| A NOTE ON THE BHAKTIVEDANTA BOOK TRUST EDITION OF
BHAGAVAD-GÉTÄ
Bhagavad-gétä As It Is is the work of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda, the distinguished scholar and teacher of Vedic religion, philosophy, literature and culture. He is the author of numerous translations, commentaries, summary studies and original works on Vedic literature, including multi-volume translations of and commentaries upon the Srémad-Bhägavatam (Bhägavata Puräëa) and the medieval Bengali religious classic Çré Caitanya-caritämåta. His books, highly respected by the international academic community for their authoritativeness, depth and clarity, are used as standard texts in numerous colleges. There are some familiar difficulties that generally beset translations of Bhagavad-gétä. Often, poetic translations put poetic felicity before fidelity to the original text. At the other extreme, blindly literal prose translations, usually mechanical and stilted, obscure the natural flow of the language of the Gétä, making reading difficult. In this edition, however, Swami Bhaktivedanta has rendered the Gétä in a flowing, modern English prose translation that maintains a harmonious balance between linguistic preciseness, philosophical integrity and readability. The commentaries ("purports") by Swami Bhaktivedanta provide both the beginning and the advanced student with lucid and highly readable expositions on the meanings of the verses. They are a rich source of insights into the profound philosophical ideas of the Gétä. The ease and clarity with which the author expounds upon the text beckon even students unfamiliar with Indian religious tradition into a genuine understanding and appreciation of this monumental work. Other features, such as the fifty-six full-color paintings illustrating the text, an informative introduction, indexes, a glossary, a guide to pronunciation of the Sanskrit, and other appendixes, make this edition of Bhagavad-gétä a real treasure to students of this perennial classic. |