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Post by Nitaidas on Mar 31, 2022 14:34:32 GMT -6
Greetings Everyone, I have some rather odd musings this morning. Don't know if I should share them or not, but I kind of need to get them off of my chest. It has occurred to me that I may be the first Vaisnava to attempt to translate the Bhagavata Purana into English. By Vaisnava I mean the bare minimum requirement mentioned in Sri Sanatana's commentary on his Brhad-bhagavatamrta, that one who is initiated into Visnu-mantras is a Vaisnava. I can claim no more than this. Nevertheless who else with that bare minimum qualification has attempted to translate the primary text on Krsnology? Bhaktivedanta tried, but he was not a Vaisnava by Sanatana Gosvamin's definition because he was initiated by Bhaktisiddhanta who was initiated by no one. This excludes any of Bhaktivedanta's followers and their followers as well. The translation by the Gita Press was not done by a Vaisnava, although they do admit that they have taken their translation from other sources, possibly Bhaktivedanta's version. But then we have the same problem. The Ramakrishna Mission translation was not done by a Vaisnava, since it was done by a sannyasi in Madras, Swami Tapasyananda, who has no connection with any of the Vaisnava communities. There is no diksa connection between the RKM and CV that I am aware of, though Ramakrisha immitated Sri Caitanya on many occasions. The translation published by Motilal was done by a scholar, someone named Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, under the supervision of J. L. Shastri. Though they are good scholars, they are not likely to be Vaisnavas. There are other translations available on archive.org, an abridged translation by V. Raghavan here. There are two more earlier translations on archive: one by S. Subha Rao, who may well be a Vaisnava of the Sri Sampradaya, here; one by J.M. Sanyal (vol.2), who may or may not be a Vaisnava, here. It is doubtful that Bibek Debroy, the author of the most recent translation of the text here, is anything more than a bhakta of Bibek Debroy. Thinking about it in this way I feel a huge responsibility for representing the tradition faithfully and as a scholar a responsibility to treat the text critically in order to determine what is actually in the text, who actually wrote it, when it was written, where it was written, what the text actually teaches, and what was added to the text after it began circulating. As a scholar I cannot claim as Satyanarayana Das does in his introduction to his book Jiva-tattva "the Bhagavata Purana, which is the last and topmost work of Sri Vedavyasa" (p. 5). This is clearly not true from the perspective of critical scholarship. Is it really necessary to maintain this fiction? Whoever wrote the Bhagavata was brilliant in his own right. It is true that the author(s) presents the text as that of Vyasa as a way to get it read and considered authoritative. But, who cares now? We don't know Vyasa from Adam and his being the author of the Mahabharata, the other eighteen Puranas, the Brahma-sutra and whatnot is about as likely as the moon's being made of cheese. I am translating the fifth chapter of the First Skandha in which Narada is castigating Vyasa for not praising Krsna more in his other works. Are we to believe that this is Vyasa describing Narada castigating Vyasa for not writing more about Krsna deeds? This is clearly ridiculous. As Caitanya Vaisnavas we do not need to embrace what is clearly absurd as if it were true. It is more important for us to search for and cultivate the truth and not embrace lies or silly fictions. There is no reason for us as responsible members of the CV tradition not to question the statements of the scriptures or of our previous teachers. I am reasonably certain that Krsna would rather have intelligent, thoughtful followers than a bunch of fools who question nothing, think nothing, and walk about like sleepwalkers in a childish fantasy world than come to grips with the real world of history and truth. This is the philosophy I try to bring to all my translations.
