/lit/ - Literature

>>15686474

https://williamkemsley.com/comparing-translations-bhagavad-gita/

>>15686518
So basically Easwaran?

>>15686564
I did a little more reading and am leaning toward him

i have this translation and I like it, I carry it everywhere with me no lie
It’s the only one I’ve read and I don’t claim to be an expert but I would recommend

>>15686474
Personally I'll advise against Prabhupada version and suggest Chinmayananda one's.

>>15686474
>yo, arjuna, everyone is like made of god and like equal and shit.
>yo, arjuna, forget all that shit and kill your family for me
What did krishna mean by this?

>>15686824
I don't know, I haven't read it yet

>>15686839
ok, well just know that Pessoa was absoultley correct when he called eastern religions "confused"

>>15686564
its good for beginners, the real Gita red-pill is reading translated medieval commentaries on it but you dont want to start with them if you are new to Hindu /lit/

>>15686824
>What did krishna mean by this?
That all living beings have a divine spark in them, and that as a kṣatriyaḥ (warrior caste) it was Arjuna's duty and destiny to fulfill his role in the cosmic drama by fighting

>>15686847
t. filtered

Pessoa was into occultist bullshit like Crowley, his opinion on this is worthless anyway

>>15686474
Get the Norton Critical Edition, Mitchell is a new ager, the ISKCON translation is tampered with, and Easwaran has really strong perennialist biases that influence everything from his commentary to his wording. NCE's is pretty neutral while having plenty of explanatory notes and such without drowning the text in it which would probably confuse you quite a lot if you're a neophyte. Just get the Norton Critical Edition by Gavin D. Flood.

>>15686474
hinduism referenced a lot in modern western /lit/? The only reason I would be interested in reading butchered translations.

>>15686474
>Stephen Mitchell
stay away at all costs

>>15687597
the kind of concepts it explores are really worthy of consideration imo. duality and non-duality has huge implications for the entirety of western thought and hinduism was ground zero for serious considerations of the two.

>>15686474
Read the bodhicharyavatara instead

>>15687701
No.

>>15687701
Mahayana is a meme, none of the metaphysics makes any sense and when people point this out /lit/ buddhists just give some canned response about how their question is based on wrong assumptions or that it's automatically wrong because it doesn't adhere to some mega-autist definition of the nature of reality which is itself never justified, but they never actually refute their point about Mahayana making absurd metaphysical claims.

Take the text you listed about Bodhisattvas for example. If all entities that we interact with are actually just our own conceptual constructs as Madhyamaka maintains then it eliminates the possibility of ever interacting with another real being, it results in a quasi-solipsism which makes everyone else the creation of our own ignorance, communication with anyone else becomes impossible as they are not sentient but just conceptually constructed phantoms like the people in our dreams. When there are not even other sentient beings that we can interact with the whole point of being a Bodhisattva becomes pointless as there is nobody else to save or liberate. It would be like delaying Parinirvana to preach to mirages or the unreal people in your dreams. Engaging in Bodhisattva behavior would actually become a sign of ignorance as it would mean the person hadn't yet realized that there are not actually other beings to liberate, only unreal conceptual constructs.

>>15687497
>Pessoa was into occultist bullshit like Crowley, his opinion on this is worthless anyway

>>15688738
yes

I've read "the essence of BG" by Kriyananda and I really enjoyed it. I think commentaries are more important than translations imho.

>>15686988
REEEEEEEEEEEE

>>15686474
https://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/setting-the-scene
Read that^ first

then just hop right in:
https://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/1

Don't worry about the commentary on the Gita, you can read that later. Just read the contents of it. It's pretty short as well, you could read it in a day easy. In fact, it can be recited in less than 3 hours! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC0FW407FVs
Here is a beautiful reading of the Gita with some background information explained as well.

>>15686814
What's wrong with the translation by his divine grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (pbuh)?

>>15689551
hes like the stupid faggots on 4chan pushing their narrow preferred translations that arent readable, literary, or cited often.

prabhu's translation is slightly literary but he ruins it by forcing his own cults narrow views in his translation.

>>15686474
that one is fine. I remember his intro was solid for noobs

>>15689676
like his homer translations its too bland. theres strong poetry in BG that the reader is robbed of when reading mitchell. like watching a fine movie at 360p. it should not be in circulation desu.

>>15689536
>Video no longer available
What was the title?

>>15689699
the mitchell version is fine if OP is just getting in the game with no background. the BG is one of those books where you re-read it all the time so OP can upgrade in the future if he chooses to do so.

>>15689747
if he wants a starter translation (that also succeeds in literariness), easwaran is the ideal entry point. mitchell is a pathetic fraud who doesnt know greek or sanskrit.

>>15689729
Oh fuck... I have been posting this pasta now and then for like a year. The video was still available a couple months ago. It was called "Bhagavad Gita (Full Version Beautifully Recited in English)". I have the mp3 downloaded. Uploading it to mega right now. It's only 144.2 MB so it shouldn't take too long.

>>15686474
>bhagavad gita
satanic street shitter garbage. read the bible NOW

>buying the gita online and not in person from a devotee

>>15690087
Many thanks!

>>15687638
Is BG the best place to start with understanding duality?

