The Bhagavad Gita (Penguin Classics) Kindle Edition

Love that this book is in English. Gives opportunity for kids these days to read and learn about their culture.

English translations of the Bhagavad Gita are frankly a dime a dozen, and many are mediocre and listless. Not this one! Laurie Patton’s translation is a treasure. Her translation is a moving reading experience the Gita is intended to be.The drawback of many English translations is that they attempt to sound lofty and righteous. Therefore, many of these translations, even those recently translated, employ archaic Victorian English flourishes. You know, you’ve seen them. These translations use manners of speech such as “O, Arjuna,” “O King of Bharatas,” and use “thee,” “thou.” These literary devices ruin the reading experience because this is just not how people speak, and it gets in the way of appreciating the beauty of this poem.Ms. Patton, on the other hand, uses none of these anachronisms in her translation. The Bhagavad Gita is poetry, and Patton is a published poet, and thus she knows how to craft a simple phrase in simple, elegant language for maximum effect.Old School translations also display a lack of understanding on the message of the Gita. Reading the Gita is such a compelling experience because the message is so simple. Patton’s translation here is remarkable because it so accurately reflects the divine simplicity of the language used in its message.Ms Patton has provided an excellent introduction, with bibliography and her translation sparingly provide footnotes.“Bhagavad Gita” means “Song of God.” Ms. Patton’s translation is indeed the “Song of God.”

Five stars does not do this book justice. It is a singularly beautiful story and one of the world's most important works of philosophy and spirituality. But more than that, in this edition the author manages to achieve the nearly impossible; Patton translates the original poem into English verse that is remarkable fluid, readable, and graceful.If you have any curiosity about the world or any interest in the fundamental nature of humanity, read this.

I have returned to the wisdom of the Gita many times in my life... despite my Judeo-Christian upbringing.This is a description of the spiritual path not to be missed.I've tried other translations (as I have given away many copies of the Penguin) .Look no further .. this translation is the one that is inspired by truth and the way.

The translator, Laurie Patton, uses a format and language that is highly readable, beautiful, and easy to follow. Her annotations are an excellent resource.Her introduction has several strengths; yet I shall focus on its weakness, on what is missing, which is the same one finds in many an introductions to major texts of "ancient India": the "what," the "when," and the "where."Regarding the "what," the Gita is typically interpreted as a poem that encompasses philosophical and religious or spiritual teachings. And it certainly does. But, I shall argue, this interpretation misses the essential core of the Gita. Which is this: the Gita, at its core, narrates the initiation of an eromenos, Arjuna, by his erastes, Krishna. This initiation comprises of two parallel developments: a physical (Krishna is seducing Arjuna, culminating in his appearing to him in his full phallic manliness and consummating their erotic union), and a philosophical (Krishna is teaching Arjuna how to become an ideal eromenos for him).Which leads to the "when": evidently the Gita is the product of a highly hellenised milieu, not only because of the covert eromenos-erastes dynamic, but because countless Hellenistic influences throughout the text. The format, a framing story in form of a teichoscopy, already appears in Homer and is a staple of Greek drama. The Gita itself is evidently based on Plato's Phaedrus, in which the erastes Socrates seduces as well as teaches his eromenos Phaedrus in a locus amoenus (under two trees, a chaste and an aphrodisiac one). The rejection of the nastikas (and by implication, endorsement of the astikas) evidently comprises a rejection of Epicurean in favour of Stoic philosophy. While both these schools arose in c.300 BCE, they peaked in the 2nd c. CE. Now, the conclusion of Krishna's teaching (18:48-55) evidently adopts the three stages in which according to Plotinus' "Enneads" man may approach The One (in the Gita represented by Krishna/Vishnu): (1) eros; (2) consciousness/knowledge; (3) ecstasy/mystical union. The "Enneads" were compiled in c.280 CE, which provides a fairly robust terminus post queen for the Gita's composition: probably not before c.300 CE, a time by which north-west India (meaning the sub-continent) was highly Hellenised. The Gupta Empire under Chandragupta II (reigned c.375-415), a devout Vaishnav, would seem a plausible dating, though that would have to be assessed in detail (his reign was an era of significant literary production, in Sanskrit, including possibly the famous poet Kalidasa, and certainly would have provided a suitable milieu for a significant work like the Gita, as well as others).Regarding the "where," during Chandragupta II's reign, and perhaps already earlier, the Gupta Empire encompassed the region around Mathura and Delhi (a later foundation), and the location given in the Gita, Kuruksheta, is not implausible. Mathura since around the turn of the common era, or somewhat earlier, was the centre of Bhagavatism, whose supreme god was Vasudeva-Krishna, forerunner, via Vasudevism, of Vaishnavism, which coalesced during the Gupta Empire, not least thanks to Chandragupta II's sponsorship. The Gita is clearly a Bhagavatist/Vasudevist/proto-Vaishnaic text, and the author, perhaps a philosopher or teacher emerging from that tradition, could well have flourished north of Mathura and Delhi.These are preliminary considerations, for the purpose of my critique here. Their elaboration and testing would require an extended essay, if not a monograph. A Penguin introduction to a translation may not be the place for such an exploration; but Laurie Patton is introduced as Professor of Early Indian Religions, and one does expect from her, and from her entire scholarly guilt, to go beyond a somewhat helpless recourse to a quasi-mythical "ancient India" and begin to systematically contextualise religious, philosophical, and other Sanskrit (and Pali) literature in a plausible historical milieu. My sketch above is just by way of example; the same holds for Vedic, Upanishadic, early Buddhist, and other literatures, most if not all of whose composition may well be placable into the first centuries CE, e.g., the Azes, Saka, Kanishka and Gupta eras.

To me this seems like a great translation of a book that's regarded by many to be holy scripture. Arjuna's inner conflict most definitely can be related to a given person's conscience trying to do what is right in what appears to be a paradoxical existence. Krishna's divine point of view sheds light on and puts this in perspective. This one is worth reading again and again.

At first I was surprised at the frequent words, notes written in the paperback sent to me.But I'm taking a class and I love seeing someone else's thoughts. Now it has even morenotes in it, but I'm keeping this book and its comments. :) Lovely words from Krishna.

the bhagavad gita is a hindu text that promises to confound the modern western-thinking individual on his or her first reading. upon becoming more familiar with the terms and concepts used, the second or third read may well probe more fruitful in terms of their reflection into the nature of mankind, and his relationships with life and death, pain and pleasure, and other dualities that surround our self-concepts today.