Of Mothers and Messengers: Understanding A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada As He Is

by Vineet Chander (Vyenkata Bhatta Dasa)

Important Note: The following article appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies (Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall 2007), edited by Satyaraja Prabhu. Those who wish to subscribe, and to receive the full issue in which this article appears (“The Gita Comes West”), can make a check payable to “FOLK Books” and send to “FOLK Books/ JVS, 30 Village Gate Way, Nyack, NY 10960 USA. The cost for a yearly subscription is US$35 -- or US$60 for those who live outside the USA.

Introduction

If Ralph Waldo Emerson “owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad Gita,” then perhaps I owe one to the Immigration Act of 1965, by the arrangement of which I was able to discover the Gita in the comfort of a New York Public Library cubicle. Vaishnava prophesies notwithstanding, it was this piece of legislation that opened America’s doors to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (commonly referred to as “Prabhupada”) in 1965 and set the stage for his spearheading the worldwide Krishna movement in the eleven years that followed. ¹ Thanks to that same Act, my mother arrived to New York—a tattered Hindi copy of the Bhagavad Gita packed among her medical textbooks—in 1968, the same year that Prabhupada published his Gita translation in English with Macmillan. By the time I was born in 1978, one of a few brown babies in incubators beside white and black skinned newborns in a Brooklyn hospital, Prabhupada had already passed away and his Gita was well on its way to becoming the most widely sold version in the Western world.

My first encounter with Prabhupada’s Gita, in that quiet library cubicle, was something like meeting a long-lost sibling. Like me, the book seemed to be an attempt to straddle two worlds, a slightly awkward and self-conscious mash-up of ancient India and post-modern America. It was not the first edition of the Gita I ever read, and it would be far from the last, but it struck me as the most impassioned, personal, and devoted version of Krishna’s song I would hear.

My attraction was not, however, without serious reservations. The book’s bulk, resulting from pages of Prabhupada’s commentary, seemed suspect when compared to the thin Juan Mascaró translation I could slip into my back pocket. Comparing Prabhupada’s own transliteration and his translations—what to speak of comparing his version with other translators—revealed instances where Prabhupada’s rendering of the verse departed dramatically from a literal translation of Krishna’s words. And Prabhupada’s strongly-worded “purports” demanded a sort of exclusive devotion to Krishna that reminded me more of the fundamentalist Christianity of some of my classmates than the laid-back faith of the Hindu temples I occasionally attended. And then, of course, the punch line: with all this, the book had the audacity to call itself the “Bhagavad Gita As It Is.” ²

In the years since, I have re-visited Prabhupada’s As It Is as both a student and then a teacher of the text. As a practicing Vaishnava, I’ve based my faith on it; as an American-born Indian I’ve looked to it to teach me my culture. I’ve used the text, as a Hindu chaplain, to comfort and minister to grieving students. And as a religion communicator, I have grappled with the apparent paradox of why, after interpreting so much, Prabhupada insists his edition is “as it is.”

In this paper, I suggest that to gain a more meaningful understanding of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, we must explore the roles that Prabhupada played in bringing the Gita West. In particular, I will examine two such roles that he played and explore how these roles informed the choices he made in presenting his Gita in the way he did. I will offer a brief re-telling of the history of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, examining Prabhupada as the immigrant “mother” of American Vaishnavism (codified in the pages of his Gita)—a role that demanded he be nurturing, protective, bold, and at times radical to ensure that his child would survive the climate of the West. I will also look at some of the hermeneutical principles he employed in his Gita by examining Prabhupada as a messenger, referencing the Hindu notion of the emissary, or duta, and the significance of the parampara, or “disciplic succession.”

Secondly, I will use the exploration of Prabhupada as mother and messenger as a lens through which to evaluate three distinctive (if not contentious) features of Prabhupada’s Gita As It Is: his reading of Krishna exclusivity within the text and purport, his emphasis on Vaishnava practices, and his “personalization” of Krishna as a deity that Western (and Eastern) readers could have a relationship with.

Finally, I will raise questions about what implications Prabhupada's approach has for readers, practitioners, and scholars today.

I. Prabhupada As He Was

A. “The heart of a Bengali mother . . .”

“Preach with the courage of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother . . .”

—Prabhupada, paraphrasing the Bengali poet, Michael Madhusudana Dutta

The story of Prabhupada’s Gita begins more than forty years before its publication, in Prabhupada’s first meeting with Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (who would become Prabhupada’s guru). Bhaktisiddhanta, then leader of a formidable renaissance bhakti movement in the line of the Bengali ecstatic Sri Chaitanya (1486–1533), requested him to bring Krishna’s message to the people of the world through the medium of the English language. That initial request, bolstered by a handful of similar ones made in the years to follow, made such a profound impact on Prabhupada that he took it up as his singular mission. To realize that mission, he began a protracted course of action to ready himself, gradually taking on what seemed an entirely impossible task: carrying the wealth of Gaudiya Vaishnavism (“Krishna consciousness”) to Western shores. He arranged, through the most fleeting acquaintances, for sponsorship in America and secured free passage on a cargo steamship. On August 13, 1965, Prabhupada boarded the Jaladuta (aptly named as we shall soon see) from a Calcutta dock.

After a journey of more than one month, during which Prabhupada celebrated his seventieth birthday and suffered two heart attacks, the Jaladuta arrived at that most illustrious port of call for immigrants of the world: New York City.

Undaunted by the challenges posed by his advanced age, lack of support, or the unfamiliarity of his new terrain, Prabhupada took stock of the undertaking he faced. For, in the words of William Deadwyler, Prabhupada’s was not “a strategy of mere survival . . . he planned to prevail.” (Deadwyler, 103). What Prabhupada aimed to do was nothing short of “reviving an endangered religious tradition by transferring it to an alien culture,” an act likened by some to the first successful transplantation of a human heart. (Rosen, 12).

Still, Prabhupada knew that to prevail he would need to address the cultural divide that lay before him—a wide chasm through which his fledgling mission could easily slip. If Chaitanya’s movement was to take hold in America, Prabhupada knew, he would have to personally nurture and nourish it.

To merely be a missionary would not suffice; for the flower of Vaishnavism to survive the harsh climate of this foreign land, and to blossom there, Prabhupada would have to adopt the mood—and heart—of a Bengali mother.

So, like countless immigrant parents before him, he saw an opportunity to bridge the gap with the birth of an American-born child. This “child”—a literary, not literal one, in Prabhupada’s case—would at once keep alive the culture of its homeland, while adopting the language and some of the mannerisms of the family’s new terrain. It could, in significant ways, inhabit two worlds. For Prabhupada, this child was to be the Bhagavad Gita As It Is. ³

It is interesting to note that although Prabhupada brought with him copies of the first three volumes of his Bhagavata Purana translations (published as Srimad Bhagavatam), and that he would continue to work on the Purana until his passing in 1977, he didn’t seem to regard these books as being able to bridge the gap. Perhaps this is because, as Sharpe notes, they “clearly could not serve as a pocket guide to Krishna Consciousness. The Gita could, on the other hand, and did.” (Sharpe, 142).