>>15690116
It's time to STOP

>>15686474

>Shankara's Gita commentary (8th century)
https://archive.org/details/Bhagavad-Gita.with.the.Commentary.of.Sri.Shankaracharya

>Abhinavagupta's Gita commentary (10th century)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/5ydfuxohdtms7um/Bhagavad_Gita_Abhinavagupta_Bhashya_%2528B_Marjanovic%2529.pdf/file

>Ramanuja's Gita commentary (11th century)
http://www.srimatham.com/uploads/5/5/4/9/5549439/ramanuja_gita_bhashya.pdf

>Jnanadeva's Gita commentary (13th century)
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri-Jnandevas-Bhvartha-Dipika-Jnaneswari_smaller.pdf

>>15686474
Stephen Mitchell is a renowned dumbass

>>15690137
I couldn't tell you, but if you're interested in dualism, I'd read Descartes' Meditations

>>15690087
>>15690131
Here it is. Enjoy. https://mega.nz/file/TnQyXSqZ#j4VkyaWNOzrv5OPo42Z8upyH2FOB62CsfXL1G1e9JJ8

>>15690116
this, you should be reading foreskin sucking kike fairy tales instead OP

>>15689747
>>15689774
OP here and yes I am a noob to Eastern religious /lit/, Easwaran seems to be more mainstream, that seems like a better option for a first read, no?

>>15690417
just read whatever bro. the gita is a light read

>>15690340
thanks bud, cheers

>>15686474
Steven Mitchell is a very suspect translator, his lack of education in the languages he translates and the unfeasably broad range of texts makes me think he cobbles them together from other translations, filtered through his new age worldview.

In fact I've just found an article where he admits to do doing exactly what I suspected with his Tao Te Ching "translation"

>>15686518
From the guy's About page, he's some random backpacker. Not sure he's qualified to definitively say which translation is better. From reading that article, he seems to be using a dictionary to translate each Sanskrit word individually rather than actually being able to read the Sanskrit. So he's judging translations by dictionary definitions without being able to understand entire phrases, which seems like a poor way to judge translations.
___

As for my own opinion, I can't say which translation is accurate because I can't read Sanskrit. But a general tip is to research the translator themselves, either try to find someone who is formally educated in original language, or a native practicioner from a religious lineage that uses the text. There are too many translations by unqualified hippies who think they understand all the world's religions.

About Easwaran's Gita translation, from the perspective of an ignoramous, I actually found it a poor mixture of simplifying while leaving in too much original Sanskrit jargon. I found the Oxford Worlds Classics translation by W.J. Johnson much more straightforward, it's easy to read, has a short introduction to give some context, and a handful of endnotes to explain things a new reader couldn't know. For example, what 'the Veda' is. However he doesn't provide any insight into how the Gita is used by faithful Hindus today.

People who recommend starting with medieval commentaries are being a bit pretentious. If you start with those you will probably get bored and give up.

>>15690701
>I found the Oxford Worlds Classics translation by W.J. Johnson much more straightforward, it's easy to read,
Just looked at Johnson. Dafuq? How is it more straightforward when even from chapter one, it retains even more jargon than Easwaran? Did you fucking read them? Easwaran is a little plain, but I lay Easwaran's success as the contemporary standard as due to an aggressive marketing campaign not unlike P&V.

>People who recommend starting with medieval commentaries are being a bit pretentious. If you start with those you will probably get bored and give up.
Yes the trolls are not sincere, and any good reader won't take them seriously.

>>15690782
Using chapter one as the example, Johnson translates dharma as 'Law' while Easwaran leaves it untranslated. Easwaran leaves many terms untranslated throughout, such as 'guna' which Johnson translates as 'constituent'. Going back to chapter one, Johnson handily distinguishes which side of the battle each named is by making them bold or italicised, it's a neat way to understand who Krishna is talking about in general terms without being familiar with the characters.

>>15690895
Dharma should be dharma since it's a common term in Hindu studies and is distinct from ordinary law. Johnson's just a weird middle between Easwaran and more literary translations. The bold and ita are useful, agreed.

>>15690701
>People who recommend starting with medieval commentaries are being a bit pretentious.
For a newb they are not the right choice but it hardly needs to be said that they completely BTFO out of the water any modern translation in terms of the depth of insight they offer into the text and the literary value of their writing, being written by actual spiritual masters instead of mediocre academics who are in many cases most likely not even initiated into Hinduism

i like Easwaran as my go to and Jack Hawleys translation for westerners as a backup

both are excellent

>>15690931
I was just pointing out how Johnson uses less jargon, which I think is better for neophytes, who will be unfamiliar with the conventions of Hindu studies. Johnson has an endnote for that verse which explains dharma so I think it adequately covers the bases.

>>15690999
But people here always recommend modern translations of those commentaries. That doesn't solve your issue with translation. For example, the Shankara translations that always get linked are those by Swami Gambhirananda, who was part of the Ramakrishna Mission, a modernising, universalist Hindu movement.

>>15686474
cheap as fuck

>>15691508
>cheap as fuck
Literal shit should be cheap indeed.

>>15686474
>Just do you duty bro
>Also god is real if you don't accept that you're gay

Saved you some time and money.

>>15691080
>But people here always recommend modern translations of those commentaries
The key difference is that those translations of Shankara, Ramanuja etc typically just offer the translation of the medieval commentator as it is in all its glory without any input or addition by the translator whereas modern translations of the Gita etc by scholars are full of the mediocre notes and commentary written by those mediocre modern scholars
>For example, the Shankara translations that always get linked are those by Swami Gambhirananda, who was part of the Ramakrishna Mission, a modernising, universalist Hindu movement.
Yes, but he just translates Shankara's commentary as it is without adding commentary of his own, except the few instances where he has tiny footnotes at the bottom of the page doing things like clarifying some analogy etc made by Shankara that's based on medieval Indian cultural norms which are not immediately apparent to the modern reader. Many of the notes in his Shankara commentary translations are in fact the notes of the 14th-century commentator Anandagiri. If you can't actually point to any instances of where the univeralist modernizing ideals of the Ramakrishna mission influenced or changed the way Gambhirananda translated Shankara's works then there is no point even bringing it up as if to allege that it makes his translations bad.

>>15686608
Heinrich Himmler also carried around a copy of the Gita with him everywhere

Winthrop's for me.