Karma..

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Giridhar wrote:

..
> I do find several errors in the translation by Krishna Warrier. An obvious
> one is in Shankara's introduction of BG. Shankara says 'brahmana' (meaning
> the caste) and the translation says Brahman (the Absolute) ! I find
> other translations (also published by RK math) much better.

Well, where the bhAshya says, "brAhmaNAdyaiH varNibhiH ASramibhiH
Sreyo'rthibhiH anushThIyamAnaH" the translation simply leaves the brAhmaNa
out, and resorts to a general, "classes of men, set in different stations
of life." Later in the passage, "bhaumasya brahmaNaH brAhmaNatvasya
rakshaNArtham," Warrier's translation is correct in using the Supreme
Brahman. The brAhmaNatva in this sentence is simply the nature of Brahman,
as seen by the use of the word bhaumasya. In the chAndogya and
bRhadAraNyaka upanishads, bhUmAn or bhauma is the Supreme Brahman.

Usually, quite some import is lost in the translation, and on the whole, I
think Warrier does a decent enough job.  There are many translations of
the gItA itself, but I am not aware of many other translations of
Sankara's bhAshya on the gItA. Are there others published by the RK Math?

Vidyasankar

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