Prabhupada’s first serious attempt at birthing the Gita resulted, as it were, in a miscarriage. This manuscript, completed before he had ever left India, was stolen while he made preparations to travel West. ⁴ Fortunately, the set-back did not deter him; he immediately began working on the Gita again, finishing his new manuscript by 1967, only two years after arriving in New York. Meanwhile, a move to the Lower East Side and the renting of a Second Avenue storefront provided Prabhupada with a group of young people from the counterculture who took up his teachings in earnest. Since a handful of these had some literary experience—a few aspiring writers, editors, and intellectuals —Prabhupada welcomed their assistance in bringing his Gita to life. Howard Wheeler, a young English professor, soon became one of Prabhupada’s first initiated students (Hayagriva Dasa), and was charged with the lion’s share of the editing. In his memoirs, he vividly recounts how Prabhupada came to engage him in this service:

“Edit for force and clarity,” he says. “We want this Bhagavad Gita acceptable for publication, and grammatical precision is important. It must be acceptable to the academic community also, and since you have experience in that field, you know best how to put it nicely. Whenever there is some question about meaning you can consult me.” (Wheeler, 119).

“To me,” he writes, “the English language is undoubtedly a foreign language, and I thought your . . . editorship will help me a great deal.” (Wheeler, 230).

At this time, Prabhupada was ministering (to his growing flock) from the Gita—but want of an English Vaishnava commentary forced him to lecture from Dr. Radhakrishnan’s translation. “It is impersonalist,” Wheeler remembers Prabhupada lamenting, “But what can we do? We have no other version.” (Wheeler, 12). Although the edition by the former president of India was both respected and popular at the time, Prabhupada felt it was tainted by an Advaitin slant. Moreover, Radhakrishnan was neither part of an authentic lineage (parampara) nor showed any inclination towards worship of the personality of Krishna—matters which, as we will pick up later in the paper, were at the crux of Prabhupada’s approach to the Gita. For now, however, we may simply note that Prabhupada’s distaste for the Radhakrishnan edition served to impress upon him an urgency to produce his own Gita. Wheeler also remembers episodes demonstrating the effect that the Radhakrishnan Gita had upon Prabhupada:

Upon this verse [9.34], Radhakrishnan comments that it is not to the personal Krishna that we have to surrender, but to the “unborn, beginningless, eternal who speaks through Krishna.”

“Just see!” Swamiji [Prabhupada] says when this verse and commentary are read at the evening class. “I told you Dr. Radhakrishnan was an impersonalist. This Mayavadi philosophy is worse than atheism.” (Wheeler, 49)

With the anxious anticipation of an expectant parent, Prabhupada was eager to see his Gita published. For Prabhupada, the longer it took to produce the book, the farther he was from being able to present the West with a readable compendium of Vaishnava teachings and practices. Serious reverses in his health, including a stroke, only heightened his sense of urgency. From a hospital bed, he wrote to Wheeler: “Although I am practically on the path of death, still I cannot forget about my publications. I wish that if I live or die you should take very serious care for my publications.” (letter to Hayagriva, June 10, 1967).

More than a sense of his own mortality fueled Prabhupada’s impatience. Increasing numbers of young people were joining his movement, by now formally incorporated as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Media exposure and the chanting of Beat icon Allen Ginsberg had made the Hare Krishna maha-mantra an underground hit. From Prabhupada’s point of view, we can well imagine, it must have seemed almost sinful to keep Krishna locked up in the pages of an unpublished Gita manuscript when the world was clearly ready to meet him.

But if the first “pregnancy” had met an untimely end, this one was encountering some complications of its own. For now that Prabhupada had engaged his young students in editing and preparing the text for publication, along with their help they also brought along a decidedly American approach to translation. As we shall see in more detail in the next section of this paper, such an approach was sometimes at odds with Prabhupada’s own fundamental hermeneutics. Furthermore, the following anecdote from Wheeler makes it clear that Prabhupada was more concerned with broadcasting the Krishna-conscious message than with the finer points of Sanskrit translation:

Swamiji finally tires of my consulting him about Bhagavad Gita verses. “Just copy the verses from some other translation,” he tells me, discarding the whole matter with a wave of his hand. “The verses aren’t [as] important. There are so many translations, more or less accurate, and the Sanskrit is always there. . . . What is lacking are these Vaishnava purports in the preaching line of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. That is what is lacking in English. That is what is lacking in the world.” (Wheeler, 210).

The editing complete, the devotees faced a new problem: nobody knew of a publisher who was in the market for a Gita translation. This, however, was not an acceptable excuse, at least not to Prabhupada. He instructed his early disciple Brahmananda (Bruce Scharff), a social worker with a degree from NYU, to find one. After a series of initial missteps, a correspondence from an employee of Macmillan led Brahmananda to a chance meeting with then senior editor James Wade, and the publishing giant expressed interest in publishing Prabhupada’s Gita “right away.” ⁵

The Macmillan negotiation is the parting of the clouds. At last, a major publisher! Swamiji’s word will be heard. But there remains one big problem. The manuscript runs eight hundred pages, and Macmillan wants it cut down to less than three hundred to lessen production costs. And I have the doleful job of trying to decide which of Swamiji’s purports are not essential. (Wheeler, 227).

The fortuitous turn of events—what ISKCON devotees would see as “Krishna's arrangement” for Prabhupada—came with a hefty price. To shorten the manuscript, they required Prabhupada to remove the Sanskrit, the word-for-word transliteration, and illustrations. ⁶ And most problematic for Prabhupada: they had him cut the vast majority of his commentary, or purports, from the text. This was particularly troubling in light of the fact that Prabhupada used these purports, as the Wheeler anecdote alluded to, and as we will discuss in more depth below, as his primary means of communicating his message.

Prabhupada was at the crossroads: on the one hand, the long-awaited birth of his American Gita was finally imminent. On the other, considering the amount of cutting being proposed, it might have been better described as a forced cesarean section than natural childbirth. Still, Prabhupada recognized that this was indeed an emergency, and the situation had become critical. The West needed a contemporary Vaishnava Gita now; Krishna could wait in an unpublished manuscript no longer. Reluctantly, Prabhupada gave his permission for the doctor to operate. One of Wheeler’s co-editors, named Rayarama, “snipped it down to three hundred pages,” and a severely shortened version—Wheeler calls it the “skeleton edition”—was created (Wheeler, 230). Endorsements from popular figures like Allen Ginsberg and Thomas Merton were obtained, and the book was finally released as Bhagavad Gita As It Is.

By 1972, Prabhupada’s Krishna movement had grown exponentially and with such a remarkable force that Wheeler would later dub it a “Hare Krishna Explosion.” Prabhupada saw the movement’s growth as confirmation that Westerners were hungry (if not starving) for Vaishnavism. Now, with more of a foothold in the West and with an expanding enterprise behind him, Prabhupada decided the time was ripe to restore the Gita back to its full-bodied glory. When the “revised and enlarged” edition was released, more than twice the size of its predecessor, Prabhupada undoubtedly considered it a victory worth the wait. At long last, and after too many “labor pains” to count, Prabhupada’s American offspring was born, truly “as it is.”

