[Advaita-l] Bhagavad Gita translation

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Fri, 23 May 2025, Aravind M via Advaita-l wrote:

> I came across swami chinmayananda holy gita and Swami Dayananda Saraswati
> gita....still want to know about other translations available
>

Aravind can you read any Indian language?  You are more likely to find 
good translations in Hindi, Tamil etc.

But ask yourself do you really need a translation? Long ago, my guruji 
compared the usage of translations to a wheelchair.  If you are disabled, 
the use of a wheelchair can vastly improve your quality of life.  If you 
are able-bodied it would actually impede you from making full use of your 
limbs.  I susoect that you like most people who think they need 
translations are actually in the able-bodied group.  Throwaway the 
wheelchair and read the Gita in Sanskrit.

"But I don't know Sanskrit"

Then learn it.  There are more resources available now than at practically 
any time in history.


"But Sanskrit is very hard"

At advanced levels yes but you can start slow and work yourself up.  The 
Gita itself for instance is quite simple languagewise.  Samskrita Bharati 
is an organization that has branches all over India and internationally 
and they have a course called Gita Pravesha which can teach you enough
Sanskrit to be be able to read the Gita in about six months.  There are 
many other courses, youtube videos and websites that do the same.

"I don't have the time."

I put the readers of advaita-l into two groups, sadhakas and tourists. 
The sadhaka wants to know about subjects like Gita etc.to know dharma and 
jnana with a view to improving himself to the point where they can get 
liberation from samsara and unity with Brahman.  The tourist has only 
intellectual or academic or cultural curiosity.  While I hope the tourists 
find reading these posts interesting and worthwile, it is the sadhakas who 
are main reason advaita-l exists.

To the sadhaka I would respond, really?  You can't spare the time to 
thoroughly master that which you agree  is the true purpose of your 
birth in human form?

To the tourist, I can understand that you have other priorities in your 
life that might make you look for a shortcut but translations have 
problems particularly when they are crossing cultures as well as 
languages.  The translator may have his own agenda.  He may misundestand 
the meaning himself. It might take him 100 words to explain what is 1 
word in the original because there is no exact equivalent.  And different 
translators might make their own arbitrary decisions about how to 
translate.   Now you don't only have to understand the Gita, you 
have to understand the translation too.  Your "shortcut" ends up causing 
you double the effort.


If after all this you are not convinced, some translations have been 
mentioned in this thread.  I would recommend getting as many of them as 
possible and compare them as you read.  Sit with a Sanskrit dictionary and 
look up words that you don't recognize to form your own translation and 
compare that with the others.  And if you are still perplexed, feel free 
to ask here.  Good luck!

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>