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Translations
come in many hues and fulfill different needs. Bhagavad Gita:
The Song of God, the translation by Swami Prabhavananda and
Christopher Isherwood, cuts to the chase by focusing on the
essential teaching in every verse—and does this in both poetry
and prose that is as elegant as it is insightful. The book
effortlessly captures the beauty and the rhythm of the Gita.
Swami
Tyagananda, Hindu Chaplain, Harvard and MIT, 2022
The
ageless wisdom of the Gita will never be brought into classic
English prose with greater clarity, humanity and selflessness
than in this priceless rendition. What a joy to have it brought
to us afresh in this new edition, Isherwood’s rare elegance
married to his beloved teacher’s wise command of the
scriptures.
Pico
Iyer, Author of Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and
the Monk, and
The Global Soul. Contributor to Time,
Harper's,
New
York Review of Books, and
The New York Times. He also taught at Harvard and
Princeton, 2022
The
eternal message of the Gita has been rendered into simple
language which is devoid of technicalities of dogma and doctrine
and rises into suitable poetry where the sublimity of thought
requires it. Swami Prabhavananda’s name is a guarantee of the
authoritative nature of the translation and its being faithful
to the true spirit of the original.
Prabuddha
Bharata, March, 1946
DEMOCRACY would have been impossible without the dissemination
of knowledge...For that reason alone this paper-back edition
[1954] of one of the most profound books ever written, often
compared to the Sermon on the Mount, is a publishing event of
major importance. Here the common man...may make the
acquaintance of perhaps the greatest clarity that mysticism has
ever achieved...The ideas in this philosophical dialogue...are
subtle, surprising, precise. The “Gita,"
however, is also a song. It develops its ideas rhapsodically,
ecstatically...The “Gita”
is one of the most
beautiful
books. It explains and it delights...It is presented in one of
the outstanding translations of the day.
Gerald
Sykes, The New York Times,
March 28, 1954
About Bhagavad Gita
by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood: It
is a beautiful, meaningful, readable translation of the Gita
for Western people, who do not know Sanskrit. The
first edition had no shloka numbers, so it was difficult for
those who want to compare with the Sanskrit. Now
the present edition is very helpful for the readers and
researchers who want to compare with the original.
Swami
Chetanananda, Head of the Vedanta Society of St. Louis and
author of numerous biographies and translations of Vedanta
literature including Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play,
Sri Sarada Devi: a Divine Life, They Lived with God,
and many more.
As
World War II raged and the dissolution of the British Empire
drew near, an Indian and an Englishman, both disillusioned
radicals, collaborated in Hollywood on this singular
translation. In Vedanta, they had found the peace and freedom
that politics had failed to deliver. Christopher Isherwood could
not read Sanskrit; he relied on detailed and intense discussions
with Swami Prabhavananda to understand the meaning of each word.
Then he cast the ancient Hindu text in a mixture of poetry and
prose rooted in the English literary tradition reaching back to
Medieval times.
For
clarity, economy and sheer excitement, their English rendering
of the
Bhagavad
Gita has never been equaled.
Katherine
Bucknell, editor of Christopher Isherwood's DIARIES
and
Director of The Christopher Isherwood Foundation, 2023
Back
in the late 1960s when many young Americans were interested in
self-actualization via Asian religions, I (and thousands of
others, I'm sure) were first drawn to study Vedanta after
reading the Bhagavad-Gita as
translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. The
former deeply understood the message of the text and the latter
knew how to convey that message in masterful English. The
mixture was captivating, leading many to start on a life-long
quest to dig deeper into the substance of Vedanta. This is a
literary rather than a literal translation, for reasons mainly
related to the flow of the text and making the message clear in
English, to an English speaking audience; I find the true
teachings to be fully intact, so the appeal is there for a new
audience in modern times. Moreover, this new edition includes
the verse references that were missing from the original 1944
edition, a welcome and necessary addition, for comparison to
other translations and scholarly study.
Dana
Sawyer, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Maine Arts College
Author of Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper, the
authorized biography,
and
author of
Aldous Huxley: A Biography
To
preserve the everlasting simplicity of the Gita’s
words…Isherwood…and his teacher [Swami Prabhavananda] have
collaborated on this latest translation…the result is a
distinguished
literary
work…simpler and freer than other English translations…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.
Time
Magazine, February 12, 1945
For many Westerners, their introduction
to Hinduism came not from yoga or a respected guru, but from a
boyish British author, Christopher Isherwood, a Renaissance man
of letters, writing plays, short stories, screenplays, poems,
novels and nonfiction. Though he is perhaps best known as the
author of such works as The Berlin Stories (later made into the
hit play and movie, “Cabaret”), his involvement in the
Vedanta movement in California from the 1940s through the 1980s
left a permanent imprint on the cultural landscape...The English
version of the Song of God: Bhagavad Gita was Isherwood’s
crowning achievement.
Mark
Hawthorne, Vedanta’s
Western Poet, Hinduism
Today, September 1, 1999
The
Bhagavad Gita–or simply the Gita, for those who know and love
it well–is of course a classic of Indian literature, and of
world spiritual literature, as well as being a sacred text for
Hindus. This particular translation of the Gita, by Swami
Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, is itself a classic in
the genre of Gita translations. It has been, for many, a gateway
to Hindu thought and to the profound philosophy of Vedanta.
Beautifully and clearly written, it was designed specifically
with an American audience in mind. But it has proven to be an
accessible introduction to this text for readers around the
world, even within India itself. This latest edition does not
alter the work of Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood
at all; but by providing the original verse numbers of the
source text, it makes this translation of even greater value for
students and scholars than it already was. It is a most welcome
addition to any library, personal or public, and it will no
doubt continue to open minds to the message of the Gita well
into the twenty-first century and beyond.
Jeffery
D. Long, Author Hinduism
in America, Professor of
Religion, Philosophy, and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College
[From
a critique concerning translations] A translation of literary
worth...seemed preferable to a simon-pure translation...As a
master translator, Edward Fitzgerald, put it: “Better a live
sparrow than a stuffed eagle.” …In violation of this
principle, Mr. Y. has decided to use the Edwin Arnold
translation of the Bhagavad
Gita rather than—say—the Christopher Isherwood-Swami
Prabhavananda version. In my opinion…there is no comparison
between the ponderous cadences of the first, and the clean
lucidity of the second.
The
New York Times, November 11, 1956
The
translation, in poetry and prose, is the celebrated one by
Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda…the very purpose
of life in Hindu terms becomes luminously clear.
Paul
Kresh, The New York Times, May
10, 1981
 Huston
Smith holds up the 1951 Mentor Religious Classic edition of this
translation on his groundbreaking 17-part 1954 NET TV series, The Religions of Man.
(Video of the series can be viewed at HustonSmith.org). For many
Americans it was their first introduction to Asian religions and
mysticism. The TV series became the basis for the bestselling
book of the same name, later retitled The
World's Religions,
which became a standard textbook for religious studies.
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