In the next sections we will more closely examine Prabhupada’s approach to the Gita, as well as the interpretative choices he makes, especially through the use of distinctive features such as the elaborate purports and illustrations. To conclude this brief historical narration, however, it seems most appropriate to let Prabhupada have the last word. In his preface to the enlarged edition, he gives readers a disarmingly personal insight into his dissatisfaction with the abridged version, the need to restore the original manuscript, and what he saw as the ultimate purpose of the work:

Originally I wrote Bhagavad-gita As It Is in the form in which it is presented now. When the book was first published, the original manuscript was, unfortunately, cut short to less than 400 pages, without illustrations and without explanations for most of the original verses of the Srimad Bhagavad-gita. . . . I was not very happy, therefore, when I had to minimize my original manuscript. But later on, when the demand for Bhagavad-gita As It Is considerably increased, I was requested by many scholars and devotees to present the book in its original form. Thus the present attempt is to offer the original manuscript of this great book of knowledge with full parampara explanation in order to establish the Krishna consciousness movement more soundly and progressively. (Prabhupada, xvii).

B. Messenger of the Sea

“Our mission is to deliver this Bhagavad Gita As It Is, just as the postman delivers your letter as it is, and both the good news and the bad news are for you. The postman’s job is to deliver what is sent, and our mission is to present Krishna’s message as it is.” ⁷

—Prabhupada, airport address in Columbus, Ohio, May 1969

When Prabhupada boarded the Jaladuta, a steamship operated by the industrial Scindia line, and left port from Calcutta on Friday, August 13, 1965—Friday the Thirteenth, no less!—he was a lone, unknown figure. Years later, when Prabhupada returned triumphantly to India accompanied by his “dancing white elephants” (dhoti- and sari-clad Caucasian disciples) he was greeted with all the honors of an emissary back from a voyage. Indeed, especially in Vrindavan (the North Indian Vaishnava pilgrimage center where Prabhupada lived for several years preceding his coming West) he continues to be revered as “the hometown boy made good.” ⁸

Could it be that behind the celebrity adoration and nationalist pride, there is a more Hindu explanation for the warm welcome Prabhupada received? After all, Hindus generally, and Vaishnavas specifically, hold a special reverence for those servants of the Lord who, by dint of their unwavering commitment to their ishta-devata (personal deity), are priveleged to act as the Lord’s emissaries. These special souls are celebrated as empowered messengers, or dutas. Hanuman, for instance, is glorified in his famous chalisa with the epithet “Ramaduta,” the messenger of Lord Rama. ⁹ Readers of the Bhagavata Purana will, no doubt, be familiar with the conversation between the Vishnudutas and Yamadutas, envoys of Lord Vishnu and Yamaraja, respectively, over which of their masters would have jurisdiction over the departing soul of the fallen Brahmin, Ajamila. ¹⁰ And particularly significant for the Gaudiya Vaishnavas, Rupa Goswami’s poetic Hamsaduta centers on a swan messenger sent by the sakhi Lalita to Krishna in Dvaraka. ¹¹

In Prabhupada, might we find a twentieth-century addition to this list? Whether mere coincidence or divine dispensation, the ship that Prabhupada was granted free passage on was called the Jaladuta. ¹² Indeed, Jaladuta—the “messenger of the sea”—may be the most fitting appellation for Prabhupada himself; he identified his journey as the fulfillment of a prophesy that Gaudiya Vaishnavism would cross the “black waters” of the ocean.

Precisely whose messenger was Prabhupada? On whose behalf did he present what he presented, in the way that he presented it? Here the simplest answer that jumps out at us—that Prabhupada was Krishna’s messenger—proves problematic. Was Prabhupada simply one of the self-appointed, charismatic “prophets” who flooded the Western religious marketplace of the 1960s and 1970s? Many “anti-cultists” of the era certainly claimed as much. But if Prabhupada had viewed himself merely as God’s divinely selected mouthpiece, his writing, lectures, or conversations would likely hint at it. We would surely find, for instance, tales of Prabhupada having visions of Krishna, or imparting revelations received through prophetic dreams, or making some fantastic display of channeling Krishna’s power. But such episodes are conspicuous by their absence; instead, Prabhupada offered quite the opposite. Here Deadwyler quotes Prabhupada’s own verdict, given specifically in response to a question on this very point:

“Our system, parampara system, is that I am just like disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. I don’t say that I am liberated. I am conditioned. But because I am following the instruction of Bhaktisiddhanta, I’m liberated. This is the distinction between conditioned and liberated. When one is under the direction of a liberated person. . . . The same thing: Electricity. The copper is not electricity, but when it is charged with electricity, if it is touched, that is electricity. And similarly this parampara system, the electricity is going. If you cut the parampara system, then there is no electricity. Therefore it is stressed so much.” (Deadwyler, 116).

Prabhupada’s point here is especially significant, given the fact that the Gita itself (4.2) supports this approach: “The supreme science is received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way” (evam parampara-praptam, imam rajarsayo viduh). If the Gita was understood in this way in the past, Prabhupada reasoned, his modern-day readers would benefit from this method, too.

Consequently, the principle of coming in an authorized lineage was more important to Prabhupada than representing Krishna directly. In only the most general sense did he say he was Krishna’s emissary, and here he was careful to qualify that relationship as dependent on the mediation of the parampara, the chain of guru and disciple (literally “one after the other”). For Gaudiya Vaishnavas, the parampara is not a formality or a simple matter of footnoting the annals of history; rather it “is the core mechanism of tradition, by which what is bestowed aboriginally by divinity is perceived, preserved, and perpetuated by humanity in full potency throughout the ages.” (Deadwyler, 108)

It is hardly surprising that Prabhupada introduces his Gita with a prefatory section enumerating the parampara (with his name at the end of the list), or that he reminds readers of it elsewhere in the text. In emphasizing the importance of being in the parampara—and of his own place on that elite roll call—Prabhupada is able to lay down three related but distinct hermeneutical principles that he will draw upon throughout his treatment of the rest of the book.

First, he asserts his own qualification, or adhikara, to comment on the Gita by dint of his membership in the parampara. “Being in that succession himself, he is able, he states, to offer the ‘authorized’ commentary and the ‘authorized translation.’” (Herman, 137). As Catherine Robinson notes: “The significance of this [emphasis on] ‘Disciplic Succession’ was that it confirmed Prabhupada’s credentials as a commentator on the Bhagavad Gita since the quality of his teaching was guaranteed by the Gaudiya Vaisnava Mission, deriving as it did from Caitanya and ultimately, from Krsna.” (Robinson, 122). Robert Baird takes this further and argues that in axiomatically establishing his own authority through the disciplic succession, Prabhupada can go on to declare his Vaishnava view as fact, not as one opinion to be weighed against others or tested empirically. For, as Baird notes with some concern if not derision, “if he were using ‘mundane scholarship’ he would have to present arguments, but a spiritual master within disciplic succession merely declares.” (Baird, 322)

Secondly, with parampara, Prabhupada establishes the corollary: the inherent disqualification of those who are outside of traditional lineages and attempt to nonetheless comment on the Gita. This allows him to take them out of the race, so to speak, before anyone has even left the gate. If they “were not produced by teachers whose authority and authenticity were attested by their place in the guru-disciple succession,” he simply “rejected other commentaries.” (Robinson, 121) “Unless one is in the disciplic succession, he cannot understand Bhagavad Gita,” he writes, calling such attempts “motivated interpretation.” (Baird, 322; Sharpe, 144). At best, those outside of the succession remain ignorant because Krishna’s message is “difficult to understand for one who is not a devotee of Krishna in the parampara”; at worst, they “push forward their demonic propensities and mislead people regarding right understanding.” (Herman, 137). Sharpe sums up this second principle: for Prabhupada, in the case of those who operate outside of the authority of the parampara, “the wrong commentary is worse than no commentary at all.” (Sharpe, 144).

