Is there an edition/translation of the Bhagavad-Gita you would recommend in particular?Edwin Arnold
Or even better, could you recommend which of these on Amazon are the better choices?
's translation remains the most epic and theatrical rendering of the Gita without sacrificing metaphysical elucidation.Eknath Easwaran
seeks philosophical clarity in his translation, which makes it read like other deep chapter's of the Mahabharata that explore the inner and outer worlds.Prabhavananda and Isherwood
's translation is the simplest, most accesible translation, guiding the reader through key concepts of Vedanta which find their source in texts such as the Gita and Upanishads.
The most popular translation of the Gita is Prabhupada's translation of the Gita 'As It Is' and is probably the least useful version of the Gita as it does not allow the reader to think for himself during any stage of the text. The purports are constant attempts to force the submissive, dualistic Hare Krishna worldview, based on erroneous interpretations and mistranslated words. For example, Brahman is subordinated to the concept of Krishna as 'The Supreme Personality of Godhead', whenever a term like 'Bhagavan' (or even 'Brahman' itself) appears. In this context, the ancient Sanskrit texts define 'Bhagavan' as a monistic principle in accordance with the Vedic knowledge of the principal Upanishads. These nondualistic (Advaita) texts, like the Bhagavata Purana are central to the sect of Vaishnavism which all Krishna-cults are manifestations of. However, as the Hindu empire was being weakened through the Medieval times, the popularity of purely devotional (the lowest of the four Yoga's), personality-fixated Vaishnava cults grew (and actually safeguarded Hinduism against the dominion of Islam for quite some time), of which specifically the Hare Krishna/ISKON movement descends. In the Advaita Vedanta tradition according to Sri Sankaracharya, the idea of Brahman as some kind of supreme personality only arises if perception still clings to unreality and transient appearances. This perception of Brahman as 'Iswara' - a personal God, is valid for those some way from the peak of Enlightenment, but is not the highest principle of reality - the Parabrahman. The highest Brahman is reality without attributes, devoid of any personal/'human' qualities which the ego projects onto the extent of the world that he can conceive.