Bhagavad Gita: Annotated & Explained (Skylight Illuminations) [Paperback]

I was very excited when I heard that Kendra was doing this book for Skylight Paths, since the Gita has been one of my, and many other people's favorite and most important spiritual sources, and I eagerly looked forward to its appearance. If I wasn't one of the first people in the world to buy a copy, at least I was one of the first on my block.

I was not disappointed. If I was, I would have never written this review. A blurb on the cover by renowned authority, Ken Wilber, says, "The very best Gita for first time readers." This is one of the rare occasions when a blurb is absolutely true. But, the further truth is that Burroughs's annotations make this a book for the experienced reader of the Gita as well. Burroughs has consulted and used over twenty other translations in her annotations to this particular translation that she uses, the 1935 one by Shri Purohit Swami, and this scholarship, plus Burroughs' own personal experience, make this a valuable book for a reader of any degree of experience.

Besides Burroughs' own brilliant annotations, Skylight has done an innovative and equally brilliant job of format, where the annotations are on one page, and the reference text is on the facing page, so that the reader has the annotations right at hand as s/he reads, and does not have to thumb through to the back of the book or chapter to look them up. The only problem that I encountered with this was my own idiosyncratic one of whether to read the text page through and then turn to the annotations alongside it, or read each annotation as it is referred to in the text. I never completely settled this for myself. Other readers may want to read the annotation page first, and then read the facing page of the Gita text.

As Burroughs notes, the Purohit translation is a good first time one, because he purposely set out to eliminate all foreign words of the Indian Sanskrit language, and uses only terms familiar to the Western, English speaking reader. For myself, however, who is not a newcomer to Eastern thought (though certainly not a Gita scholar at all), I am less happy with this choice. I want to know what the key Sanskrit terms are in the Gita text, which have a meaning and connotation that is at least somewhat different than the familiar English terms used. For example, in the famous and central verses (Ch 4: 7-8) where Krishna tells his disciple Arjuna about who he is and the reason for his periodic appearance in human history, the Purohit text has it, "To protect the righteous, to destroy the wicked, and to establish the kingdom of God, I am reborn from age to age." The very Christian phrase "the kingdom of God," could easily throw off the reader. The Sanskrit actually says, "for the establishment of dharma," and thus it connects with the whole Indian sense of truth and untruth (dharma and adharma), more abstract and general, and later carried with such powerful effect into Buddhism. In 1935 "the Kingdom of God" might have worked better, but in our time, dharma says more, and more accurately to many of us. However, Burroughs' annotations corrects or overcomes a lot of these problems (but not in this case). So, where the Purohit text says (Ch 6: 23) that meditation "should be practiced with determination and with a heart which refuses to be depressed," Burroughs explains that the actual Sanskrit term is "chetas, a synonym for chitta (mind). In Indian philosophy , 'heart' is considered an aspect of mind, concerned with intuitive understanding and valuation." Gems like this of elucidation and clarification occur throughout the annotation pages facing the text.

What reading this edition of the Gita has prompted me to do, in part related to my issue with the Purohit translation, is to now have three Gita's that I carry side by side, and compare them as I read in it--this one, Prabhavananda/Isherwood, and Nikhilananda's. Burroughs would be happy with this effect on me of her edition, and in this case would consider her work a success. And these three, are one more than the two translations of the Bible that I have on hand.

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