Jayadvaita Swami: Welcome to everyone. Let us begin with the holy sell phone chant: All sell phones silent. We will talk today about some of the revisions of the Bhagavad-gétä As It Is. Nothing in today’s seminar is going to bash the first edition of Bhagavad-gétä As It Is, it is a very excellent book, BBT publishes it, if that’s the edition you prefer, fine. But unfortunately the second edition has come under a lot of criticism, much of it uninformed and regrettably uncivil. But we believe that the second edition is considerably better and today you will find out why. First I will play you an audio file of Srila Prabhupäda and will explain what is all about, then I will give you some history of the editing, what was done, then we will look at specific examples and finally I invite you to ask questions that you might have.
This is a text from the introduction to Bhagavad-gita As It Is, first edition, these are the concluding words (Maharaja displays a power point of the text from the first edition), and I am going to play for you the corresponding part of the audio file of the Srila Prabhupada’s lecture. This introduction was derived from a talk Srila Prabhupada gave, so you can follow along and see how well the text corresponds to it.
This introduction is the only part of Bhagavad-gita As It Is for which the audio is available. Srila Prabhupada spoke that text on 19.2.1966 apparently in an empty room. The first six chapters of Bhagavad-gita As It Is Prabhupada typed himself so there was no audio, and the remaining chapters he dictated but recycled the types and no one made copies. So there is no audio of Bhagavad-gita As It Is in terms of Prabhupada original speaking except for the introduction. And now we will play the corresponding part of this introduction and you can follow along. (Maharaja plays the file)
Srila Prabhupad is speaking:
“Therefore the conclusion is that Bhagavad-gita, the transcendental literature which one should read very carefully, gétä-çästram idaà puëyaà yaù paöhet prayataù pumän, and the result will be, if he properly follows the instruction, then he can be freed of all miseries of life, all anxieties of life, bhaya-çokädi-varjitaù, all fears of life in this life as well as he will get a spiritual life in the next life.
Gétädhyäyana-çélasya präëäyama-parasya ca naiva santi hi päpäni pürva-janma-kåtäni ca. Another advantage is that if one reads Bhagavad-gita very sincerely and with all seriousness then, by the grace of the Lord, the reactions of his past misdeeds will not act upon him. The Lord says very loudly in the Bhagavad-gita in the last portion, “ahaà tväà sarva-päpebhyo mokñayiñyämi mä çucaù”. The Lord takes the responsibility. One who surrenders unto the Lord, He takes the responsibility to indemnify him from all reactions of sins. Mala-nirmocanaà puàsäà jala-snänaà dine dine sakåd gétämåta-snänaà saàsära-mala-näçanam. One cleanses himself daily by taking bath in the water, but one who take bath once in the sacred Ganges water of Bhagavad-gita, his dirty material life is altogether vanquished. Gétä su-gétä kartavyä kim anyaiù çästra-vistaraiù yä svayaà padmanäbhasyamukha-padmäd viniùsåtä.
Because Bhagavad-gita is spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead people may not read all other Vedic literatures, simply if they attentively and regularly read and hear Bhagavad-gita, gétä su-gétä kartavyä, and one should adopt this means by all means gétä su-gétä kartavyä kim anyaiù çästra-vistaraiù, because in the present age people are embarrassed with so many aims that it is hardly possible to divert their attention in all the Vedic literatures. This one literature will do because it is the essence of all Vedic literature. And especially spoken by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Bhäratämåta-sarvasvaà viñëu-vakträd viniùsåtam gétä-gaìgodakaà pétväpunar janma na vidyate. And it is said that one who drinks the water of the Ganges he also get salvation, then what to speak of Bhagavad-gita. Bhagavad-gita is the nectar in the whole Mahabharata and it is spoken by Visnu. Lord Krsna is the original Visnu. (Sanskrit) It is coming out of the mouth of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Ganges is said to emanate from the lotus feet of the Lord and Bhagavad-gita it is said to be emanated from the mouth of the Supreme Lord. Of course, there is no difference between the mouth and the feet of the Supreme Lord, still from a neutral position we can study, that Bhagavad-gita is more important than Ganges water. Sarvopaniñado gävo dogdhä gopäla-nandanaù pärtho vatsaù su-dhér bhoktä dugdhaà gétämåtaà mahat. This Gitopanisad is just like a cow, and the Lord is famous as cowboy, and He was milking this cow. It is the essence of all Upanisads and it is presented as a cow and the Lord being an expert cowboy is milking the cow. And Arjuna is just like the calf. And learned scholars and pure devotees, they are to take this milk. (Sanskrit) The milk of Bhagavad-gita is meant for learned devotees. Ekaà çästraà devaké-putra-gétam eko devo devaké-putra eva eko mantras tasya nämäni yänikarmäpy ekaà tasya devasya sevä.
The world should learn from Bhagavad-gita the lesson (Sanskrit) There is one scripture only, one common scripture for the whole world, for the people of the whole world, and that is this Bhagavad-gita. And there is one God for the whole world, Sri Krsna. And one hymn, mantra, one hymn only, one prayer, to chant His name – Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. And there is one work only, that is to serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If one learns from Bhagavad-gita that the people are very much anxious to have one religion, one God, one scripture, and one business, or one activity of life, this is summarized in the Bhagavad-gita. That one God is Krsna…”
Jayadvaita Swami: And that’s where the type ends. The tape runs out after one hour and that’s where it stopped. What did you noticed as you were listening?