Finally, Prabhupada uses his connection to the disciplic succession to set the parameters of his own interpretation. While this sounds a great deal like Prabhupada’s first principle—that the disciplic succession gives him the adhikara to comment on the Gita in the first place—there is a significant difference. The first principle gives Prabhupada a license to interpret; this one imposes the limitations of that license. Without the parampara, Prabhupada could have conceivably conjectured whatever he wanted as “devotional commentary.” By fencing himself within the margins of the parampara, Prabhupada assures us that Krishna’s teachings coming through the succession, and not his own opinions or whims, dictate what he will say about the Gita.

Nowhere is this self-limitation more important, perhaps, than when Prabhupada must be the bearer of unpopular news or criticize those who are contrary to Krishna’s instructions. If Prabhupada acts within the succession, the parampara will indemnify him, no matter how strong the views he expresses:

We are not going to bluff anyone or cheat others, and we are delivering the message on behalf of the Supreme Lord, so we haven’t got anything to fear and we should be always mindful of our topmost position of occupation of life. To be the messenger of the king is practically as good as to be the king, [since] the king is the most exalted position. (letter to Satsvarupa, June 16, 1972)

Naham prakasah sarvasya yoga-maya-samavrtah [7.25], Bhagavan [Krishna] says in the Bhagavad-gita that “I am not exposed to these fools and rascals, non-devotees.” Why [do] I say “fools and rascals” to the non-devotees? I am not saying; Krishna says. Na mam duskrtino mudhah prapadyante naradhamah [7.15]. Mudha means rascal. Mudha means rascal. . . .“Oh, they are very big, big scholars, sir. You are talking about them as mudhah, naradhamah?” Yes. Because although they are so-called scholars, their real knowledge has been taken away. (lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam 3.25.35, Bombay, December 4, 1974 )

By referencing the parampara, Prabhupada assures readers that he is not merely grinding his own axe, or exploiting Krishna’s words to put forward his own speculations the way those commentators whom he criticizes do. Instead, as a messenger of the parampara, he must dutifully make interpretative choices that are consistent with the outlook of those in the succession. And because, by its own definition, the parampara must espouse an outlook that is consistent with the original intent of Krishna, the Gita’s speaker and final authority, these interpretive choices are not seen as interpretations at all. For “deriving as it did from Caitanya, and ultimately, from Krsna . . . only a member of this lineage could communicate to this disciple the truth that Krsna, the first teacher, had taught.” (Robinson, 122) Although the message has passed from Krishna to the reader through various intermediaries, the unbroken chain prevents its distortion or misinterpretation by presenting only “commentary on the Gita following in the footsteps of Arjuna.” (Robinson, 122) Thus, the disciplic succession’s real charge is to preserve Krishna’s authority; “in the last resort the authority of the Gita is dependent on the authority of Krishna himself [and] ‘Krishna cannot be subject to illusion.’” (Sharpe, 144).

This brings us back to Prabhupada’s “As It Is” claim. What at first seems to be the outrageous and self-serving tactic of a boastful commentator may instead turn out to be a far more nuanced and perhaps humbler statement of careful fidelity and restraint. Indeed, it is not some overblown estimation of his skills as a commentator, but rather his relentless chastity to the parampara that “accounts for the title of Swami Bhaktivedanta’s commentary. It is the Gita as it is from the hands of disciplic succession (parampara) and not as the result of mental speculation of unaided academic interpretation.” (Baird, 318)

Prabhupada’s approach to the Gita is not an aberration from Vaishnava praxis; rather it is a profoundly strict adherence to it. At the same time, Prabhupada the messenger had to be necessarily conscious of modernity. Like any good communicator, he did not hesitate to adapt the message of the parampara to the climate and disposition of his audience. In so doing, Prabhupada showed that he was a faithful messenger, but also an individual devotee of Krishna. As Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School writes in his introduction to Prabhupada’s biography:

“Yet, it must be added, Srila Prabhupada was also a unique person. To say that the teachings of the ancient ones come to us through a series of teachers does not mean that the teachers are themselves interchangeable. If they were so faceless, there would be little point in writing a biography of any of them. But this life of Srila Prabhupada is pointed proof that one can be a transmitter of truth and still be a vital and singular person, even—in a sense I now feel safe to use—in some ways “original.” . . . At what almost anyone would consider a very advanced age, when most people would be resting on their laurels, he harkened to the mandate of his own spiritual teacher and set out on the difficult voyage to America. Srila Prabhupada is, of course, only one of thousands of teachers. But in another sense, he is one in a thousand, maybe one in a million.” (Quoted in Rosen, 24)

II. When Mother Meets Messenger

How did Prabhupada negotiate the tension between fidelity to the succession and the innovation needed to make Krishna’s message intelligible to the West? In this section, we will explore that tension by applying our analysis of Prabhupada as mother and messenger to three distinctive characteristics of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is. ¹³

A. Krishna Between the Lines

“Our business is to present the will of Krishna. . . . Generally, the so-called scholars, politicians, philosophers, and swamis, without perfect knowledge of Krishna, try to banish or kill Krishna when writing a commentary on Bhagavad Gita. . . . To interpret Bhagavad Gita without any reference to the will of Krishna is the greatest offense. In order to save oneself from this offense, one has to understand the Lord as the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

—Prabhupada, Preface to Bhagavad Gita As It Is, xviii - xix

In a 1972 lecture, Prabhupada narrated the story of a certain Bengali author who wrote a book purportedly about Shah Jahan, which was actually filled with vivid descriptions of his cruel son Aurangzeb. According to Prabhupada, because the book was advertised as a biography of Shah Jahan and instead focused on Aurangzeb, readers were confused. Finally, Prabhupada recounted, the matter was brought to the attention of the author, who clarified the situation by enunciating his intentions—he wanted to convey the agony that was “beating on the heart” of the imprisoned Shah Jahan by describing the nefarious activities of the wicked son who usurped his throne. Prabhupada’s moral: more than anyone else, the author knows the purpose of his own book. ¹⁴

It should be clear by now that, for Prabhupada, the author of Bhagavad Gita is Krishna Himself. Starting from his introduction, and continuing throughout the rest of the book, Prabhupada affirms that “we should take Bhagavad Gita as it is directed by the Personality of Godhead Himself” and “[t]herefore Bhagavad Gita should be taken up in a spirit of devotion.” (Prabhupada, 3; 6). What this means for readers, Prabhupada says, is that we “should at least theoretically accept Sri Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and with that submissive spirit we can understand the Bhagavad Gita.” (Prabhupada 7). The upshot of approaching Krishna in this way: one can gain entrance into the “great mystery” and appreciate that the “purpose of the Bhagavad Gita is to deliver mankind from the nescience of material existence” through the practice of bhakti (Prabhupada, 7). As we have seen, for Prabhupada that purpose can only be understood and executed within the parampara.