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bets
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by bets on Mar 31, 2022 15:36:59 GMT -6
Greetings Everyone, I have some rather odd musings this morning. Don't know if I should share them or not, but I kind of need to get them off of my chest. It has occurred to me that I may be the first Vaisnava to attempt to translate the Bhagavata Purana into English. By Vaisnava I mean the bare minimum requirement mentioned in Sri Sanatana's commentary on his Brhad-bhagavatamrta, that one who is initiated into Visnu-mantras is a Vaisnava. I can claim no more than this. Nevertheless who else with that bare minimum qualification has attempted to translate the primary text on Krsnology? Bhaktivedanta tried, but he was not a Vaisnava by Sanatana Gosvamin's definition because he was initiated by Bhaktisiddhanta who was initiated by no one. This excludes any of Bhaktivedanta's followers and their followers as well. The translation by the Gita Press was not done by a Vaisnava, although they do admit that they have taken their translation from other sources, possibly Bhaktivedanta's version. But then we have the same problem. The Ramakrishna Mission translation was not done by a Vaisnava, since it was done by a sannyasi in Madras, Swami Tapasyananda, who has no connection with any of the Vaisnava communities. There is no diksa connection between the RKM and CV that I am aware of, though Ramakrisha immitated Sri Caitanya on many occasions. The translation published by Motilal was done by a scholar, someone named Ganesh Vasudeo Tagare, under the supervision of J. L. Shastri. Though they are good scholars, they are not likely to be Vaisnavas. There are other translations available on archive.org, an abridged translation by V. Raghavan here. There are two more earlier translations on archive: one by S. Subha Rao, who may well be a Vaisnava of the Sri Sampradaya, here; one by J.M. Sanyal (vol.2), who may or may not be a Vaisnava, here. It is doubtful that Bibek Debroy, the author of the most recent translation of the text here, is anything more than a bhakta of Bibek Debroy. Thinking about it in this way I feel a huge responsibility for representing the tradition faithfully and as a scholar a responsibility to treat the text critically in order to determine what is actually in the text, who actually wrote it, when it was written, where it was written, what the text actually teaches, and what was added to the text after it began circulating. As a scholar I cannot claim as Satyanarayana Das does in his introduction to his book Jiva-tattva "the Bhagavata Purana, which is the last and topmost work of Sri Vedavyasa" (p. 5). This is clearly not true from the perspective of critical scholarship. Is it really necessary to maintain this fiction? Whoever wrote the Bhagavata was brilliant in his own right. It is true that the author(s) presents the text as that of Vyasa as a way to get it read and considered authoritative. But, who cares now? We don't know Vyasa from Adam and his being the author of the Mahabharata, the other eighteen Puranas, the Brahma-sutra and whatnot is about as likely as the moon's being made of cheese. I am translating the fifth chapter of the First Skandha in which Narada is castigating Vyasa for not praising Krsna more in his other works. Are we to believe that this is Vyasa describing Narada castigating Vyasa for not writing more about Krsna deeds? This is clearly ridiculous. As Caitanya Vaisnavas we do not need to embrace what is clearly absurd as if it were true. It is more important for us to search for and cultivate the truth and not embrace lies or silly fictions. There is no reason for us as responsible members of the CV tradition not to question the statements of the scriptures or of our previous teachers. I am reasonably certain that Krsna would rather have intelligent, thoughtful followers than a bunch of fools who question nothing, think nothing, and walk about like sleepwalkers in a childish fantasy world than come to grips with the real world of history and truth. This is the philosophy I try to bring to all my translations. (Wow, Nitai, just Wow. Scary stuff--beautiful but scary.... "What would Krsna think?" is a kind of loaded question, isn't it?)
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Post by avadhutadas on Mar 31, 2022 16:56:14 GMT -6
Bhaktivedanta was initiated by Mahendranath Goswami as a young boy. I do wonder if AC Swami formally rejected him or maybe he only received Brahman thread from BSST. You probably know more about it than I.
I think you should just translate the text and commentary and let the reader make their own conclusions. Also, not to be a downer, but wouldn’t you say it’s highly unlikely that you will finish the whole thing? It’s a mountain of a book. Maybe you should start snorting snuff and dictating your translation to doe eyed young lads during the middle of the night.
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Post by Nityānanda dāsa on Apr 1, 2022 5:15:49 GMT -6
Bhaktivedanta was initiated by Mahendranath Goswami as a young boy. I do wonder if AC Swami formally rejected him or maybe he only received Brahman thread from BSST. Avadhuta-ji, Radhe Radhe! Where do you know this info from about BS's guru as a young boy?