Devotees: The sanskrit it is not there.
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, the first thing is that Srila Prabhupada quoted all these verses from Gita Mahatmya, all these sanskrit verses, and they all have been edited out in the first edition. Probably because the sanskrit editors did not know where the verses were from and they did not know what to do with them, or the transcribers could not hear, one way or another all these verses were dropped. What else did you noticed?
Devotees: The sloka Prabhupada quoted here…
Jayadvaita Swami: This is an interesting little thing that happened here – “it’s capable of saving one from all fear, nehäbhikrama-näço 'sti pratyaväyo na vidyate sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya träyate mahato bhayät, in this endeavor there is no loss or diminution, and a little advancement on this path can protect one from the most dangerous type of fear.” (Maharaja is quoting the first edition) Where did that come from? Did you hear it on the tape?
Devotees: No.
Jayadvaita Swami: How did that get there? I have my own theory how it got there. First verse Prabhupada quotes from Gita Mahatmya says bhaya-çokädi-varjitaù, that this Bhagavad-gita will save one from fear. So they heard “bhaya”, which means fear, and they knew a verse that had “bhaya” in it, mahato bhayat, and so, and they put in the verse that they knew, and then the English editor said well the sanskrit is not enough, we have to put the English in, and so you have got the wrong verse and in its translation, instead of what Prabhupada originally had. Prabhupada quotes bhaya-çokädi-varjitaù, one will be freed of all fears in this life and his next life will be spiritual. So they picked up a word they knew, found the verse that had the word, put that verse in and that’s how this got in the introduction even though it is not supposed to be there. And of course, what was supposed to be there got dropped.
Question: So they were not even aware that Gita Mahatmya was the skeleton for all this?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, they did not know that the outline for this was Gita Mahatmya. We have to consider, this is 1966, Prabhupada spoke this in February 1966 just few months after he reached America and nobody new anything. Even 26 second avenue was not established yet, Prabhupada was staying in doctor Misra’a asram or someplace like that. And nobody really knows anything. And there was miss someone who volunteered to type it but who later left because she found out that it did not support the impersonalism. So that’s what happened there.
You probably noticed the very end got cut off and that’s typical for editing because it did not go anywhere. The editor cut it in a place he felt it is reasonable and that cut was kept in the second edition.
There are few other small things here. “The Lord says very loudly in the Bhagavad-gita in the last portion”, so “says very loudly” did not get to the first edition, it did get to the second.
In the first edition it is written “from our position”, but Prabhupada actually said “from a neutral position”. And the proper way come in the second edition.
Then down here, you might remember that Prabhupada said Gitopanisad, and that it is the essence of the Vedas, and that was the title of the original book, Gitopanisad. I remember, we had at the 26 second avenue the introduction and it was called “An introduction to Gitopanisad”. And in Prabhupada manuscript it says “Gitopanisad (Bhagavad-gita As It Is)”. So this “Gitopanisad” was recovered in the second edition.
Apart from that there are couple of words here and there but you can see the major things that got changed. Are there any questions about this so far? Yes.
Question: What actually is editing?
Jayadvaita Swami: What is editing? There is a sort of feeling or impression out there, that Prabhupada just speaks and the editor adds a punctuation mark here and there, checks the spelling and then we type it out and send it to the printer. It’s not that easy.
As you can see from this text, quite a bit more has to be done. You have to see that, because Prabhupada would speak, he would begin a thought, then he will leave it and begin another thought, or he will start a sentence and the sentence does not really go anywhere and he drops it…all sorts of things happen, or he uses a word which is not the right word. So there is a lot of cleaning up done by the editors to make sure that the meaning is clear, to make sure that the grammar is correct. Sometimes Prabhupada repeats himself two or three times, that is called redundancy, redundancy is usually taken of, because there is difference between writing and speaking. When you are speaking to your friend, it is kind of that: you go straight, then you turn left around the Lotus building, then if there is a fence sort of a thing, but not exactly, but you will see it anyway…that’s not how you write the directions. But that’s how you speak. So if someone takes your speech and wants to turn it to writing there is fair amount of work that needs to be done. And that’s done on all of Srila Prabhupada’s books, from the fits edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is and the Teachings of Lord Caitanya, down to the last books, the editing is more than adding few punctuation marks and some spelling mistakes, there is more.
Question: Maharaja, Prabhupada did write some translation when he was in Vrndavana…
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, sometimes there is writing by Prabhupada. From these Prabhupad’s writing there are several things available in the Bhaktivedanta Archives. Prabhupada wrote part of Caitanya Caritamrita, Adi Lila, that’s in the Archives, Prabhupada wrote of course first canto, it is not available as manuscripts but the book is available, also Prabhupada wrote some small books, but there is nothing as a full book that Prabhupada personally wrote that is available. Except of one book – “The search of the ultimate goal of life”. I think that is the only one that we have the full original manuscript. Parts of Caitanya Caritamrita were published in Prabhupada’s original Back to Godhead magazine, the purport to BG 7.15 was published also there, so there are some things were you can find that. And there are, as you will soon see, the original manuscripts for the first six chapters of Bhagavad-gita. And you will recognize, or an editor would recognize, the difference between Prabhupada’s writing and Prabhupada’s dictating.
