(2 of 2)
Hindu New Testament. The Bhagavad-Gita, often called the Hindu New Testament, is a majestic poem, expounding the teachings of Vedanta in an epic dialogue between Sri Krishna (a manifestation of
God) and an Indian prince called Arjuna (TIME, July 3). "It is," says Isherwood, "one of the world's greatest religious documents. In simple, timeless words, which belong to no one language, race or epoch, incarnate God speaks to man, His friend. He tells him of his own divine nature, of pardon and mercy, of strength and knowledge and love."
To preserve the everlasting simplicity of the Gita's words, Novice (Brahmachari) Isherwood (who knows no Sanskrit) and his teacher have collaborated on this latest translation, designed to bring its message closer to "the ordinary, perplexed men and women of today." The result is a distinguished literary work.
Simpler and freer than other English translations (three of which have been published in the past year), the translation compresses the long passages of epic poetry into a 15-page introduction, the recondite arguments of Vedantic mythology into a brief appendix. Between the two, the translators have presented a version of the great dialogue that does some violence to the original flavor of the poem, but makes it easily understandable to the common reader.
Sanskrit without Pain. In descriptions of Yoga techniques and Hindu cosmology, where there are no adequate English equivalents for many of the terms, the Sanskrit words are left in the text. This device makes for both obscurity and bad poetry. But Isherwood's lucid prose, in passages of the Gita that offer calm, unhurried advice, compensates for such lapses: "Poise your mind in tranquillity. . . . Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. . . . Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender."
The Isherwood-Prabhavananda translation is one which, as Aldous Huxley remarks in a preface, "can be read not merely without that dull, aesthetic pain inflicted by all too many English translations from the Sanskrit, but positively with enjoyment." It may help U.S. readers to understand not only the Gita itself, but also its influence on American letters through one of its greatest U.S. admirers, Ralph Waldo Emerson.