To Prabhupada, bhakti (“devotional service”) is not just the theme of one section of the Gita; it is the text’s very essence. When that essence is apparent in a Gita verse, Prabhupada highlights it. And when it is not, he brings it out—either through his Krishna-centric translations or Vaishnava purports. ¹⁵

Although Prabhupada clearly knows Sanskrit, he is a spokesperson before he is a linguist. By this I mean that, for him, abiding by the letter of an ultra-literal translation is secondary to bringing out the spirit (or implications) of the text. In this sense, his measure of what makes for a faithful translation radically differs from that of disinterested Sanskritists: As a messenger, Prabhupada’s primary concern is in using each verse to bring out Krishna’s “inner thoughts”— thoughts that he is privy to, not by some psychic feat, but rather through his membership in the parampara.

The incident where Prabhupada advised his editors to “just copy the verses from some other translation” and focus on the purport, quoted in this paper already, makes it clear that he was not a stickler for exacting translations. It also sheds light on Prabhupada’s rationale for such an approach, and how this rationale cut against the norms of contemporary western scholarship. Wheeler describes the dialogue that followed Prabhupada’s instruction to copy another edition’s translations:

“I can't just copy others,” I say.

“There is no harm.”

“But that’s plagiarism.”

“How’s that? They are Krishna’s words. Krishna’s words are clear, like the sun. Just these rascal commentators have diverted the meaning by saying ‘Not to Krishna.’ So my purports are saying, ‘To Krishna.’ That is the only difference.” (Wheeler, 210-211).

We can perhaps sympathize with Wheeler, caught as he was in the clash between two cultural and hermeneutical paradigms! For Prabhupada, however, there is no incongruity; being faithful to Krishna’s words (which are meant to be “clear, like the sun”) means that, when those words are obscured or their (inner) meaning diverted by the clouds of “rascal commentators,” the Vaishnava must restore their clarity by nuancing translation and by elaborating upon them in purports.

Wheeler cites another anecdote in which Prabhupada encourages his editor to work faster, and again emphasizes the purpose of his lengthy purports. Wheeler recalls Prabhupada as saying:

“Someone has told me that the purports are very lengthy, but that is the Vaishnava tradition—constantly expanding. The purports are intended to bring the meaning back to Krishna, to rectify the mischief done by these rascal commentators. Factually this [the Gita As It Is manuscript] is the only authorized translation. So I am eager to see our Bhagavad Gita published complete.” (Wheeler, 179).

Far from being a disqualification, this “Vaishnava tradition” of “constantly expanding” the text—unpacking its words to draw out implications—is precisely what Prabhupada sees as making his Gita the “only authorized” English edition. In the same vein, when Prabhupada prefaces the revised and enlarged edition of his Gita, he writes that the word-for-word transliteration and purports make “the book very authentic and scholarly and make the meaning self-evident.” (Prabhupada, xvii). There is a seeming irony to the fact that more purports are needed to make the text “self-evident.” Indeed, the Western mind is likely to be suspicious of such a claim: if it is so self-evident, then why do you have to explain it so much? The Vaishnava however starts from a different premise. For the Vaishnava, letting the text stand alone is not a satisfactory option, for it neglects Krishna’s direct instructions, given in the Gita itself, to study and teach the Gita to others. For Vaishnavas, the Gita is meant to be studied under the guidance of a teacher (or teachers), who are members of a parampara, and who can award students access to its secrets. ¹⁶

To help us draw out these secrets, Prabhupada’s translations and purports are “infused with Krishna consciousness” at every opportunity, regardless of how explicit the text itself is (Baird 303). Prabhupada offers such interpretation—when Krishna says buddhi here, he really means devotional service—“without any evidence of discomfort” precisely because to him it is not an interpretation at all; it is merely a restatement of Krishna’s own intentions, as evidenced by his teachings elsewhere in the Gita and in other Vedic (or Vaishnava) literature, and confirmed by the parampara.

When Prabhupada initially released his work, there were many other editions on the popular market. Some of these also included commentary (for instance, the Radhakrishnan commentary that Prabhupada reacted so strongly against). But most translations aiming at a lay audience seemed to have shied away from it. Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood’s collaborative translation, written on behalf of the Vedanta Society, includes no commentary—although it does include front and back pieces, including an essay by Aldous Huxley, and a handful of footnotes. Juan Mascaró’s version likewise includes philosophical essays and notes on translation, but is free of the type of verse-by-verse purports that mark Prabhupada’s edition. This is not to say that the Prabhavananda/Isherwood volume does not slant the text towards the non-dualist leanings of its authors, for it clearly does. Prabhavananda and Isherwood admit as much: in their preface they acknowledge that they consulted the commentaries of Shankara, Shridhara Swami, and Madhusudana Saraswati, as well as the writings of Aurobindo—all leading Advaitins—and “incorporated their explanations into our English version.” (Prabhavananda, 11). It is hardly surprising, then, when the authors tell us, “it cannot matter very much whether the historical Krishna . . . ever existed at all” since “the Gita is not primarily concerned with Krishna as an individual, but with his aspect as Brahman . . .” (Prabhavananda, 29). ¹⁷ Juan Mascaró’s translation is similarly informed by a particularly impersonalist view; in his translator’s introduction he references the neo-Vedantist Ramakrishna (1836–1886) to explain that “our little personality disappears . . . [b]ut if we wanted to retain our personality and adore a personal God, then we can imagine Him, and imagine ourselves as servants.” (Mascaró, xliv). ¹⁸

Prabhupada’s use of commentary and translation intentionally and explicitly bring the Vaishnava perspective into each and every verse. This can be seen, for instance, in Prabhupada’s treatment of the Gita’s second chapter, which he titles “Contents of the Gita Summarized.” Whereas other commentators and scholars tend to see “degree of progression” and a “difference in tone” in this chapter (and the whole Gita) Prabhupada’s “approach is that he reads the complete teaching of the book . . . into any passage.” (Baird 302).