Question: These mistakes would put someone who is preaching unto trouble…
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, that’s what we think at the BBT. That the mistakes should not be just left unless there is a very good reason to leave a mistake, which sometimes there is. But if it especially an editorial mistake or typist mistake, they should be corrected. And that’s why BBT does correct errors it finds in published books.
Question: The second edition is the 1972 version?
Jayadvaita Swami: No, the first edition was published by the Macmillan Company in 1972. Later the same book was taken back from the Macmillan Company and published by the BBT up until 1983. In 1983 the BBT published a second, revised edition, which is this edition. Since 1983 the BBT publishes the second edition and sometimes, for those who want BBT publishes also the first edition.
Question: So the 1983 edition is that one who is more correct?
Jayadvaita Swami: That’s what I say. You can see it for yourself. This is the 1972 edition (Maharaja points out the power point with the Bhagavad-gita Introduction from 1972 with all above mentioned mistakes) and this is the 1983 where you can find all the sanskrit verses, the Gitopanisad, that has “Krsna speaking very loudly” and where all the mistakes from the first edition are corrected.
Question: Were there any further correction on the 1983 version?
Jayadvaita Swami: Very small. There have been some small errors pointed out since 1983 which have been corrected. That’s what we do at the BBT and that’s what the publishers do; the new edition is where you do the major work, you restore things, correct mistakes, etc; the new printing you just put the book for print and correct some small mistakes here and there but nothing major.
Question: In the preface to Bhagavad-gita Prabhupaa writes that the original manuscript was cut short to 400 pages…
Jayadvaita Swami: OK, so let’s go into the full history. The first edition that was published of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is was cut short to 400 pages, it did not have any of the sanskrit verses, did not have the word for word meaning and many of the purports were either cut out or cut short. Because the Macmillan Company was publishing series of religious books from different traditions and Bhagavad-gita was published to fit into these series. So it had to fit their size. With Prabhupada’s agreement it was cut down to less than 400 pages but Prabhupada was not very happy about that.
Then after sometime that book was selling all right and the Macmillan Company decided, yes, let’s publish the full edition. So that was the 1972 edition. The first abridged edition I think was published in 1968. 1972 is the first complete edition and the 1983 is the second complete edition.
Question: In the first edition is missing also the sentence “By the mercy of the Lord” which is very important…
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, there are things like that in the first edition.
Question: Is there a places where it is recorded what changes were done?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, there are. For Bhagavad-gita As It Is, as I will show in due course, there are series, well let me show you right now since you asked…These are series which are published on bbtedit.com which shows you the book on which I edited. This is a copy of the first edition and on that copy I did my editing. I just did it right on the book; we did not retype it or anything like that. The corrections by the Sanskrit department and by me were done on the book itself. And this is an image of file of that book.
So by looking at that book you can see every correction that was made. For example: “He wanted therefore to encourage the despondent king and thus he warned him that his sons were not going to make any sort of compromise under the influence of that holly place” (this is the first edition – 1972). So here (in the second edition 1983) “he” has been changed to Sanjaya because it was not quite clear who the “he” was, it could have been either he - Sanjaya or he - Dhrtarastra, and “warned” was not the right word, it should have been “assured the king”. The king did not want a compromise, so Sanjaya was assuring the king. And then there are these yellow notes that say why the changes were made. And if you click on the paper clip you can see the original text from the Prabhupada’s manuscript. In this case it says: “He wanted therefore to encourage the king in his despondency and thus assured him, (not “warned” him) that his sons are not going to make any compromise.” So on this file you can see all the corrections that were made and an explanation for most of them. And for most of them there is a little paper clip that shows you the original Prabhupada manuscript. We have another file for the introduction were the paper clips give you sound instead of text. Apart from that we have another big project were we will put all the corrections made on all the books, it is in progress now.
Question: …
Jayadvaita Swami: Only the first six chapters because Prabhupada did typed only the first six chapters. After that Gargamuni Prabhu bought a recorder and from this time Prabhupada dictates and recycled the tapes. Prabhupada himself was counting the tapes and he was not giving big chance to be copied.
Originaly Prabhupada sent the tapes to Boston for Satsvarupa Maharaja to transcribe. And there Jadurani was making copies of the tapes and then the tapes were send back to Srila Prabhupada. The tapes Jadurani made are not very good quality, but are available. There are some small parts here and there transcribed but not many. Even when his secretary tried to copy the tapes he could not because Prabhupada was counting them. Prabhupada did not consider important to preserve the tapes of his dictations, or perhaps did not even want to preserve them. But in any case he did not make any arrangement for preserving them and in fact made it very difficult for everyone who wanted to do this.
Question: Why the second edition is called “enlarged”? What enlarged means?
Jayadvaita Swami: Enlarged means it is made bigger. It is bigger because some things have been left out of the first edition. Like patraà puñpaà phalaà toyaà yo me bhaktyä prayacchati – the entire first paragraph is missing from the first edition. These verses we just heard from the Gita Mahatmya, they were all left out in the first edition. There were other quotations left out, other things, therefore it is not just revised but it is enlarged.
Question: Some of the words Prabhupada uses have become outmoded, like for example “the Krsna conschiousness sect or cult” now has the opposite meaning.
