types depending upon the ‘Patra’ of ‘Shishya’. One of the Guru knowing Brahmvidya is Maharshi Ved Vyas. You can learn from him by studying his scriputures so abundent but only by reconciling the apparently contradictory chords stuck in his literature.

I think he has blessed me to my satisfaction and I am in a position to understand the ‘Secret of Universe’.

http://idealworldkrishna.blogspot.com/

Shantanu, thanks for that excerpt. It is such a simple and beautiful concept as explained by Swami Tejomayananda, yet it continues to evade the grasp of some intellectuals who have foolishly made a fetish of “non-violence” and “peace”, and incorrectly try to force the keep-smiling-while-tolerating-a-repeatedly-stinging-scorpion behavior on to everyone, and present it as the gist of Hinduism. Not just the action, but the intention behind it matters, as does the context. And it goes without saying that nowhere in Hinduism is “taking up arms for self-defense” proscribed.

This is from PM Modi’s recent visit to Japan…
“Today I went to the Maharaja of Japan. I have given (a Bhagvad Gita)
to him. Because I don’t think that I have anything more to give and
the world also does not have anything more to get than this”.
Narendra Modi [source]