One such passage is 2.41, ¹⁹ where Krishna contrasts the focused intelligence of the resolute with the distracted endeavors of the spiritually weak. For Prabhupada, the contrast is between the devotee and the non-devotee, between one who acts in Krishna consciousness and one who lacks faith in Krishna and thus attempts to serve one’s own senses, family, or nation through fruitive acts. To underscore this dichotomy, Prabhupada transliterates vyavasaya-atmika as “resolute in Krishna consciousness” and avyasayinam as “of those who are not in Krishna consciousness.” Oddly, in the translation the verse is less explicit in its Vaishnava slant, with the terms “resolute in purpose” and “the irresolute” standing in for “resolute in Krishna consciousness” and “those who are not in Krishna consciousness,” respectively. (Prabhupada 127). Still, if there is any doubt as to what Prabhupada opines Krishna is saying here, he removes it with his purport:

A strong faith that by Krishna consciousness one will be elevated to the highest perfection of life is called vyavasayatika intelligence. . . . The resolute purpose of a person in Krishna consciousness is based on knowledge. . . . a person in Krishna consciousness is the rare soul who knows perfectly well that Vasudeva, or Krishna, is the root of all manifested causes. (Prabhupada 127-128)

Prabhupada goes on in the purport to endorse placing one’s faith in Krishna and serving him rather than any other entity, analogizing this to watering the root of a tree and thereby automatically satisfying its various leaves and branches. (Prabhupada, 128). The purport goes on to suggest that to do this effectively, one must submit to the “able guidance of a spiritual master who is a bonafide representative of Krishna” and “accept the instruction of the spiritual master as one’s mission in life.” (Prabhupada 128)

Prabhavananda and Isherwood translate the passage as “directing the will toward one ideal,” and not allowing it to wander. (Prabhavananda, 89) Mascaró characterizes the “follower of this path” as having “one thought and this is the End” while the “man who lacks determination” has “endless thoughts.” (Mascaró, 13). Neither of these editions set faith in God in opposition to involvement in altruistic activities the way Prabhupada does, nor do either of these editions address the issue of taking guidance of a spiritual master here. ²⁰

Where does Prabhupada derive his interpretation? First, we should remember that Prabhupada is translating—culturally more than linguistically—the notion of resolute and irresolute for his Western target audience. Based on his premise that every verse of the Gita aims at aiding our loving surrender to Krishna, he presents definitions of these terms that can be directly identified and experienced. The analogy of watering the roots, for instance, attempts to help readers (many of whom, we should remember, are likely to be involved in social welfare and activism) appreciate that being “resolute in purpose” is not only achievable when we turn to Krishna, but that it can also automatically satisfy everyone else. In this way, Prabhupada as “mother” nurtures and guides his readers to a practical understanding of what it means to have an “aim that is one” from a Vaishnava point of view.

Moreover, as a “messenger” of the parampara, Prabhupada must present the siddhanta or philosophical conclusion of the disciplic succession, which ultimately finds its source in Krishna Himself. Since elsewhere in the Gita, Krishna demands exclusive, unadulterated surrender ²¹ Prabhupada may reasonably read “their aim is one” in this light. Here, Prabhupada does it in a general sense—interpreting the verse and commenting on it in a way that supports surrender and service to God as the highest teaching of Krishna—and in the particular sense of repeating what other teachers in the succession have said. In this verse we have a particularly salient example; in his purport, Prabhupada draws directly on the commentary of the Vaishnava scholar Vishvanath Chakravarti (1664–1754), who writes much about the meaning of this verse, and especially about the need to serve the instructions of a guru in parampara. ²²

In 2.61, Krishna describes how the yogi should control his senses and fix the self on Krishna (mat-para—“upon me”); this is significant for it is “the first instance in the Gita in which Krishna mentions himself” as the object of meditation. (Baird, 303). The significance is not at all lost on Prabhupada; he enthusiastically takes the opportunity to “unpack” mat-para and use it to demonstrate how it is “clearly explained” in this verse that “the highest conception of yoga perfection is Krishna consciousness.” (Prabhupada, 150). He cites a lengthy passage from the Bhagavata Purana, describing a laundry list of physical tasks that King Ambarish undertook to serve Krishna, and adds his own conclusion that “. . . all these qualifications made him fit to become a mat-para devotee of the Lord.” (Prabhupada, 151). He coins the phrase “mat-para devotee” and uses it as a short-hand for the wholly surrendered sadhaka, exemplified by Ambarish in the Bhagavata. As the zealous “mother” of the faith, he takes the idea of mat-para—meditating upon Krishna—and transforms it from a passive abstraction into an active, tangible reality. This verse also showcases Prabhupada’s transparency as a messenger, for it is one of the rare instances when Prabhupada explicitly reproduces an excerpt from the work of another commentator in the succession. Here, he cites Baladeva Vidyabhushana, ²³ who Prabhupada identifies as a mat-para devotee, as saying that “the senses can be controlled only by the strength of devotional service to Krishna.” (Prabhupada, 151). With this backing of the parampara, Prabhupada is emboldened to deliver the bad news to “so-called yogis who meditate on something which is not on the Visnu platform”—their efforts “simply waste their time in a vain search after some phantasmagoria.” On the other hand, the “aim of real yoga” is that “we have to be Krishna conscious.” (Prabhupada, 151).

Because Krishna specifies mat-para in 2.61, and because the parampara teachers confirm that the senses can only be controlled by practicing devotional service, Prabhupada reads the rest of the chapter in this way. In the purport to each of the following verses he underscores the same point: attempts to control the senses and steady the mind will only be successful if the senses are engaged in the service of the Lord (through the practice of bhakti, or devotional service). In accordance with this, he repeatedly translates buddhi as “devotional service” or “Krishna consciousness.” Remarkably, however, there is “no explicit reference to Krishna in verses 62 through 71” in the Sanskrit of the text. (Baird, 304).

Finally, in 2.72 (the last verse of the chapter) Krishna describes the destination of one who has controlled the senses and steadied the mind: brahma-nirvana. This Prabhupada translates as “the spiritual kingdom of Godhead,” using his purport to explain that although “[n]irvana means ending the process of material life” if one is engaged in Krishna consciousness, “he at once attains the stage of brahma-nirvana” and experiences “another life, after this materialistic life.” (Prabhupada, 161).

Prabhupada’s treatment of the second chapter may well serve as a representative sample of how he tackles the whole text. Not surprisingly, some question this approach, arguing that it represents a sort of “Fundamentalist Krishnaism.” (Herman, 139). In his critique of the book, Sharpe agrees, saying that it led to the emergence of a “species of Hindu fundamentalism, which some Western observers found almost as distasteful as its Evangelical Christian variant” and which was “prepared to treat the Gita precisely as the Christian revivalist world of a century earlier had treated the Bible, with no greater or lesser justification.” (Sharpe, 142; 146).

Others, however, such as Thomas Hopkins, see Prabhupada’s approach as “an ideal blend of literal accuracy and religious insight.” ²⁴ Edward Dimock also sees it as “an authentic interpretation within the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition” (Baird, 301) and J. Stillson Judah says that “Prabhupada has caught the deep devotional spirit of the Gita and has supplied the text with an elaborate commentary in the truly authentic tradition of Sri Krishna Caitanya . . .” Geddes MacGregor singles Prabhupada out as “profoundly sympathetic to the theme” of the Gita, and appreciates that he “brings to it, moreover, a special insight, a powerful and persuasive presentation in the bhakti tradition.”

