The Song Celestial: Bhagavad Gita [Hardcover]

Sir Arnold Edward (Translator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 173 pages
• Publisher: Self-Realization Fellowship Publishers (December 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876122101
• ISBN-13: 978-0876122105
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 3.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,700,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The esteemed, poetic classic translation in a pocket edition, December 3, 2002

By 

richardpinneau.com (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Song Celestial: Bhagavad Gita (Hardcover)

The "Song Celestial" is Sir Edwin Arnold's beautiful rendering of India's most beloved spiritual text, The Bhagavad Gita, and has been kept in print by the press of Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship. This is a convenient, pocket-size hardback that is a joy to read from whenever you have a free moment.

"The words of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita are at once a profound scripture on the science of Yoga (union with God) and a textbook for everyday living. The student is led step by step with Arjuna from the mortal consciousness of spiritual doubt and weakheartedness to divine attunement and inner resolve. The timeless and universal message of the Gita is all-encompassing in its expresssion of truth. The Gita teaches man his rightful duty in life, and how to discharge it with the dispassion that avoids pain and nurtures wisdom and success." --Paramahansa Yogananda (from book jacket)

Regarding the style of translation, Sir Edwin explains in his preface: "The Sanskrit original is written in the Anushtubh meter, which cannot be successfully reproduced for Western ears. I have therefore cast it into our flexible blank verse, changing into lyrical measures where the text itself similarly breaks. For the most part, I believe the sense to be faithfully preserved..."

One definite quibble about the translation is made explicit in Yogananda's autobiography where he notes that virtually *every* translator of The Gita into English mistakes Krishna as instructing his disciples to meditate with the gaze focused on "the tip of the nose." Yogananda points out that the Sanskrit "nasikagam" actually means "source" or "root" of the nose -- a reference to *the point between the eyebrows* - the "spiritual eye". For an esoterically sophisticated appreciation of such subtle (but vital) translation issues, you may want to turn to Yogananda's illumined commentary on the Gita: "God Talks with Arjuna." (ISBN: 0876120303 )