Jayadvaita Swami: Well we generally leave those things. It is like Shakespeare. There are words that don’t mean the same thing anymore but they are kept and when you read you have to do the research to understand what they mean. And usually after hundreds years are gone the meanings are so changed that you practically have to do a translation. If you read for example … which is just few hundred years back, you need a special training to be able to read him although it is English. So if you want the general public to be able to read Srila Prabhupada’s books, what to speak about 10 000 years from now, may be even in 3-4 hundred years from now, we will have to translate his books on English. That is from 20 century English to 24-25 century English because especially know the language is changing even faster than before. But we are slow to do that. The word cult still has the old meaning although it has a newer meaning also. The word sect also has an old meaning. So we are not going to say, OK, the meanings have changed so change this, change that…we are very slow in doing that. So if you come back after some hundreds years you might find out that we put some footnotes explaining that this does not mean that…or the book might have to be translated entirely to 25 century English.
Question: What about the words Prabhupada uses in specific sense?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes there are many words Prabhupada has his own meaning for. Like conjugal. Prabhupada uses it to mean amorous, loving. The actual meaning is married. Conjugal love is married love. So when you are talking about the conjugal loving affairs between Radha and Krsna that is not really right according to standard English. It’s the nonconjugal, or extra conjugal loving affairs. But we leave it. There is another word – touchstone. What is touchstone? It is like a wish fulfilling stone, it gives whatever whish you want? Or it turns everything in gold? That’s what touchstone is, right? Let’s see what it is said in the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster, touchstone is “black siliceous stone related to flint and formerly used to test the purity of gold and silver by the streak left on the stone when rubbed by the metal”. It is a stone used to taste the purity of gold. But Prabhupada consistently uses the word to mean a stone that change the things unto gold, or wish fulfilling stone. So Prabhupada has words that he uses in his own way. Some of those we have changed before we first published any of the books, we said, well, that does not really means this, so it was changed, but some of them got through, like conjugal, or touchstone, there are too many touchstones in the books, there is no way we will be able to change them to philosophers’ stones even though that’s what Prabhupada means. So we leave it and someone in the future will have to write a companion book where it will be said “here Prabhupada means not touchstone but philosopher’s stone, or more precisely chintamany, a gem that is found in the spiritual world.”
Prabhupada uses also the word “filial”, filial love. Prabhupada uses this word to mean the love that the parent feels for his child, but it is not. Filial love is the love that the child has for the parents. Prabhupada is using it as if you could use it down and up, but it only works going up. Child’s love for the father is filial love and the father’s love for the child is paternal love. These are the kind if things we have changed; it comes only sometimes in Prabhupada’s books, it’s just wrong and we fixed it.
Question: Since for writing his purports to Gita Prabhupada consults Baladeva Vidyabhusana and Visvanatha should we go back and consult these commentaries?
Jayadvaita Swami: Definitely. HH Bhanu Swami has published Baladeva’s commentary on Bhagavad-gétä which appears to be the main commentary Prabhupada consulted. Baladeva Vidyabhusana, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura and Bhaktivinoda Thakura. Consulting those commentaries does solve a lot of mysteries. There are some videos about that on bbtedit.com.
OK, I will move on. By the way, the entire recording of the Introduction to Bhagavad-gita As It Is is available at Bhaktivedanta Archives. I think if you get one of those complete recordings of Prabhupada’s lectures it is in there.
There are three kinds of manuscripts for Bhagavad-gita As It Is and I am going to walk you through that right now. For the first six chapters, you already saw page one of Prabhupada’s text; this is typed by Prabhupada himself. We know that from testimonies of devotees who were there that Prabhupada had these typewriters and he himself was typing. And if you look at it you see that the Sanskrit is basically correct, maybe it is not transliterated exactly according to the system we use today but all the words are right. It is all there, there are no gaps “I did not hear it” because it is all typed by Prabhupada who knew what he was supposed to say.
You see that Prabhupada’s manuscript BG 1.1 says: “O the king, Duryodhana, the king after looking the military phalanx arranged by the sons of Pandu…” So these words don’t exactly match neither the first, nor the second edition. These kinds of things were corrected by the editors of the first edition.
So this is what we have for the first six chapters of Bhagavad-gita. The chapters 1-5 are like this and chapter 6 is retyped but essentially matches. You can see that whoever retyped it was using Prabhupada’s original manuscript. So this is pretty much what we have for the first six chapters.
Starting from 1968 Prabhupada engaged Pradyumna to edit his books to conform to the standard system of transliteration that have been adopted by scholars. So all the books were edited by an English editor and by Sanskrit editor.
So this is the first set of manuscripts. Then, starting from chapter 7 the things changed a lot. This is typical page from the middle six chapters of Bhagavad-gétä. You can see here that the Sanskrit word for word meaning has been left out entirely. All the Sanskrit words were left out because they were too hard for the person who was transcribing to hear. So he just left a space for each word. Then, when he comes to the purport, he is really in trouble. First of all, the transcriber takes shortcuts. And there are many blank places where he could not hear the words. He does not know the Sanskrit words, he can’t identify them, he leaves blanks, or elsewhere you will see approximations, they just try to put phonetic representations and when they get to the Sanskrit verses they are really lost so they leave big blanks. So this is the shape the middle six chapters are in. And there is big difference between Prabhupada’s typing and the transcriptions.
