The first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita was published by Charles Wilkins in 1785.[276] The Wilkins translation had an introduction to the Gita by Warren Hastings. Soon the work was translated into other European languages such as French (1787), German, and Russian. In 1849, the Weleyan Mission Press, Bangalore published The Bhagavat-Geeta, Or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon in Eighteen Lectures, with Sanskrit, Canarese and English in parallel columns, edited by Rev. John Garrett, with the effort being supported by Sir Mark Cubbon.[277]
In 1981, Larson stated that "a complete listing of Gita translations and a related secondary bibliography would be nearly endless".[278]: 514 According to Larson, there is "a massive translational tradition in English, pioneered by the British, solidly grounded philologically by the French and Germans, provided with its indigenous roots by a rich heritage of modern Indian comment and reflection, extended into various disciplinary areas by Americans, and having generated in our time a broadly based cross-cultural awareness of the importance of the Bhagavad Gita both as an expression of a specifically Indian spirituality and as one of the great religious "classics" of all time."[278]: 518
According to Sargeant, the Gita is "said to have been translated at least 200 times, in both poetic and prose forms".[279] Richard Davis cites a count by Callewaert & Hemraj in 1982 of 1,891 translations of the Bhagavad Gita in 75 languages, including 273 in English.[280] These translations vary,[281] and are in part an interpretative reconstruction of the original Sanskrit text that differ in their "friendliness to the reader",[282] and in the amount of "violence to the original Gita text".[283][note 21]
The translations and interpretations of the Gita have been so diverse that these have been used to support apparently contradictory political and philosophical values. For example, Galvin Flood and Charles Martin note that interpretations of the Gita have been used to support "pacifism to aggressive nationalism" in politics, from "monism to theism" in philosophy.[288] According to William Johnson, the synthesis of ideas in the Gita is such that it can bear almost any shade of interpretation.[289] A translation "can never fully reproduce an original and no translation is transparent", states Richard Davis, but in the case of the Gita the linguistic and cultural distance for many translators is large and steep which adds to the challenge and affects the translation.[290] For some native translators, their personal beliefs, motivations, and subjectivity affect their understanding, their choice of words and interpretation.[291][292][293] Some translations by Indians, with or without Western co-translators, have "orientalist", "apologetic", "Neo-Vedantic" or "guru phenomenon" biases.[278]: 525–530
A sample of translations of the Bhagavad Gita[278] | ||
---|---|---|
Title | Translator | Year |
The Bhãgvãt-Gēētā; or, Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon, in Eighteen Lectures with Notes | Charles Wilkins | 1785 |
Bhagavad-Gita | August Wilhelm Schlegel | 1823 |
The Bhagavadgita | J.C. Thomson | 1856 |
La Bhagavad-Gita | Eugene Burnouf | 1861 |
The Bhagavad Gita[note 22] | Kashninath T. Telang | 1882 |
The Song Celestial[note 23] | Sir Edwin Arnold | 1885 |
The Bhagavad Gita[note 24] | William Quan Judge | 1890 |
The Bhagavad-Gita with the Commentary of Sri Sankaracarya | A. Mahadeva Sastry | 1897 |
Young Men's Gita | Jagindranath Mukharji | 1900 |
Bhagavadgita: The Lord's Song | L.D. Barnett | 1905 |
Bhagavad Gita[note 25] | Anne Besant and Bhagavan Das | 1905 |
Die Bhagavadgita | Richard Garbe | 1905 |
Srimad Bhagavad-Gita | Swami Swarupananda | 1909 |
Der Gesang des Heiligen | Paul Deussen | 1911 |
Srimad Bhagavad-Gita | Swami Paramananda | 1913 |
La Bhagavad-Gîtâ | Emile Sénart | 1922 |
The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi[note 26] | Mohandas K. Gandhi | 1926 |
The Bhagavad Gita | W. Douglas P. Hill | 1928 |
