A Critical Review of Prabhupad's "Bhagavad Gita As It Is"

[sumeet 0]

Hare Krsna

Please accept my obesiances at your lotus feet.

 

Great work Sri Gauracandra ji.

Also check this out-

http://www.webcom.com/ara/col/founder/sp-s/

do find here some support for u.

Once again I repeat we are not being fanatical about the review but we r goin to prove our own viewpoint & defending our sampradya.

 

Your servant Always

In service of Sri Sri Guru & Gauranga.

Sumeet.

[sumeet 0]

Hare Krishna

Please accept my obesiances unto your lotus feet.

 

Also kindly note this-

http://www.dvaita.org/list/list_38/msg00041.html

 

Kindly read-

Though sometimes we praised Sri Prabhupada's achievements in spreading the

Bhakti message widely, such opinion has been never expressed by us.

 

Saprema Narayana Smaranas.

Sri Vishveshateertha Swamiji.

Pejavara Matha. UDUPI.

 

Your Servant Always

In service of Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga

Sumeet.

[shvu 1]

 

Much as I did not want to get into this, I feel I should do this, or else people will end up thinking that the review of Shrisha Rao is a faulty one! Again I must say that Shrisha Rao is a Dvaiti scholar who maintains the Dvaita.org web-site and is not the kind of person to make baseless allegations as some people here seem to think. If someone takes to read his postings in ghen.net and dvaita.org, they will see that for themselves, if they are unbiased people, that is.

 

Firstly, a brief note on SR's review :

 

The scope of the review is clear. To show that the translation is not in accordance to Madhva's. Which should not be the case, since Prabhupada claims that his statements are in accordance with that of Madhva's. One verse is enough to show the difference and that is what SR has done.

 

Secondly, coming to the review of the review,

 

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There is not a single philosophical analysis in the reviewers article. If the difference was so obvious, as is claimed, it should be easy to show to us common folks.

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Now I wonder if we both are referring to the same article. I am referring to the one available at the url posted by Bhakta Shakta at the beginning of this thread.

 

There is an analysis on the variation in the way the Verse of BG 9-47 has been translated by Prabhupada.

 

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"In fact, given the evidence, it is far more correct to say that Prabhupada's interpretations derive from Shankara's than from Madhva's."

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Again this is an unsupported claim by the reviewer. He even avoids discussing the philosophical conclusions of either madhva or shankara in favour of some faulty gramatical argument.

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Again I wonder if we read the same article. The statement clearly is in reference to the Bhashya of Verse 9-47 by Shankara as 'tvadanyena tvattaH anyena kenachit.h na dR^ishhTapUrvam.h'

 

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"...Therefore, Madhva says, as clarified by his commentator..."

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Just out of curiosity does Madhva's statement need to be clarified by a later commentator?

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It does not have to be and that is not what it is. It is just an example that people who follow Madhva interpret that particular verse that way.

 

 

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And if Madhva's statement isn't crystal clear, then how can we compare it to Prabhupada's translation. I hope you understand my logic here. Is the reviewer comparing Prabhupada's translation to Madhva's direct statement or to a later conclusion which was "clarified" by a future "commentator." ?

 

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SR compares it to Madhva's Bhasya as he has quoted. Like I said before, Raghavendra is quoted as an example of adhering to the Madhva.

 

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According to the reviewers own words, he is comparing Prabhupada's statements to a later comentator in the line of Madhva.

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Sorry. You may want to read that bit again. That is not what SR has done.

 

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The fact is the followers of Prabhupada do not object to the mentioned interpretation. Thus to write an article based on such a point is a waste of time.

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The objective of the article was to show that Prabhupada varies from Madhva's interpretation of the Gita. Which is fine, except for the one catch that he claims to adhere to the Madhva Sampradaya. Ironically that translation is more close to Shankara's interpretation.

 

Also considering the number of ISKCON people who log into the Dvaita forum and argue based on prabhupada's translation, this review is hardly a waste of time. Such people can simple be reffered to this article.

