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Re: Bhagavad Gita translation diff.
>For a novice like me this whole group is very valuable. Reading the above
>post and translation
>I decided to compare to the translation I have used myself (Juan Mascaro,
>Penguin Classics 1979) :
>
>BG 15.7 " A spark of my eternal Spirit becomes in this world a
> living soul; and this draws around its centre the five
> senses and the mind resting in nature."
>
>This translation is certainly true poetic English, but the difference in
>the above verses make you cautious
>about reading translations at all. In your opinion , which are the
>authoritive translations ? Any advice ?
>
>pontus mattsson
As a matter of fact, I am not aware of any translation of the 'Gita into
English that is fully satisfactory. Part of the reason is that English is
not equipolent to Sanskrit when it comes to expressing sophisticated
metaphysical and epistemological ideas. However, it seems no existing
translation has even come close to exhausting the expressive power of
English. Two translations that I have examined at some length are those by
Chinmayananda ("The Holy Geeta") and Prabhupada ("Bhagavadgita as it is").
The former is, in my humble opinion, the lesser of the two, mainly because
of its many unwarranted digressions, and its failure to show any coherence
of approach that might assist the reader. Also, both these suffer from
what I view as the serious shortcoming of differing from (and trying to
improve upon) their respective sampradaaya Gurus, Sankara and Madhva
respectively. For instance, Prabhupada's claim that Krishna is in some
sense a superior form of the Paramatman than other forms, is not upheld by
Madhva (who is, however, misleadingly listed in Prabhupada's
guru-parampara in the earlier pages of "Bhagavadgita as it is"). As
another example, Prabhupada translates verse 1:10 -
"Aparyaaptam tadasmaakam balam Bhiishmaabhirakshitam
Paryaaptam tvidam etesham balam Bhiimabhirakshitam"
- as saying that the speaker of this verse (Duryodhana) is saying that
his army, defended by Bhiishma, is of complete strength, but the other
army defended by Bhiima is of incomplete strength.
This translation is directly opposite to what Duryodhana actually said, if
one is to believe Madhva (as he states in his 'Gita-bhaashya). It is also
incorrect from consideration of grammar, or word meanings; "aparyaaptam"
means incomplete, and "paryaaptam" means complete -- even a Hindi speaker
with no knowledge of Sanskrit can see this. And if Duryodhana were indeed
saying what Prabhupada claims, why would he then, in the very next verse,
implore all his warriors to defend Bhiishma only (from the aggression of a
weaker opponent)? Vyaasa also says that in the war, Bhiima accounted for
all 100 Kaurava brothers and 7 of their 11 Akshauhinis; his counterpart
was nowhere near as good, and even at the start of the war, Duryodhana
must have known this.
Translating the same verse, Chinmayananda says that each army had a senior
warrior who functioned as its "defender," whatever that may be, and that
Bhiishma and Bhiima were respectively the "defenders" of the Kaurava and
Pandava armies.
This bit of concoction is entirely due to Chinmayananda; Vyaasa does not
mention any such "defenders." What he does say is that Bhiishma and
Drishtadyumna (not Bhiima) were the chiefs of their respective armies (the
former until he fell on the 10th day of the war; later chiefs were Drona
for 5 days, Karna for 2 days, and Shalya for 1 day). Sankara does not
speak of any such "defenders," either.
I understand that all this is not really very helpful as re finding a good
translation. My best and most sincere advice to you would be to make a
comparative study of several, and take most of what you read with a pinch
of salt. As your own perception of Sanskrit meaning grows, you will get
better and better at separating the wheat from the chaff, and you
eventually may even be able to do away with all the translations and
proceed independently.
Regards,
Shrisha Rao