The Bhagavad-Gita | Arthur W. Ryder | 1929 |
The Song of the Lord, Bhagavad-Gita | E.J. Thomas | 1931 |
The Geeta | Shri Purohit Swami | 1935 |
The Yoga of the Bhagavat Gita | Sri Krishna Prem | 1938 |
The Message of the Gita (or Essays on the Gita) | Sri Aurobindo, edited by Anilbaran Roy | 1938 |
Bhagavadgita[note 27] | Swami Sivananda | 1942 |
Bhagavad Gita[note 28] | Swami Nikhilananda | 1943 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Franklin Edgerton | 1944 |
Bhagavad Gita - The Song of God | Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood | 1944 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Swami Nikhilananda | 1944 |
The Bhagavadgita | S. Radhakrishnan | 1948 |
The Bhagavadgita | Shakuntala Rao Sastri | 1959 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Juan Mascaró | 1962 |
Bhagavad Gita | C. Rajagopalachari | 1963 |
The Bhagavadgita | Swami Chidbhavananda | 1965 |
The Bhagavad Gita[note 29] | Maharishi Mahesh Yogi | 1967 |
The Bhagavadgita: Translated with Introduction and Critical Essays | Eliot Deutsch | 1968 |
Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is | A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada | 1968 |
The Bhagavad Gita | R.C. Zaehner | 1969 |
The Bhagavad Gita: A New Verse Translation | Ann Stanford | 1970 |
The Holy Gita, Translation & Commentary | Swami Chinmayananda | 1972 |
Srimad Bhagavad Gita | Swami Vireswarananda | 1974 |
Bhagavad Gita: A Verse Translation[note 30] | Geoffrey Parrinder | 1974 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Kees. W. Bolle | 1979 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Winthrop Sargeant (Editor: Christopher K Chapple) | 1979 |
The Bhagavadgita in the Mahabharata | J.A.B. van Buitenen | 1981 |
The Bhagavad-Gita | Winthrop Sargeant | 1984 |
Srimad Bhagavad Gita Bhasya of Sri Samkaracharya | A.G. Krishna Warrier | 1984 |
The Bhagavadgita | Eknath Easwaran | 1985 |
Srimad Bhagavad Gita | Swami Tapasyananda | 1985 |
Bhagavad Gita | Srinivasa Murthy | 1985 |
The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War | Barbara Stoler Miller | 1986 |
Bhagavad-Gita | Raghavan Iyer | 1986 |
The Bhagavad-Gita | Ramananda Prasad | 1988 |
Bhagavad-Gita for You & Me | M.S. Patwardhan | 1990 |
Bhagavad Gita | Antonio T. De Nicholas | 1991 |
Bhagavad Gita | Sachindra K. Majumdar | 1991 |
Bhagavad Gita | O.P. Ghai | 1992 |
Ramanuja Gita Bhashya | Swami Adidevananda | 1992 |
Gita Bhashya | Jagannatha Prakasha | 1993 |
Bhagavad Gita: Translation & Commentary | Richard Gotshalk | 1993 |
The Bhagavad Gita[note 31] | P. Lal | 1994 |
The Bhagavad-Gita | W.J. Johnson | 1994 |
God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita | Paramahansa Yogananda | 1995 |
Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God) | Ramananda Prasad | 1996 |
Bhagavad Gita[note 32] | Vrinda Nabar and Shanta Tumkur | 1997 |
The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavat Gita: A Commentary for Modern Readers | Swami Satchidananda | 1997 |
Bhagavad-Gita | Satyananda Saraswati | 1997 |
Bhagavad-Gita with the Commentary of Sankaracarya | Swami Gambhirananda | 1998 |
Bhagavad Gita, With Commentary of Sankara | Alladi M. Sastry | 1998 |
Transcreation of the Bhagavad Gita | Ashok K. Malhotra | 1998 |
You Know Me: The Gita | Irina Gajjar | 1999 |
The Bhagavad Gita, Your Charioteer in the Battlefield of Life | R.K. Piparaiya | 1999 |
The Bhagavad Gita, an Original Translation | V. Jayaram | 2000 |
Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners | Jack Hawley | 2001 |
Bhagavad Gita[note 33] | Rosetta Williams | 2001 |
The Bhagavad Gita of Order | Anand Aadhar Prabhu | 2001 |
Bhagavad Gita: The Song Divine | Carl E. Woodham | 2001 |
The Bhagavat Gita (as part of the Wisdom Bible) | Sanderson Beck | 2001 |
Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation | Stephen Mitchell | 2002 |
Bhagavad Gita As a Living Experience | Wilfried Huchzermeyer and Jutta Zimmermann | 2002 |
Bhagvad Gita | Alan Jacobs | 2002 |
Bhagavad Gita: Translation and Commentary | Veeraswamy Krishnaraj | 2002 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Richard Prime | 2003 |