B. Practice Makes Perfect

“If truth is what works, as Pierce and the pragmatists insist, there must be a kind of truth in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, since those who follow its teachings display a joyous serenity usually missing in the bleak and strident lives of contemporary people.”

—Dr. Elwin H. Powell, Professor of Sociology, SUNY

Special insights notwithstanding, Prabhupada’s “spirit over letter” approach to translation has, understandably, raised eyebrows. Herman describes Prabhupada’s approach as “torture by translation” and characterizes the results as “curious and oftentimes embarrassing discrepancies” when compared to other translations (Herman, 139). A popular, if not amusing, example of one such “discrepancy” is Prabhupada’s rendering of pavakah (literally “fire”) as “electricity” in Bhagavad Gita 15.6. (Prabhupada, 718). Here, Krishna is describing “that paramount abode of mine” (tat dhama paramam mama), which is so self-illumined that neither sun, moon, nor fire is needed to do the job. Here, Prabhupada’s “electricity” may make the Sanskrit purist queasy, but it serves to get across Krishna’s message—and arguably does so in a more contemporary and engaging way than a literal translation could. And this, for Prabhupada, is very much the point. He wants to convince the reader of today that Krishna’s abode is a transcendental reality, that it is superior to the world of electric lights and power grids that she currently resides in, and that by practicing Krishna consciousness she can actually go there. ²⁵ Thus, he candidly tells the reader:

One should be captivated by this information. He should desire to transfer himself to that eternal world and extricate himself from this false reflection of reality. . . . [I]f he takes to Krishna consciousness there is a chance of gradually becoming detached. One has to associate himself with devotees, those who are in Krishna consciousness. One should search out a society dedicated to Krishna consciousness and learn how to discharge devotional service. (Prabhupada, 719).

This emphasis on practice was one of the reasons that Prabhupada was “most anxious to complete Bhagavad Gita As It Is” for it was “to be the Bible of the Krishna consciousness movement,” without which “we would be in a ship adrift without charts or compass.” (Wheeler, 200-201). The Gita was intended to inspire action; Wheeler remembers one lively exchange illustrating Prabhupada’s disdain for speculative discussion at the expense of practice:

“Do something!” Prabhupada shouts so loudly that we all jump. “Whether you follow Christ or Buddha or Krishna, it doesn't matter! Don’t just sit and talk! But this is your problem. You don’t do anything. You talk much. Just do something and do it perfectly.”

As always, Prabhupada hits the mark. This is indeed our dilemma: to do, or not to do. Inactivity, the bane of armchair speculators. (Wheeler, 274).

To combat this dilemma, Prabhupada flouts convention and translates bhakti as “devotional service,” implying that along with the sentiments of the heart, there must be action. Not just devotion, or love—but devotional service. By contrast, both the Prabhavananda/Isherwood and Mascaró editions translate bhakti as simply “love,” which, of course, is more conventional. ²⁶

This difference goes beyond semantics; for Prabhupada, an imprecise or ambiguous notion of “loving Krishna” is insufficient. Rather, in his translation of 18.55 he has Krishna emphatically declaring: “One can understand Me, as I am, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, only by devotional service.” ²⁷ (Prabhupada, 839). In his purport to this verse, Prabhupada underscores the distinction between devotional service (i.e., acting for the satisfaction of God) and the inactivity of “armchair speculators,” saying that Krishna “cannot be understood by mental speculation” rather requires one to “take to pure devotional service under the guidance of a pure devotee.” (Prabhupada, 839).

In addition to accepting the guidance of the guru and “searching out a society dedicated to Krishna consciousness,” which we have already seen, Prabhupada advises readers to adopt one key Vaishnava practice above all others: the chanting of God’s names, especially the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. The Gita itself arguably presents only two verses that reference chanting directly. In 9.14, Krishna describes one who “perpetually glorifies or praises me” (satatam kirtayanto mam); his use of the word kirtayanto (as in kirtan) evokes chanting those glories rather than merely thinking or speaking them. As such, Prabhupada translates this phrase as “Always chanting My glories . . .” (Prabhupada, 474). The second reference occurs in 10.25; this is a section where Krishna is identifying himself as various superlatives in this world. He says that “of sacrifices, the sacrifice of japa I am” (yajnanam japa-yajno ’smi). Prabhupada renders japa into the English as “chanting of the holy names”; although japa refers to the general act of chanting the name of God, in the purport Prabhupada specifies the chanting of Hare Krishna as the “simplest and purest” sacrifice in this age. (Prabupada, 537).

He also takes several opportunities to commend the maha-mantra to readers—particularly when discussing controlling the mind by meditative practice and remembering Krishna in life and at the time of death. He bases these on the two references in the Gita discussed above, and also offers extrinsic support from other traditional literatures and the authority of Sri Chaitanya. ²⁸ One particularly surprising reference to chanting appears when the Gita mentions Raja-yoga. Krishna outlines the eightfold yogic path in the sixth chapter, and in a famous couplet (6.11-12), he describes how one should practice it. Instructions include going to a secluded place, selecting the best seat of deerskin, and fixing the mind on a singular object of meditation. Prabhupada’s purport takes an entirely different tack, however. Although he acknowledges that this was (and perhaps is) possible in India, it is impractical “especially for Westerners” in this age. ²⁹ Instead, therefore, Prabhupada recommends the chanting of Hare Krishna to achieve spiritual realization. (Prabhupada, 320). As authority, he cites a famous Brihan Naradiya Purana verse, which proclaims that the chanting of the “Holy Name” (harer nama) is the only way (eva kevalam), repeating three times that there is no other alternative in the modern age (nastyeva gatir anyatha). (Prabhupada, 320). Remarkably, “although nowhere in [this] text of Bhagavad Gita is there any explicit mention of chanting the maha-mantra” Prabhupada “cancels” the verse’s own recommendation and gives chanting Hare Krishna as the “only means of adequately concentrating the mind on the Lord.” (Baird, 305-306).

In 6.34 Arjuna protests to Krishna that the mind is more difficult to control than the wind; In 6.35 Krishna agrees, but tells Arjuna that it can be done by practice (abhyasena) and detachment (vairagyena). In his purports, Prabhupada recommends chanting Hare Krishna as the “easiest way of controlling the mind,” and this time cites Chaitanya as an authority. (Prabhupada, 345). Likewise, Prabhupada defines “practice” in 6.35 as being the “nine types of devotional service unto the Lord” that is headed by hearing about Krishna and chanting his name and glories. (Prabhupada, 346).

Whenever the verse advises a certain course of action, Prabhupada is interested in prescribing the action in a way that his readers can actually execute it. ³⁰ And for Prabhupada—coming in the line of Chaitanya as he does—chanting the maha-mantra is not only easily performed but is also the exclusive dharma to be performed in this age, and any other recommended practice can be legitimately superceded by it.