 

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"...our purpose here is only to establish an irreconcilable difference in this matter between Madhva and Prabhupada..."

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Did he establish an "irreconcilable difference"? I failed to see it.

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??

 

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This is the problem when we study a book academically without the guidance of a sat-guru. We fail to see beyond the text.

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Which raises the question of how does one differentiate between the different kinds of Gurus? Unless this point is clear, then one really cannot use that argument.

 

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Yet the reviewer again shows his true position as follows:

 

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"Egregious as Prabhupada's error in this instance is, it is not the only one..."

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Is he saying that Prabhupada's statement is an error (which he claims is also made by shankaracharya), or is he saying Prabhupada's statement disagrees with that of Madhva's. From his words he is saying Prabhupada's translation is an error.

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He is saying that Prabhupada differs from Madhva. He did not say that Shankra made an error.

 

I guess this is sufficent to drive the point across.

 

Lastly,

 

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I can only conclude that such an individual must be pretty shallow. But then again there are 6 billion people on this planet. And here is one reviewer that doesn't like the Bhagavad-Gita translation by Srila Prabhupada. Does it really matter?

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Hopefully after this, people will reconsider their conclusions on who is shallow and who isn't. Considering the fact that only a fraction of the 6 billion have read the Gita in sanskrit and have also taken the time to compare various translations, I must say that a scholar such as SR's opinion definitely matters. Especially because he is not the only one to say so. Which brings us back to the point that there are 2 kinds of people who will favor the BG as it is, as I have mentioned earlier.

 

While Prabhupada may have done a great service by bringing Krishna to the west, it does not mean that whatever he wrote is the truth and that everyone who disagrees with his translation is a shallow person. He was a human like everyone else and naturally would have made mistakes or would have been biased. If some fanatic disciples are unwilling to admit this simple fact, then that is ok too. Nothing is lost.

 

Can't all these systems co-exist?

 

Not according to Madhva. He has said that his disciples should actually study other systems, point out all the errors and discard them. So arguments and criticism are part and parcel of the Madhva Tradition. It is considered a healthy thing and not as something political.

 

Cheers

[viji_53 0]

Let us devote our energies to noble & beneficial works. The Supreme Lord assigns specific work to every individual. It is His pleasure that all of us respond to His commands.Let us Focus our mind to Him , meditate on HIM & surrender to HIM alone.

HariBhol!

[shvu 1]

 

It is time to to close this down. You guys will not get around to admitting that the translation is flawed. And I have read the sanskrit version myself to see that Prabhupada has been biased in his translation. So I cannot come around to your way of thinking either.

 

That brings us to a dead-end.

 

Sumeet,

 

I have said before that critizing the translation of prabhupada is not to be taken as criticizing your Sampradaya. I fail to see how you cannot understand something so trivial. You are taking it as a personal attack on your sampradaya. I suggest that you think a little more before you draw your conclusions. Will make life simpler.

 

Gauracandra,

 

We seem to be fighting all the time ?

 

Anyway I must say that I consider the people whom you have mentioned above to belong to the second category. I don't believe that they bothered to compare translations and find out what the differences were and why. And those statements above don't say otherwise.

 

The right place to add this :

 

A very simple example which you can verify for yourself.

 

'Original form' : Show me one verse in the Gita where there is a sanskrit equivalent to that. You may dismiss it as unimportant. But it changes the whole meaning of the verse. And that in my opinion is distortion based on the translator's background.

 

Do I think by posting these quotes that I will convince Gauracandra or the other fanatics? Certianly not. He will no doubt follow up this post, trying to wiggle the words in his favor. In simple english, I believe that it is a position taken by a person when he does not have the good sense to do some home-work before jumping to conclusions. Or more simply, does not have the courage to see that his Guru may have been biased. It does take a lot of guts to come to terms with something like that.

 

btw Gauracandra, you may want to post something after this, so that you end up having the last word. I assure you that I won't reply to that and that way you can feel pleased with yourself.

 

Cheers

[Gauracandra 1]