The Sacred Song: A New Translation of the Bhagavad Gita for the Third Millennium | McComas Taylor and Richard Stanley | 2004 |
Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā | Swami Dayananda Saraswati | 2007 |
The Bhagavad Gita | Laurie L. Patton | 2008 |
The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation | George Thompson | 2008 |
The New Bhagavad-Gita: Timeless Wisdom in the Language of Our Times | Koti Sreekrishna, Hari Ravikumar | 2011 |
The Bhagavad Gita, A New Translation | Georg Feuerstein | 2011 |
The Bhagavad Gita: A Text and Commentary for Students | Jeaneane D. Fowler | 2012 |
The Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation | Gavin Flood, Charles Martin | 2012 |
Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God | Swami Mukundananda | 2013 |
Bhagavad Gita: Rhythm of Krishna (Gita in Rhymes) | Sushrut Badhe | 2015 |
Bhagavad Gita (Complete edition): The Global Dharma for the Third Millennium | Parama Karuna Devi | 2016 |
Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita | Keya Maitra | 2018 |
The Bhagavad Gita Chapter 1 to 13 – English ISBN 978-93-87578-96-8 | Ravi Shankar | 2018 |
The Bhagavad Gita[note 34] | Bibek Debroy | 2019 |
The Teachings of Bhagavad Gita: Timeless Wisdom for the Modern Age[294] | Richa Tilokani | 2023 |
The Poetic Saga of Mahabharata | Shiva Ramnath Pillutla | 2022 |
Bhagavad Gita - The Song of God, Study Edition with Verse Markings | Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood | 2023 |
According to the exegesis scholar Robert Minor, the Gita is "probably the most translated of any Asian text", but many modern versions heavily reflect the views of the organization or person who does the translating and distribution. In Minor's view, the Harvard scholar Franklin Edgerton's English translation and Richard Garbe's German translation are closer to the text than many others.[295] According to Larson, the Edgerton translation is remarkably faithful, but it is "harsh, stilted, and syntactically awkward" with an "orientalist" bias and lacks "appreciation of the text's contemporary religious significance".[278]: 524
The Gita in other languages
The Gita has also been translated into European languages other than English. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in the Mughal Empire, multiple Persian translations of the Gita were completed.[296] In 1808, passages from the Gita were part of the first direct translation of Sanskrit into German, appearing in a book through which Friedrich Schlegel became known as the founder of Indian philology in Germany.[297] The most significant French translation of the Gita, according to J. A. B. van Buitenen, was published by Émile Senart in 1922.[298] More recently, a new French translation was produced by the Indologist Alain Porte in 2004.[299] Swami Rambhadracharya released the first Braille version of the scripture, with the original Sanskrit text and a Hindi commentary, on 30 November 2007.[web 6]
The Gita Press has published the Gita in multiple Indian languages.[300] R. Raghava Iyengar translated the Gita into Tamil in the sandam metre poetic form.[301] The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust associated with ISKCON has re-translated and published A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's 1972 English translation of the Gita in 56 non-Indian languages.[302][303][note 35] Vinoba Bhave has written the Geeta in Marathi as Geetai (or "Mother Geeta") in a similar shloka form. Uthaya Sankar SB retold the complete text in Bahasa Malaysia prose as Bhagavad Gita: Dialog Arjuna dan Krishna di Kurukshetra (2021).
Paramahansa Yogananda's commentary on the Bhagavad Gita called God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita has been translated into Spanish, German, Thai and Hindi so far. The book is significant in that unlike other commentaries of the Bhagavad Gita, which focus on karma yoga, jnana yoga, and bhakti yoga in relation to the Gita, Yogananda's work stresses the training of one's mind, or raja yoga.[306]