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Post by avadhutadas on Apr 1, 2022 8:28:54 GMT -6
Bhaktivedanta was initiated by Mahendranath Goswami as a young boy. I do wonder if AC Swami formally rejected him or maybe he only received Brahman thread from BSST. Avadhuta-ji, Radhe Radhe! Where do you know this info from about BS's guru as a young boy? Radhe Radhe Nityananda dasji. Just some good old internet sleuthing. Start about halfway down this thread with the comment by Kalki das gaudiyadiscussions.gaudiya.com/topic_1897.htmland also note the comment by Keshava that contains the paragraph, “ "At the age of 12, according to his father's desire he (ACBSP) accepted initiation from the family guru, Mahindranath Goswami. Remaining with his mother and father in worldly life he began the practice of so many rules concerning proper Vaishnava behavior."
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Post by Nitaidas on Apr 1, 2022 11:28:48 GMT -6
Bhaktivedanta was initiated by Mahendranath Goswami as a young boy. I do wonder if AC Swami formally rejected him or maybe he only received Brahman thread from BSST. You probably know more about it than I. I think you should just translate the text and commentary and let the reader make their own conclusions. Also, not to be a downer, but wouldn’t you say it’s highly unlikely that you will finish the whole thing? It’s a mountain of a book. Maybe you should start snorting snuff and dictating your translation to doe eyed young lads during the middle of the night. Thanks, Avadhutadasji, for your comment. I did not know this about ACBS. Just because someone claims this about him does not make it true. IGMers these days make up all sorts of false guru-pranalis (or steal them from others) to try to make it seem that BS was in the lineage of Nityananda Prabhu, forgetting or not knowing that Gaurakisora das Baba was in the Advaita paribar. Even if it is true, and we have often heard the ACBS was from a Vaisnava family, whatever mantras he got from his previous guru were replaced by those he got from BS. So he went from an initiated Vaisnava to a non-initiated Vaisnava. When I was initiated by Tinkudi Baba all my dead ISKCON mantras were replaced by live mantras (though most of them were different and, of course, there was no Brahma-gayatri), that is to say, mantras with power in them, power because they are connected to the powerhouse, Sriman Nityananda Prabhu. I was once one of those doe-eyed boys taking the dictations of ACBS, not at night, but early in the morning. I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone else. That said, I don't really have any hope of finishing the whole text if I am to do it carefully according to the critical edition, with references and footnotes on grammatical oddities and niceties. I have learned more about the Bhagavata in the last 5 or 6 months than I have during the previous 50 years of my life cultivating Krsna bhakti. I wish I had started this project before now, but I did not feel ready for it, that is, competent enough to tackle it, until recently. And perhaps even now I am not competent enough for the project. I do feel sometimes when I am stumped by something that I am getting some inner guidance that helps me solve problems that arise. This I attribute to the guidance of my gurudeva's caitta-rupa which is why I wondered about the influence of proper initiation on the translation process. In addition, I have, over my lifetime, gathered enough resources in the form of reference books to tackle almost any issue. What I don't have with me here I can get copies of on archive.org. Perhaps the driving force behind this effort is to makeup for allowing substandard and misleading translations to pass when I was one of the editors of ACBS's translation of the Bhagavata back in the 70s. That was a real mess. All the verses in his translation sounded the same though clearly the originals were quite distinct. He was not a competent translator and I was powerless at that time (with only a year of college Sanskrit) to help him. I feel like I was an unwilling participant in the defiling or obfuscation of the Lord's text and need to try to fix that, if I can, before I die. But perhaps the best reason for spending my last days translating the Bhagavata is that it is a great way to focus one's mind on Krsna through a tremendously sophisticated poetico-philosophic text that is really unapproachable in any other language. My translations will certainly fall short, but the time I spend working on them will be pure gold and have already given me great pleasure. Sorry, chumps, if you really want to swim in the ocean of nectar that is the Bhagavata, learn Sanskrit as best you can. Otherwise you will only get a drop here or a drop there (well, unless you simply chant the Mahamantra. That leads to downpours of nectar without needing to know a ca or an api).
