The Song Divine or Bhagavad-gita

[Nitaidas]

Here is the new edition/reprint of C. C. Caleb's metrical translation that madanmohanji called to my attention. I am putting the finishing touches on it and will post information about it here, including previews of the cover and such.

[Nitaidas]

Here is the cover to the Gita. I am waiting for a few minor changes before I submit it for printing. It turned out to be 401 pages and will cost around $16 bucks. The image is Arjun fighting with Karna and it looks like Krsna is about to throw a chariot wheel at Karna. This edition of the book will be a kind of template that I will use when I bring out my own translation with notes from the various commentators (Sankara, Sridhara, Madhusudana, Visvanatha, Baladeva and maybe even Kesava Kashmiri of the Nimbarka tradition).

[Nitaidas]

I am happy to report that I sent off the files just a little while ago. In about a week I will receive a proof and if that passes muster the book will be available. Thank you madanmohanji for noticing this translation and calling to my attention. Then you typed the whole durn thing and suggested adding summaries in the appendices. You deserve the greater credit for this book. Anyone else spot a jewel going unnoticed?

By the way, we are putting out a paperback edition of Dr. Kapoor's Experiences in Bhakti. I am redoing the introduction somewhat, but that is almost done. It should be out in a week or two. Much cheaper than the hardbound edition.

[Nitaidas]

I am happy to say that this book is done. I signed off on it yesterday. It should be available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in a few days.

I think it turned out well. It is 401 pages and will sell for $18. My introduction is about 20 pages.

Now working on the paperback version of Dr, Kapor's Experiences in Bhakti. I am adding considerably to my introduction on the history of the understanding of bhakti as a kind of knowledge (jnana). I am getting some interesting results I think

[Nitaidas]

I am happy to say that the Gita is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, though at Amazon they do not have the cover up yet. I am currently looking at the proof for Guy Beck's book, Vaishnava Temple Music in Vrindaban. It is done too. it will be up at Amazon about a week after I sign off on it. It looks good. Does anyone else get all filled with reverie when listening to that music? At first I did not like it much. But now it has infected me. It makes me wistful and nostalgic for Vrindavan. I will post some more of it.

[vkaul1]

That is great news. I will also wait for your edition of Gita. Sorry, I have been pretty busy for last one week, so did not get time to go further in Sri Sanatana's work.

[malati]

Oct 6, 2011 14:57:29 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

I am happy to say that the Gita is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble, though at Amazon they do not have the cover up yet. I am currently looking at the proof for Guy Beck's book, Vaishnava Temple Music in Vrindaban. It is done too. it will be up at Amazon about a week after I sign off on it. It looks good. Does anyone else get all filled with reverie when listening to that music? At first I did not like it much. But now it has infected me. It makes me wistful and nostalgic for Vrindavan. I will post some more of it.

Nitaidasji

Congratulations to you and Madanmohan das from the U.K. for this wonderful project. I'm excited to read your introduction.

When it's available on amazon already please put a link to the page for convenience. I'll get a copy. The only Gita I have is the translations by ACBS.

[Nitaidas]

Thanks, mataji. Here is the link here.

The link to Barnes and Noble is here.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 7, 2011 22:57:34 GMT -6 vkaul1 said:

That is great news. I will also wait for your edition of Gita. Sorry, I have been pretty busy for last one week, so did not get time to go further in Sri Sanatana's work.

I completely understand. I too have been busy and it looks like I will be for several weeks to come. Better that than having nothing to do. Interested in the results of your experimentation with Sanatana Goswami's little book.

[madanmohandas]

Hi Nitai,
just reading through the Gita now. A couple of things I drew attention to in a message already. I noticed in ch. 8, the last line of verse 18 is carried over to the next page which some what disturbs the layout. Its a great read, I wonder if many will like/appriciate it? To me it is the best translation albeit maybe not the easiest, but the original text is itself notoriously 'not-easy-to-grasp', so why should a translation be any clearer(?).
Gone through the whole thing now only one typo noticed in ch 10, last line of 29 has 'O', and should be 'Of'.

[Nitaidas]

Oct 29, 2011 6:04:00 GMT -6 madanmohandas said:

Hi Nitai,
just reading through the Gita now. A couple of things I drew attention to in a message already. I noticed in ch. 8, the last line of verse 18 is carried over to the next page which some what disturbs the layout. Its a great read, I wonder if many will like/appriciate it? To me it is the best translation albeit maybe not the easiest, but the original text is itself notoriously 'not-easy-to-grasp', so why should a translation be any clearer(?).
Gone through the whole thing now only one typo noticed in ch 10, last line of 29 has 'O', and should be 'Of'.

Hi madanmohanji.

Thanks for calling my attention to that anomaly with line 18. It was just fine in the proof. Not sure what happened to push that one line over onto the next page. Got it fixed now and I have been going through and fixing a few other things that I noticed. I will submit a revision today. That is one of the nice things about using POD (print on demand). One can revise just about anytime and not have to worry about having 200 copies of the book with the mistake in it. I think I had only 20 copies printed. Once the revision is applied every copy printed will have the corrections. It doesn't cost much to have a revision done either.

Yes, I agree with you in part. I think it is a great translation. I don't know about best. It depends on what you look for in a translation. One might say that the King James Version of the Bible is the "best" because the language is beautiful. Still, it was based on the Latin Vulgate text of St Jerome, not the most reliable version of the OT and NT. Now that we have discovered so many more ancient manuscripts and fragments of ancient manuscripts we can see how corrupt that Vulgate was. Nowadays the New Revised Standard Versions is considered the best, because it is based on the many corrections the study of those manuscripts have generated. But, it does not sound as nice as the old KJV.

Caleb's translation is a good solid translation. I have not found any place where I thought it strayed intolerably from the text. Plus it sounds nice, rather like the old KJV in many ways. So it has two things going for it: fidelity and sweetness to the ear. That makes it a great translation. I am still tempted to try my own hand at it. I don't think that the Gita is that complicated or complex. Complicated and complex are the Brahma-sutra and the Bhagavata and Sri Jiva's works. I think the Gita needs a simple translation with hermeneutic amplification left to the footnotes. This would not replace the Caleb translation. It could never sound as nice, but it would be like a snapshot or portrait from another angle. Every translation is a good translation if it is faithful and makes the text more visible to readers than it was before.

[Nitaidas]

I've uploaded the revisions to the Gita. That formatting problem has been fixed and a number of little typos. I have also gone over the Sanskrit carefully and made it more consistent. The Devanagari has all of its sandhi in place while the transliteration has the sandhis, at least the external sandhis, broken up. That is I have broken up the sandhi between words, but not inside words and compounds. It looks like it will be ready to print later today.

[Nitaidas]

On another note, I have decided to come out with a "pocket" version with just the English and no Sanskrit. I have already reformatted it and a new cover is being designed. It will be smaller and thinner and will cost less. Much more compact. I expect it will be out in a couple of weeks.