Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita — or, in translation from Sanskrit, the
Song of God — is the most important part of the Indian epic poem Mahabharata.
Mahabharata was composed by great Indian sage Krishna Dvaipayana Veda Vyasa who brought order to the Vedas and thanks to this was named Veda Vyasa (he who separated the Vedas). The poem belongs the historical period of 5000 BC.
The Bhagavad Gita is a great philosophical work that played the same role in the history of India, as the New Testament did in the history of countries of the European culture. Both these books powerfully proclaim the principle of Love-Bhakti as the basis of spiritual self-development of man. The Bhagavad Gita also presents to us a complete notion about such fundamental problems of philosophy as what is man, what is God, what is the meaning of human life and the principles of human evolution.
The main hero of the Bhagavad Gita is Krishna — an Indian raja and an
Avatar — embodiment of a Part of the Creator. The Creator gave to people through Krishna greatest spiritual precepts.
Philosophical truths are expounded in the Bhagavad Gita in the form of a dialogue between Krishna and His friend Arjuna before a military combat.
These answers of Krishna are the essence of the Bhagavad Gita — one of the greatest — by profoundness of wisdom and breadth of the fundamental problems covered — books existing on the Earth.
Unfortunately, in many translations of the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit many Krishna’s sayings were not understood by the translators and thus were translated incorrectly.
Among typical errors of this kind is interpretation of the word Atman as “smaller than the smallest”, and not as “subtler than the subtlest”; or translation of the word buddhi as “supreme mind”, “pure thought”, etc, and not as “consciousness”. Only translators who have mastered the highest levels of yoga can avoid such errors.
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Bhagavad Gita
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