Question: How many chapters Prabhupada typed personaly?
Jayadvaita Swami: Six. He started the seventh, typed few verses, and then it comes the way you see it now. You see the change.
Question: And after that the tapes were destroyed so that is all we have, right?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, that is all we have, there are no tapes, these are the earliest records of Prabhupada’s words for the entire middle six chapters.
Question: Did these retyped pages come back to Prabhupada for approval?
Jayadvaita Swami: Well, sometimes it does because we see sometimes Prabhupada’s hand writing there, but we don’t have evidence that he systematically looked back at all those transcriptions, in fact we can be sure that he did not, because look at this, if Prabhupada have looked at this he would have corrected it. So we can say with considerable confidence that Prabhupada did not look at them. There are some pages where we see that he corrected things, but for the most part with considerable confidence we can say that he did not review the transcriptions.
At the point of publishing he did see the book [Bhagavad-gita], but he did not proofread the book. He looked more carefully at the abridged edition [1968] were he made 2-3 corrections. We did send the blueprint of the full edition to him and as far as I know he did not make any corrections.
Question: Who was doing these transcriptions?
Jayadvaita Swami: The devotees from 26 second avenue. Different people tried their hands at it and then one boy arrived on the scene whose name was Neal. He was a student at the Antioch College. He was doing a sort of work-study program. He was studying Krsna consciousness, and while he was studying he was doing little service. So he typed a lot of these manuscripts. He never became a devotee but he went back to the Antioch College and as a result of the propaganda he made there Pancharatna Prabhu became a devotee.
Question: How the devotees were doing these transcriptions?
Jayadvaita Swami: They did the best they could. I think they did remarkably well. But, as you will see, they made quite a number of mistakes.
Question: Are you confident now that these mistakes are corrected in the second edition?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, I think we are doing pretty well. We still find here and there some small mistakes, but they will be corrected in the next edition. It is like a computer program, there are many bugs. And these bugs have an amazing capability to hide.
Ready for the third set of manuscripts? This is the way the Bhagavad-gita was done from chapter 7 to chapter 18. But somehow or other the last six chapters were lost. These manuscripts for the last six chapters were lost. When I went back to look, in 1983, and consult those manuscripts, the devotees said “we don’t have that”. They did exist. In fact one of my first engagements in 1968 when I joined was to retype those manuscripts. And what you see here are those manuscripts retyped by me in 1968.
In the first edition it was a problem that sometime the devotees and the editors really did not know the philosophy, sometimes they did not know the story that has been referred to, that’s how you get the planet of the trees from the first edition, “pitèëäm aryamä cäsmi” of departed ancestors I am Aryamä, pitriloka, but back then nobody knew what pitriloka was so they heard “the planet of trees”. And that’s how it was printed in the first edition, the planet of trees, and the devotees went “far out, the planet of the trees!! Krsna’s creation is full of amazing variety”! Later the devotees knew the philosophy, knew the stories, the verses, and that made things a lot easier.
Now I am going to give you a little history of what was done. Prabhupada wrote Bhagavad-gita As It Is between 1966-67. The abridged edition came in1968; the unabridged Macmillan edition came in 1972. In about 1980 at the request of various devotees and the BBT trustees, I undertook to revise the text. For the sanskrit I consulted Gopiparanadhana Prabhu, the head of our sanskrit school at Govardhana, and some other devotees. And for the English I consulted with Ravindra Svarup Prabhu, Garuda Prabhu and some others. In 1982 the GBC approved the new edition. There was special panel were Satsvarupa Maharaja, Hari Sauri Prabhu and other devotees were looking at the book and they approved or disapproved the changes made. In 1982 I sent a list of all the changes in the translations of the verses of Gita to all sannyasis, GBC members, Temple presidents in the English speaking world and asked for comments of which we received very few. In 1983 the BBT published the second edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. In 1985 the GBC reaffirmed its approval.
To transcribe Prabhupada’s words was a big challenge. First of all you have to deal with his Bengali accent. Second, you deal with Sanskrit or Bengali, or you don’t even know which one of them, and the word for word meaning is particularly a challenge because there is no context. This gives you an idea why the transcribers were sometimes making mistakes. And especially in 1966-68 they did not know much, they were very new and there might have been still some chemicals floating in their minds.
There is a web site that we are using internally at BBT, that will show you for any given verse it will show you the original manuscript or transcription page or retyped page, it will show you the page were I re-edited the Macmillan edition, the commentary by Baladeva and Visvanatha, and some other extra things so that you can have a record of the history what’s going on. This is a project that is still in progress.
Let’s see some sample revisions and you will see why we though they are necessary. This is Bhagavad-gita As It Is, first edition, chapter 2 verse 1:
“This realization is made possible by working with a fruitive being situated in a fixed conception of the real self.”
Devotees: Ha-ha-ha!
Jayadvaita Swami: Would anyone want to hazard a guess of what this means?
It was very interesting in the seventies to sit for a Bhagavad-gétä class and have someone rises hand and says, “Prabhu, could you explain what it means, what Prabhupada means when he says that this realization is made possible by working with a fruitive being situated in a fixed conception of the real self?”. It was interesting.
Now this is the original manuscript:
“This realization is possible by working without fruitive results, being situated in a fixed up conclusion of the real self.”