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Post by avadhutadas on Apr 1, 2022 13:18:50 GMT -6
Have you considered doing a selection of passages from the SB instead of trying to do the whole thing from the beginning. While ACBS was able to publish his Krsna book he was unable to get past the 14th chapter of the tenth canto in his Srimad Bhagavatam translation and commentary. I don’t think it’s a coincidence he was stopped from commentating on the ras Lila or really any of the gopi pastimes. Perhaps the tenth canto would be a good place to focus 🙏
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Post by Nitaidas on Apr 4, 2022 9:18:06 GMT -6
Have you considered doing a selection of passages from the SB instead of trying to do the whole thing from the beginning. While ACBS was able to publish his Krsna book he was unable to get past the 14th chapter of the tenth canto in his Srimad Bhagavatam translation and commentary. I don’t think it’s a coincidence he was stopped from commentating on the ras Lila or really any of the gopi pastimes. Perhaps the tenth canto would be a good place to focus 🙏 Thank you, Avadhutadasji, for your sage and sane advice. Lots of folks have done that, including my friend Edwin Bryant as you will find here. The ISKCON clones, Valpey and Gupta, have done so as well here. There is also Jonathan Edelmann's attempt to convince the feeble-minded that the Bhagavata has something to contribute to science here.My problem is what should be included and what left out. My gugubhai Minaketan Ramdas thinks I should focus on the 10th Skandha, as have the student/followers of Gopiparanandhana in their translation efforts. My view though is and has largely been that one should start with the beginning and work one's way through the text in it proper order. Much groundwork is being laid in this early parts of the Purana and to jump to the "nectar" so to speak seems like a common impulse. But what is it that makes the nectar nectar? Surely, a lot depends on the build up. Not only do people want to jump to the nectar they want to dive right in to the pericarp of the lotus, the Rasa-lila, as Schweig and Coleman and Hernandez have. The result is possibly a great of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, not that I think my presentation will necessarily be free of those flaws. The text as a whole should be present, including the first two Skandhas and the 12th Skandha which were probably added later. They in some ways have the nature of blurbs added to the front cover and back cover to help sell a book. As a publisher, I am well familiar with this practice. Though that may be so, the blurbers were not fools. Their comments represent a kind of early commentary on the central text that should not be overlooked (as I was wont to do in my youthful rush to get to the "good stuff"). Anyway, all this is to get to my main point which is that I aim to treat the text as terra incognita, putting aside all, or as many as can, of my presuppositions about the text. One presupposition as already been challenged even in the first five chapters of the text, that it is a composition rather than a collection of previously existing stories and teachings belonging to a pre-existing community/tradition attempting gain attention and acceptance for its views. The word Samhita appears several times in the parts I have already worked on. Samhita means collection of previously distinct texts or teachings gathered together into an anthology. The Rg Veda is a samhita and we see clearly that over a thousand hymns by different authors have been gathered together from different periods (roughly 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE) to form the body of the text and those have been organized into discrete sections based on the subject matter (the Ninth Mandala for Soma, for instance) of those hymns. I think the same is true of the Bhagavata which styles itself as the Paramahams Samhita. Surely that characterization of the blurber responsible for the first skandha is meant to be meaningful and yet it always gets overlooked or not taken seriously. The fact that the word samhita is used also implies that the Bhagavata is meant to replace the earlier samhitas, that is the Vedas, with a new revelation based on the works of a variety of ser-authors collected together under one roof, so to speak. Anyway, I figure if I discipline myself and complete four verses a day over the next ten years (the amount of time I figure I can more or less count on having left in this body), I can pretty much finish the 14,000 or so verses of the extant Bhagavata (with some of the interpolations thrown in for good measure). 365 x 4 x 10 = 14600. It sounds doable to me. Perhaps I will have longer than that, who knows? It is all up to Krsna's grace. I was sure he was going to squash me before now for the hubris I have already demonstrated with what I have done so far. Perhaps the mighty sledgehammer has been dispatched, but from such a great distance that it will not reach my head until a few years from now. Who knows? All we pipsqueaks can do is follow our bliss until we are squashed like tiny ants heading for the sugar bowl.
