New Readable Translation of the Bhagavad Gita
Dharmacentral.com
the sacred Bhagavad Gita, revealing the most ancient wisdom on earth
for the spiritual relief of our modern era.
"Srimad Bhagavad Gita
The Song of the Lord: An American Translation in Prose"
By Sri Sivadasa Bharati Swami
Foreword by Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya
"Swami Sivadasa has produced a clear and easily readable prose
translation of the Gita which makes this spiritual classical
accessible to everyone, without losing the essence of its profound
meaning. The book is a good place to begin one's spiritual adventure
with the unfathomable wisdom of the glorious Gita."
- Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri), author of over 28 books
on Yoga, Ayurveda, Hinduism and Dharma.
"Sivadasa Bharati Swami has broken fresh ground with his eminently
readable prose translation of the Bhagavad Gita. This has made the
book, a gem of world literature and masterpiece of mystical knowledge,
accessible to a wide readership. I recommend it wholeheartedly."
- Professor Subhash Kak, author of The Gods Within, The Prajna Sutras,
The Architecture of Knowledge and other books.
From the Forward
Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya
(Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.)
Throughout our history, a wide variety of diverse cultures and authors
have created written works of such notable aesthetic grandeur that
they deserve to be termed "great literature". Such illustrious names
as Homer, Shakespeare and Kalidasa come to mind when we contemplate
some of the authors of this literature. Within this grand literary
corpus of great literature, however, a further qualitative distinction
can be made. There is great literature, to be sure, but then there is
eternal literature. Eternal literature is comprised of such works
that do much more than to merely inspire only a specific group of
people, or to endure for many generations, or even to inspire us to
think great thoughts and to aspire toward lofty heights. Rather,
eternal literature serves the additional vital function of being clear
windows upon the Transcendent reality, revealing that Transcendent to
us in the most accessible of ways, and providing us with a means by
which we can, in turn, manifest the Eternal in our own mortal lives.
An encounter with a truly eternal work of literature has more than the
mere potential to convey to us a great idea; it has the potential to
make us into enlightened beings.
There are several works that fall under the category of eternal
literature, of which one of the most profoundly illuminating is the
ancient Bhagavad Gita, or The Song of God. The Bhagavad Gita is the
historical record of a conversation that took place in 3102 B.C., just
before the commencement of the great Mahabharata War. This was a
philosophical conversation between the great warrior Arjuna and
Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the incarnation (avatara) of God who appeared at
the very beginning of our era, the Kali Yuga, to restore Dharma and
Truth to the world. So important has this profoundly illuminating
dialog between man and God been throughout history, that the Bhagavad
Gita has often been called the "Bible" of the tradition of Sanatana
Dharma, the Eternal Natural Way, which is commonly referred to as
"Hinduism". There has been almost no important scholar, philosopher
or sampradaya Acharya (lineage preceptor) in the history of Sanatana
Dharma who has not written a commentary upon this work. In a further
display of the truly global significance of this Song of God in the
last two hundred years, specifically, the Gita has been translated
into the English language alone over 650 separate times.
Of course, having outlined the ubiquitous number of English
translations of the Gita, this begs the natural question: Why have yet
another translation? The answer lays in a proper understanding of the
epistemic nature and soteriological function of the Gita itself. For,
again, the Bhagavad Gita is not an ordinary piece of literature in the
normative sense. Rather, it is a work of truly divine origin, having
God as its direct source, and radical existential freedom (moksha) as
its purpose. This being the case, the Gita cannot ever be understood
by a merely academic or theoretical exegetical analysis alone.
Rather, the truths that the Gita reveal can only be fully understood
as a result of a direct, non-mediated experience of Truth. It is only
through the practice of the teachings of the Gita that the mysteries
of the Gita can be known. It is only as a result of intense spiritual
practice in the form of Yoga and meditation, under the tutelage of an
authentic and self-realized guru, that the teachings of Sri Krishna
come to life within the heart, the intellect, and the very soul
(atman) of the spiritual seeker. Sadly, the vast majority of the 650
English translations of the Gita tend to take a dry academic approach,
at the very expense of just such a dynamically experiential spiritual
understanding.
In the following translation and commentary upon the Bhagavad Gita by
Sri Shivadasa Bharati Swami, however, we find one of the brightest and
most refreshing exceptions to the above scenario. Sri Shivadasa
Swami represents one of the very few Gita translators who has
possessed both the academically cultivated methodological ability,
coupled with the spiritual insight of a devoted Hindu practitioner of
over forty years, necessary to finally do justice to the eternal
spirit of the Bhagavad Gita. With his highly traditional religious
training, rigorous philosophical background and initiatory credentials
firmly cemented in the orthodox Smarta tradition of the Advaita school
of Vedantic Hinduism, Sri Shivadasa Swami has the ability to speak in
this work with a quietly humble, yet powerfully forceful, authority
that few other contemporary translator-commentators have been able to
raise.
In an age in which authenticity, honesty, inspired numinous insight
and philosophical acumen seem to have taken a backseat - albeit
however so temporarily - to the latest commercially oriented, new age
mystical fads of the day, the writings of Sri Shivadasa Bharati Swami
have courageously echoed the eternal voices of the great sages, the
rishis, reminiscent of an ancient Golden Age of spiritual
attainment. Sri Swamiji has revealed to the world once again that
clear window to Transcendent reality, and allowed that eternal work of
literature known as the Bhagavad Gita to shine forth for the world to
marvel at. I await eagerly to witness what additional jewels of
writing are destined to be unleashed from the pen of Sri Swamiji in
the future.
Aum Shanti
Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya
(Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.)
President-Acharya: International Sanatana Dharma Society
Director: The Center for Dharma Studies
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.
December, 2009
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About Sri Sivadasa Bharati Swami
Sri Sivadasa Bharati Swami (Dr. A.R. Guagliardo, D.Div.), was born in
1957 of a Scottish father and Indian mother. Orphaned as an infant
after his parents untimely death, he was adopted and raised by a Cuban-
Italian family in Tampa, Florida. After completing Bachelors and
Masters studies in social psychology, ancient history and comparative
religion at the University of South Florida, City Colleges of Chicago,
University of Maryland, and Fordham University in New York, and
received his Doctorate of Divinity from Mar Tomas Malankar Orthodox
Seminary in 1979. After serving as a priest and an Air Force Chaplain
for seven years, he left the priesthood and traveled to India where he
embraced Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism), the spiritual path of his
maternal ancestors, studying Adi Shankara's Advaita philosophy and
taking diksha (initiation) into the Smarta Sampradaya from his guru,
Sri Sharadhananda Bharathi. After returning from India, he worked as a
newspaper and magazine editor, authored several books, served as
Temple Manager, Pujari and Religious Instructor for the Hindu Temple
of Georgia, served as Director of Operations for the Atlanta-based
Gandhi Foundation USA, and worked as a counselor and certified
hypnotherapist. After many years of dharmic studies and experience,
Sri Sivadasa Swami established the Dharmic Arts Foundation, a non-
profit organization dedicated to teaching and promoting Dharma and
dharmic living. He recently relocated from Atlanta to New Orleans to
establish the Chandrashekhara Dharma Center of New Orleans.
The Dharmic Arts Foundation
http://dharmicarts.com/
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