So “being” was not a noun, it was a verbal form. It’s the verb “being”, it’s not the noun “being”. So in the second edition it is like this:
“This realization is possible when one works without attachment to fruitive results and it is situated in a fixed conception of the real self.”
And that is confirmed by consulting Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s commentaries.
Here is another one:
“The swine who eat the soil do not care to accept sweetmeats made with sugar and ghee.” This is Bhagavad-gita 7.15, the first edition. When I was a brahmacari I really wondered about this. Because “the swine who eat the soil”, I mean, do they really eat the soil? I just did not get the picture of pig eating dirt. But that’s what it says, “the swine who eat the soil”. Here is what the manuscript says:
“The swine who eats the night soil will not care to accept sweetmeats made with sugar and ghee.” You can see someone put little parenthesis around night and put a question mark. What “night soil” is? Everybody knows what “soil” is, but what “night soil” is? Does anyone know what “night soil” is?
Devotee: It is old English, it is a place in the basement of the house where if at night you have to pass stool you go there and then on the next day it is cleaned.
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, that’s “night soil”. It’s excrements, stool. Prabhupada uses this sophisticated term, night soil, and the editor apparently was not familiar with the term. Let see what the dictionary says: “human feces used especially for fertilizing the soil”, and if you happened to be a pig you use it as food. So in the second edition it is like this:
“The swine who eat the night soil do not care to accept sweetmeats made by sugar and ghee.”
Question: Why not changing this night soil that creates confusion to a simple word like excrement?
Jayadvaita Swami: But this is not our job. We cannot say, well, Prabhupada uses this fancy word but we will put a simple one instead. If it is a wrong word then it’s different. But if it is a legitimate word, accepted word, correct word, we leave it. Prabhupada uses a word like “a plenary portion”, or “Supreme Personality of Godhead”, or “differentiated parts and parcels”. There are many terms in Prabhupada’s books that we can make a lot simpler but we respect his choice of words.
Question: “Godhead” is made up by Prabhupada?
Jayadvaita Swami: No, no, Godhead is a legitimate word. In the dictionary – “the essential being of God, the supreme being”. It has a Christian meaning also but that’s what it is. Godhead is a theological sophisticated term for God; it can mean God in impersonal or personal sense. I generally see it used as a general term, not necessary in a personal sense. So I thought Prabhupada brilliantly combined this somewhat impersonal, theistic term, “Godhead”, with personality. So he made it clear that the Godhead is a person. And that’s Supreme Personality of Godhead. So I was giving this explanation to translators who had to translate this term in French, Spanish, Italian…But later on I heard a conversation between Prabhupada and Yogesvara Prabhu. Yogesvara Prabhu asked, what does Godhead means? Prabhupada answered: “Godhead? Krsna is the head God.”
Next we look again in the Gita 7 chapter, first edition:
“In the prayers of Kunti in the Srimad Bhagavatam 1.8.18 it is said that the Lord is covered by the curtain of yoga maya and thus ordinary people cannot understand Him. Kunti prays: “O my Lord, you are the maintainer of the entire Universe and devotional service to you is the highest religious principle.”
There are several problems with that. First of all, if we go to the Vedabase and we look 1.8.18, this is it: kunty uväca namasye puruñaà tvädyam éçvaraà prakåteù param alakñyaà sarva-bhütänäm antar bahir avasthitam. This stands, in the first edition, for:
“O my Lord, you are the maintainer of the entire Universe and devotional service to you is the highest religious principle.”
And where does yoga maya comes to the picture at all? The answer is, it’s a wrong verse number, it is not 1.8.18 but 1.8.19., it’s the wrong book, the wrong speaker, it’s just wrong. And in the second edition is right.
In the first edition there is also a mistake where the translation for one verse appears for the verse but also for the previous verse, the same translation. The purports of the two verses are swapped.
Question: Is this corrected now?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, it is corrected for the second edition. But when BBT publishes the first edition we publish it exactly as it is, with all these mistakes. Because we publish it for people who believe that if you change a single word you commit a great offence against the author and so they want the planet of the trees, they want Kunti praying from Isopanisad, because Prabhupada saw it, Prabhupada did not say anything, Prabhupada approved it, it’s authentic, it’s as it is, there is no need of any changes, Prabhupada said don’t change…So for people who have that view of the world we publish the book they want. So here is the book, it made a lot of devotees, Prabhupada read from it, have the book. And we will not change a single comma; we will just give it to you as it is.
And for those who would rather have Isopanisad where Isopanisad belongs, and who would rather have abhayam meaning fearlessness instead of bhayam, and who would rather have all those verses from Gita Mahatmya restored and a lot of other things fixed, who don’t believe in the planet of the trees and so on, for them we have the second edition. So we give a choice which edition you prefer but if we print the first edition we print it exactly as it is, word for word, mistake for mistake.
Question: Similar things were done for Bhagavatam as well?
Jayadvaita Swami: Yes, in 1975 I think, I looked through the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam and saw a lot of mistakes, a lot of things that had not been properly understood and I fixed them. Mainly in the translations. Then I made a list of all the fixes, I put them in an envelope with a letter to Srila Prabhupada. The letter was saying, “Srila Prabhupada, I found these mistakes and I fixed them, is this OK?” And then when Prabhupada came to New York, 55 street, I brought up the letter to give it to his secretary so that Prabhupada could read it, look at the stuff and give me his approval or disapproval.