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Post by Nitaidas on Apr 4, 2022 9:59:52 GMT -6
After my long disquisition I offer to the group a link to a sweet movie about Mahaprabhu. Yesterday we had a powerful emotional reading from Shishir Kumar's Lord Gauranga on his sannyasa and immediate departure for Vrindaban. It made me want to see what movies were available on the life of Sri Caitanya. There turn out to be several. Here is Nader Nimai here.pibata rasamalayam!
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Jon
Junior Member
Posts: 53
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Post by Jon on Apr 5, 2022 1:25:04 GMT -6
Thinking about it in this way I feel a huge responsibility for representing the tradition faithfully and as a scholar a responsibility to treat the text critically in order to determine what is actually in the text, who actually wrote it, when it was written, where it was written, what the text actually teaches, and what was added to the text after it began circulating. As a scholar I cannot claim as Satyanarayana Das does in his introduction to his book Jiva-tattva "the Bhagavata Purana, which is the last and topmost work of Sri Vedavyasa" (p. 5). This is clearly not true from the perspective of critical scholarship. Is it really necessary to maintain this fiction? Whoever wrote the Bhagavata was brilliant in his own right. It is true that the author(s) presents the text as that of Vyasa as a way to get it read and considered authoritative. But, who cares now? We don't know Vyasa from Adam and his being the author of the Mahabharata, the other eighteen Puranas, the Brahma-sutra and whatnot is about as likely as the moon's being made of cheese. I am translating the fifth chapter of the First Skandha in which Narada is castigating Vyasa for not praising Krsna more in his other works. Are we to believe that this is Vyasa describing Narada castigating Vyasa for not writing more about Krsna deeds? This is clearly ridiculous. As Caitanya Vaisnavas we do not need to embrace what is clearly absurd as if it were true. It is more important for us to search for and cultivate the truth and not embrace lies or silly fictions. There is no reason for us as responsible members of the CV tradition not to question the statements of the scriptures or of our previous teachers. I am reasonably certain that Krsna would rather have intelligent, thoughtful followers than a bunch of fools who question nothing, think nothing, and walk about like sleepwalkers in a childish fantasy world than come to grips with the real world of history and truth. This is the philosophy I try to bring to all my translations. Hear, hear! This sounds like a Bhagavata I actually want to read (hides under the table). To paraphrase Bhaktivinoda, let us be swans, not asses caught up in fundamentalism, historical analysis and sectarian squabbles instead of the inner meaning of the text. On Bhaktivinoda, in his Krishna-Samhita, he says the Bhagavatam was likely written in the 10th century AD, in South India, but one of many people calling themselves Veda-Vyasa.
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jiva
Full Member
Posts: 143
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Post by jiva on Apr 5, 2022 19:38:33 GMT -6
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Post by Nitaidas on Apr 6, 2022 14:24:48 GMT -6
Interesting quote. Is this Vinode Baba's comment? The translation of the Bhagavata verse is really bad. Here is what it really says: One should bow with one's mind to these living beings, respecting them highly. The Lord Bhagavan has entered [them] by his jiva-portion [kalA]. The bolded words were not translated in the verse. This is an example of how crappy ISKCON translations are. We know it is ISKCON because of the use of the words Supreme Personality of Godhead. Only ISKCON uses those idiotic words. Note the non-duality of the original verse. Why should one bow? Because the Lord himself is present in them as his portion, the jiva. In other words, Bhagavan-Isvara=jiva. Also, there is no such thing as Sanatana Dharma. Nothing in this world is eternal. Everything changes and dharma is no exception. If someone starts talking about Sanatana dharma, you know he is out of his mind, or simply ignorant. Sanatana dharma is the plaything the Hindutva-demons, who currently run India, appeal to and use as ammunition for such outrageous proposals as killing all the Muslims in India. See this link
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Post by avadhutadas on Apr 6, 2022 16:42:36 GMT -6
“ Also, there is no such thing as Sanatana Dharma. Nothing in this world is eternal. Everything changes and dharma is no exception. If someone starts talking about Sanatana dharma, you know he is out of his mind, or simply ignorant. Sanatana dharma is the plaything the Hindutva-demons, who currently run India, appeal to and use as ammunition for such outrageous proposals as killing all the Muslims in India. ”
Based comment Nitaidasji. I used to spend time with some Indians on the internet and it was obvious that their Bhakti was all tied up with political BS and nationalism. Even stranger were the neo nazi Krishna “devotees” who cut up acbs quotes to make him sound even more like a nazi sympathizer. I hope for your sake Shridhar doesn’t start blabbering on about varnashrama dharma in all his purports.
