published by BTG used with permission
by Satyaraja Dasa
Something peculiar happened when Prabhupada’s edition was released in 1968. Seekers transformed into devotees. Lives were changed. Reading the Gita was no longer a mere intellectual exercise. It was a life-altering experience.
Moreover, Prabhupada’s edition, almost miraculously, was initially published by Macmillan, one of the largest international presses in America. They had agreed to publish a four-hundred-page version, sight unseen, but his original manuscript was well over a thousand pages. Consequently, he had his disciples edit the manuscript down to a severely abridged edition, the version released in 1968. Wanting his readers to have the full effect of his message, however, Prabhupada pushed for the eventual release of his complete text. Thus, in 1972, instigated by his urging but no less by substantial sales, Macmillan published his “Complete Edition,” now again nearly a thousand pages.
Prabhupada’s 1972 version was arguably the most thorough and exhaustive of all English editions, even just from a literary point of view. Each verse was treated in the same comprehensive way: the Devanagari script was followed by its Roman transliteration, a word-by-word translation, and finally a full and original English rendering of the verse. Additionally, nearly all the verses included Prabhupada’s clarifying commentary based on traditional Gaudiya Vaishnava works, including those of Sridhara Svami, Vishvanatha Chakravarti, Baladeva Vidyabhushana, and Bhaktivinoda Thakura, making the Gita’s confidential message accessible and user-friendly. Prabhupada also formed an art department to create works that would adorn his books, and some of the paintings appeared in his Bhagavad-gita As It Is.
Today the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publishes Prabhupada’s Gita and his other books in more than eighty languages, including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Kazakh, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, and sixteen Indian languages.
Most of all, Srila Prabhupada’s edition is significant in that it stands as a challenge to all armchair philosophers who depart from the Gita’s central teaching of devotional service to Krishna. Even Mahatma Gandhi, his dedication notwithstanding, is guilty of offering a metaphorical interpretation of the Gita to help authorize and popularize his philosophy of satyagraha, passive resistance. While virtuous from a material point of view, this teaching misses the heart of the Gita’s message: “My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.” (Gita 11.54)
In the Gita’s ninth chapter, Lord Krishna categorically advises Arjuna to surrender to Him and to love and worship Him. Krishna uses the word mam, meaning “unto Me.” Yet, as Prabhupada would often remind his students, one famous Indian commentator wrote otherwise: “It is not to Krishna that we have to surrender, but to the unborn within him.” But the Gita is clear that the essence of reality involves embracing Krishna’s personal form with heart, mind, and soul. All aspects of Godhead are contained in Him.
This truth, says Prabhupada, is not meant to be taken metaphorically. The Gita (18.75) carefully records this with the words krishnat sakshat kathayatah svayam, which clearly indicate that Krishna was directly (sakshat) in front of Arjuna articulating these teachings personally (svayam). Thus, given that this was Prabhupada’s emphasis, his Gita may be considered the most accurate and true to the original text.
Interpretations that differ do so for ulterior motives – political, financial, religious, and so on. But Srila Prabhupada’s motive, as is evident from his life and commentary, was pure – the single-minded goal of distributing love for Krishna. Significantly, therefore, he entitled his Gita “As It Is,” and he called his comments “Purports” (purport = meaning), not “Interpretations.” In these purports he gives the actual significance of the verses, the direct meaning coming in a line of perfect masters from Krishna Himself – who all taught that the Gita’s real message is devotion to Krishna.
Who can truly understand this truth? The answer becomes clear from Krishna’s statement to Arjuna in the fourth chapter: “That very ancient science of the relationship with the Supreme is today told by Me to you because you are My devotee as well as My friend and can therefore understand the transcendental mystery of this science.” (Gita 4.3). Krishna discloses in that same chapter that the Gita can be understood only by those in a line of authorized devotees known as a parampara, or disciplic succession. Of the four such successions recognized by the Vedic literature, the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya-sampradaya is flourishing, and Srila Prabhupada is the thirty-second teacher in that line, his students carrying on the message even today. Those who understand the Gita by reading his edition can also consider themselves coming in this same prestigious lineage.
According to the Bhagavad-gita, spiritual truths reach the most sincere students by a descending process, from the scriptures themselves, the great sages, and through a genuine, qualified spiritual teacher who guides one on the path of devotion. Thus the real import of the Bhagavad-gita is not to be had by incessant wrangling and a dazzling display of philosophical interpretation, but by filling one’s heart with devotion and learning the art and science of Krishna consciousness.