When I came in Prabhupada was sitting right there. I offered my obeisancess and then, you know, was “what are you doing here?” Nicely, but ”why did you come?” I explained why I come and Prabhupada had me open the package and he said read. So I began reading the first verse, the second verse, the third verse, I read a few verses, Prabhupada was listening attentively, then Prabhupada stopped me and said “So? What you have done?” I said: “Well Srila Prabhupada, I revised it to make it closer to what you originally said.” (Because we had the original Bhagavatams printed in India) So I revised it to make it closer to what you originally said”. Prabhupada said: “To what I have said?” I said: “Yes, Srila Prabhupada.” Prabhupada said: “Then it is all right”.
So I did this for Srimad Bhagavatam, the revised edition was published during Prabhupada’s lifetime. Later we revised second canto; that also received Prabhupada’s approval. The later cantos were actually in a quite a good shape because at that time we had sanskrit editors, after a while the transcriber was traveling with Srila Prabhupada so things were in much better shape and not much revision was required, although we still find mistakes every month. They are little bugs in a program; they are not major. If you find a mistake in an English BBT book you can write to:
errors.english.books@pamho.net
Question: You were quite severely attacked on that…
Jayadvaita Swami: I am still severely attacked.
Question: What is the controversy?
Jayadvaita Swami: “Prabhupada ordered that after his departure not a single word in his books should be changed.” This is a supposed instruction that Prabhupada gave to someone, instruction that I have never seen. But it is quoted all the time.
Let’s be fair, ISKCON went through a lot of difficult times, people have betrayed trust, you put your faith in someone and he betrays you or double-crosses you. And what can we depend on? Well, we can depend on Prabhupada, we might not depend on this Maharaja, or on that Maharaja, we may not depend on GBC, you may not depend on the Temple president, but you definitely depend on Prabhupada. And how is Prabhupada present, well, Prabhupada is present by his instructions. And where the instructions are coming from? They are coming from his books. So we know that we can rely on his books.
Now, if they start changing the books, then you have nothing to rely on. You can’t trust even the books then. So I think that is especially their concern. That if these people start changing the books then everything becomes whatever they think, then it is Jayadvaita Swami’s Gita, and maybe he should put his name on it…So there are people who have that concern. That the books are being adulterated, changed.
Which is a fair concern. I think we should be concerned that the integrity of the Prabhupada’s books should be maintained. And if there was someone there who was says, well, why “Personality of Godhead, why not Impersonality of Godhead”, then people should be up in arms, should be ringing the alarm bells. I think that is one concern.
Another think is that people are used to the original translation and the new does not feel right. The people grow up with different translations. The previous translations are sometimes more poetic, but because the second edition is closer to what Prabhupada said and since Prabhupada is sometimes less poetic than the edition the first editor was borrowing from, that’s a judgment call, do you want to be closer to Prabhupada…Sometimes people say, “we want Prabhupada as he is and therefore we want the first edition”. But when it comes to the translation is either, or; if you want to be closer to Prabhupada then this is not the first edition. You have to make a choice there. You could say, actually it should be more poetic, or you can say, it should be closer to Prabhupada. But if you want both you kind of want to stay in both mountains at the same time and that’s hard.
Question: But my question was more specific, what exactly are their challenges, which verses…
Jayadvaita Swami: They have a lot of them. A lot of verses they come up, if you go the website bbtedit.com, there is link there called “Gita revisions explained” where it explains most of the verses people have picked out. It shows some others as well that I have picked out because I though they are interesting; but it is mostly responsive about things people have complained about.
Let’s see one for example. Let’s see those who they have chosen. Here is one, this is the first edition:
“On the other hand, he who controls the senses by the mind and engages his active organs in works of devotion, without attachment, is by far superior.”
That’s what the first edition says. And the second edition says:
“On the other hand, if a sincere person tries to control the active senses by the mind and begins karma-yoga [in Kåñëa consciousness] without attachment, he is by far superior.”
So the people look at that and they say:
“Just see the difference! In the first edition it says that you have to control your mind and senses. And in the second edition, Jayadvaita Swami thinks that all you have to do is try! So they are changing the philosophy! It is just too much for him that you have to control your senses, now you just have to be sincere and try to control your senses.”
You will find that criticism on internet. And here is the original manuscript:
“On the other hand, if a sincere person tries to control the active sense organs and begins karma-yoga in Krsna consciousness, without being attached, he is by far the better.”
There are lots of things like this. Where is that varnasram one, that’s a good one. There was a big thread on one of those internet sites with a heading, “Editing varnasrama-dharma out of the books?”
Because the first edition says:
“Discharging one specific duties in any field of action in accordance with varnasrama dharma serves to elevate one to a higher status of life”.
And I have scratched varnasrama dharma right out of the book and put “the orders of higher authorities”.
Devotee: But that’s the same thing.
Jayadvaita Swami: Well, no, varnasrama dharma means catur varnam, brahmana, ksatrya…and the order of higher authorities means just whatever GBC tells you to do. But again, according to the original manuscript:
“To discharge ones specific duty in any field of action and as ordered by higher authority is the opportunity for being elevated in higher status in life.”