I wouldn’t be surprised if kdk missed the point on some things when writing his Cc. I still think the Ramananda Raya Sam ved is a beautiful piece of work and the chapters where Mahaprabhu instructs Sanantan and Rupa are pretty good too. Lots of good insights there. My guess is the best and most authentic parts are when he stuck to Swarup Damodars journal. The unfortunate thing about any group of ppl trying to start a religion is that they must differentiate themselves from other religions and usually this is accomplished by being critical of other beliefs and ideas. Hence we see acbs routinely criticizing other institutions and figures instead of sharing sweet Krishna katha. Alas I don’t think any institution can deliver the gift of prem.
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jiva
Full Member
Posts: 143
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Post by jiva on Apr 6, 2022 21:51:08 GMT -6
Interesting quote. Is this Vinode Baba's comment?
I just wanted to follow up on the story (maybe from some other topic?) of how "mayavadis" are bad, this and that (KdK, IGM, ACBS), and in the example I have given (advaita sannyasi teaches a lesson in CV-ashram) we can see that this is not a CV understanding.
And when it comes to the word "Hindu", here is an explanation of the same word by Puri-Shankaracarya. I apologize if I veered off topic. Delete or move.
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Post by Nitaidas on Apr 7, 2022 10:43:59 GMT -6
Interesting quote. Is this Vinode Baba's comment? The translation of the Bhagavata verse is really bad. Here is what it really says: One should bow with one's mind to these living beings, respecting them highly. The Lord Bhagavan has entered [them] by his jiva-portion [kalA]. The bolded words were not translated in the verse. This is an example of how crappy ISKCON translations are. We know it is ISKCON because of the use of the words Supreme Personality of Godhead. Only ISKCON uses those idiotic words. Note the non-duality of the original verse. Why should one bow? Because the Lord himself is present in them as his portion, the jiva. In other words, Bhagavan-Isvara=jiva. Also, there is no such thing as Sanatana Dharma. Nothing in this world is eternal. Everything changes and dharma is no exception. If someone starts talking about Sanatana dharma, you know he is out of his mind, or simply ignorant. Sanatana dharma is the plaything the Hindutva-demons, who currently run India, appeal to and use as ammunition for such outrageous proposals as killing all the Muslims in India. See this link I should add a little to this comment, in the interest of impartiality and honesty. I checked Sri Jiva's and Visvanatha Cakravartin's comms. on Bhagavata 3.29.34. They both reinterpret the phrase jIva-kalayA to mean jIvakalayA tatkalayA tadantaryAmitayA which means "by the living being portion means by the one who observes the living being, that is to say, by the inner controller of the living being (ParamAtman)." So, instead of taking jIva-kalayA in literal sense which is decidedly advaitic they turn it toward the inner controller form of Bhagavan, Paramatman. So the form with which Bhagavan enters the living beings is his Paramatman form not his jIva form according to Sri Jiva and Sri Visvanatha Cakravartin. They are not alone in this for even Sridhara says that same thing, but in different words: jIvAnAM kalayA parikalanena antaryAmitayA praviSTa iti dRSTyetyarthaH, "Bhagavan's entering the living beings with his jIva-kalA or jIva-portion means that He entered living beings by observing them as their inner controller. This is the proper view." This interpretation rests applying a secondary meaning of the Sanskrit root kal: to know, to observe instead of to hold, bear , carry. Thus it means he entered living beings by his form meant to know, to observe them, that is, by his Paramatman form. What I find fascinating about this is that Sridhara who is often accused of being an Advaitin specifically takes the non-Advaitin position here, though the text itself is clearly expressing an Advaitin view, one that Sankara would be quite happy with. The CV commentators merely restate Sridhara's view. So we have a text, the Bhagavata, with clearly evident Advaitin views (not just here, but in many other places, too. I will post other examples), being changed into a more dualist friendly text by Sridhara and our acaryas.
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