So it’s not my philosophy. Go back to the manuscript, that’s what it says.
Here is another example. The first edition:
“If someone gives up self-gratificatory pursuits works in Krsna conschiousness and then falls down on account of not completing his work what loss is there on his part?”
And people have complained that I have taken out “self-gratificatory pursuits”. And they show, “here is the original, and here is Jayadvaita Swami’s edition. Here is very clear, this is the book Prabhupada read, and it says, ‘self-gratificatory pursuits’. And this is what Jayadvaita Swami has made it. He has made it “his occupational duties”. Clearly, “occupational duties” is not the same as “self-gratificatory pursuits”.
That’s the kind of argument that’s given. And of course they are right, they are not the same. But if you look at what Prabhupada said in the original manuscript:
“If one gives up ones occupational duties…”
Nothing about self-gratificatory pursuits. And what is the verse Prabhupada is translating? Tyaktva sva-dharma. What’s sva-dharma? Occupational duties.
So that’s the kind of argument you will find the people with busy fingers are making on internet. Although since this website has been online they stopped picking on this verse or on that verse, they now tend to be more general, they say, “Prabhupada did not want anything changed”. Because the individual criticism turned out to be losing strategy, they criticize one verse, you throw the manuscript to them, they criticize another verse, you throw the manuscript to them…so now it’s just “Prabhupada did not want anything changed.” Haribol.
And again, there are different kinds of people with different kinds of objections. There are people who are very sincere and people who have a good reason why they hold to a particular point of view. And then there are people who are really polluted, really ignorant, really nasty, who are liars on top of it and people who tell the most outrageous lies on internet, people who frankly need some professional help but are not getting it. But on internet the professor and the truck driver are the same. You can’t tell who is behind the keyboard. Anyway, it ranges from wild men to men who have sincere and even reasonable arguments.
And the best people are those who write to me. Like recently I got a letter from Dhira Govinda Prabhu. He wrote me very polite letter and said, “what about this”? And I did a research, wrote to him several pages letter and that ended the question. He asked a polite question, he got a satisfactory answer, and that’s how gentlemen deal.
And there are other people, they have a question, they throw it on internet along with some bad names and that’s their idea how gentlemen behave.
Question: All examples you gave are from the original manuscript. So how it is possible that they came up with things so much different?
Jayadvaita Swami: Very simple, they just look at their book, they have the first edition and the say – “see? It says salf-graficatory pursuits!”
Question: But how did they get there?
Jayadvaita Swami: 1968. 1967-1968. You saw what happened with queen Kunti. If you really want to understand how it got that way watch that little film, “Happines at 26 second avenue.” “Some of us are on high on a lower platform; some of us are low on a higher platform…” Just go back and watch that movie, and those are the people who…and they did a wonderful job, I mean amazing under the circumstances, what a good job they did. But did they make mistakes? Yes, they did make mistakes.
Devotee: May be you should put this video on bbtedit.com.
Jayadvaita Swami: Very good idea. Brijesh, make a note.
Question: The attacks on the book’s changes are mostly on Bhagavad-gita or they are also on Bhagavatam and other books?
Jayadvaita Swami: They are mostly focused on Bhagavad-gita As It Is. Somebody has recently revived an attack on “Perfect question, perfect answers” because of the editing that was done that was not very good. I know and the person who has posted it knows, that that was corrected five or seven years ago. But still he has posted it again, as if it was never fixed. That’s why I say that some people are just dishonest. They have criticized Krsna book, they have criticized Caitanya Caritamrita, they have criticized all sorts of things. Every now and then they say something that you look and you say, “yes, they are right”. And that’s fine. If we made a mistake, we fixed it. Our errors are not more sacred than those made in 1968. Sometimes people will find a mistake we did. Rarely. But if they did, we fix it.
Just some more errors that are kind of cool:
“Kripacarya married the twin sister of Dronacarya.” This is the first edition. But Kripa and Kripi are the twins. Actually Kripacarya’s twin sister married Dronacarya.
Next, it is a change in the Sanskrit, in the devanagari itself. Where the first edition says “svabandhavan” and the second edition says “sabandhavan”. “Svabandhavan” means his own relatives, or one’s own friends rather, and “sabandhavan” means with his friends. And here is what Prabhupada had in the original manuscript: “Dhartarastran sabandhavan” –Dhritarsatra along with his friends. So there was more than one Sanskrit edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is and the one Prabhupada followed says “sabandhavan”. So now it fits with his translation, with his purports, everything fits together, “sabandhavan”.
OK, page 52 of the first edition. This is another puzzler:
“The mind of Arjuna was thus predicated by the Lord in friendly joking.”
Here is Prabhupada’s original manuscript:
“The mind of Arjuna was thus predicted by the Lord…”
You can see lots more of these on bbtedit.com, you can download chapter 1, you can download the introduction and in short time you will be able to download chapter 2. We are soon going to publish the entire revisions of Nectar of Devotion.
I think everybody who came here is now well equipped to, first, understand what BBT does in terms of editing, why we revise books from time to time, and perhaps you are equipped to answer questions of people you meet, but at least you are equipped to answer them, here is where you go, here is the website where you can go to have your questions answered – bbtedit.com. And if you have more questions you are always welcome to write to me and Dravida and we are happy to answer your questions.
Are we done? OK, thank you all very much for coming. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