Nowhere is Prabhupada’s emphasis on practice more apparent than in the eighth chapter. In a series of verses beginning with 8.5, Krishna elucidates the means by which one may remember him at the time of death and thereby come to him. The verses recommend remembrance or fixed thought (smarana) on Krishna; Prabhupada clarifies that such remembrance at death depends on the “practice [of] Krishna consciousness from the very beginning of life” and specifies chanting as the essence of that practice (Prabhupada, 419). He dedicates more than half of the chapter to this theme; in consecutive purports to fifteen of the chapter’s verses (8.5 to 8.19), he directly references chanting of the maha-mantra no less than nine times. Remarkably, he enunciates the entire sixteen-word mantra—Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare; Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare—at least six times in this section. ³¹

This is significant, in that it marks Prabhupada going beyond merely prescribing Vaishnava practice; by spelling out the mantra, he engages readers in that practice in “real time.” Vaishnavas have long regarded a connection between writing and chanting, as well as reading and hearing. ³² By reading along to the words of the maha-mantra, the audience is thus being automatically engaged in the “first and foremost of . . . devotional engagements.” (Prabhupada, 346).

Prabhupada’s emphasis on chanting, culminating in this interactive involvement of his readers, is based on both a fidelity to those in the parampara, as well as a unique desire to build bridges to the West on their behalf. To Prabhupada, if what Krishna instructs is important to communicate, then equally important (if not more so) is how a Westerner can turn Krishna’s words into action. This, for Prabhupada, is critical because—quite unlike any translators of competing editions of his day—Prabhupada defined his success not merely by numbers of copies sold or accolades received from the academic community, but by the continuation of the parampara. Lest this immigrant parent’s “labor . . . be fruitless,” ³³ Prabhupada had to ensure that his progeny would grow old enough to keep the “family line” alive; for he knew that “his spiritual culture would be established only when his successors could perpetuate it from generation to generation.” (Deadwyler, 113).

C. It Gets Personal

“Obeisance to you, servant of Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati. You broadcast the message of Sri Chaitanya, thereby saving the Western countries from impersonalism and voidism.” ³⁴

—Prabhupada pranati mantra

If Prabhupada’s “radical” plan to welcome Westerners into the parampara was to be successful, he realized that his means would have to be just as radical. If the Americans were to accept Krishna consciousness, an impersonal arms-length relationship would not be enough. Prabhupada saw that they would have to meet Krishna, engage with him, and ultimately, fall in love with him. And before they could do that, Prabhupada had to chip away at the challenges—theological and cultural—that stood in the way.

First, Prabhupada attempted to “universalize the appeal” of the Gita by intentionally eschewing over-identification with Hinduism, or even Indian ethnicity. (Robinson, 121) While acknowledging that “ISKCON had Vedic roots” —especially in relation to Chaitanya and the parampara—Prabhupada tended to “not equate Sanatana Dharma, ‘the eternal religion,’ either with Hinduism in particular or with religion in general.” (Robinson, 124). Dharma was natural and changeless, he assured the mainly non-Indian students he attracted, whereas religion could be chosen, changed, or abandoned. (Robinson, 125). As such, he “focused on being ‘a lover of God’” and encouraged anyone interested to accept Vaishnava practices while treating “religious affiliation as comparatively trivial.” (Robinson, 125) ³⁵ Wheeler recalls this presentation of a “universal Gita” in one of Prabhupada’s earliest lectures in the West. According to Wheeler, Prabhupada said:

“This Bhagavad Gita was first heard on the Indian plain, at Kurukshetra, but this does not mean that it was spoken only for India, or that it is Indian. No. It is for everyone. The sun first rises in the east, then goes to the west. This is not to say that the east has a monopoly on the sun. Bhagavad Gita may have arisen in the land of India, but it is not India’s monopoly. It is for the whole world.” (Wheeler, 13).

Secondly, by utilizing celebrity voices to introduce the first edition of the Gita, Prabhupada was able to garner acceptance and “street credibility” for Krishna. Recognizing “the value of what the advertising world calls ‘endorsements’” Prabhupada and his editors were able to lean on the influence of some of the leading figures of the counter-culture. (Sharpe, 142). Significantly, the three people who were chosen to introduce Bhagavad Gita As It Is—Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, and Father Thomas Merton—were all popular figures, with appeal beyond religious circles or the halls of academia.

Allen Ginsberg, “already known as the archetypical poet of the counter-culture” had begun publicly chanting Hare Krishna even before his introduction to Prabhupada and his followers. (Sharpe, 143). Writing in the “stream of impressions” style that he was known for, Ginsberg praised the chanting of Hare Krishna as a “universal pleasure” and the movement and book that supported it as authentic “perfectly preserved” glimpses into a mystical piece of India. (Sharpe, 143). With his reputation as a progressive and outspoken visionary, we can well imagine that Ginsberg’s appreciation helped to open more than a few young counter-culture minds to the possibility that God was “an ever-youthful cowherd boy . . . [a] far cry from the vengeful, white-bearded Jehovah.” (Wheeler, 11).

For her part, poet Denise Levertov was more reserved than Ginsberg, sharing her cautious appreciation that “the study of the Gita might be valuable, at least to judge from ‘the changed lives of those who do study it.’” (Sharpe, 143). Still, Levertov’s emphasis on the practical application of the Gita made an important point (and one that Prabhupada had been especially eager to get across): the book is meant to be lived and not simply read.

Father Merton, “bent on” engaging in the type of inter-religious exchanges encouraged by Vatican II, wrote a prefatory essay ³⁶ appreciating Prabhupada’s Gita as a “manifestation of the permanent living importance of the Gita.” (Merton, 349). Merton also used the opportunity to discuss the personal worship of Krishna and “welcomed Krishna consciousness as an antidote to ‘an affirmation of our own individual self as ultimate and supreme.’” (Sharpe, 143) Perhaps most importantly, Merton raised a concern—shared, no doubt, by the majority of Prabhupada’s readers—that the Gita justified war. To this, Merton offered his personal reassurance: “The Gita does not justify war, nor does it propound a war-making mystique,” he wrote, adding that Krishna simply chose the battlefield to underscore that “even in what appears to be the most ‘unspiritual’ one can act with pure intentions and thus be guided by Krishna consciousness.” ³⁷ (Merton, 351)

These three endorsements—given by three gatekeepers of the counter-culture—served to legitimize and authenticate Prabhupada’s Gita to an otherwise estranged audience. ³⁸ By allowing intermediaries to “break the ice” for Krishna, Prabhupada was able to be sensitive to the needs of his audience without compromising his own adherence to the values of the disciplic succession. ³⁹

A third way by which Prabhupada was able to engage his readers with the personality of Krishna, was to contrast personal worship with the impersonalism of other paths. ⁴⁰ To do this, Prabhupada would first have to establish Krishna as the ultimate and unequaled manifestation of divinity. This he does in 2.2, to mark the first time “sri bhagavan uvacha” appears in the text. Here, he translates “Bhagavan” as “the Supreme Personality of Godhead,” the personal conception of the Absolute Truth, i.e., Krishna. (Prabhupada, 75). The devotees who have realized Krishna, the personal feature of the Absolute, are “the topmost transcendentalists.” But seekers on other paths, such as those pursuing Brahman or Paramatma—the impersonal Absolute and the all-pervasive “Lord in the Heart,” respectively—might also, in due course, achive the ultimate destination. (Prabhupada, 75).

Despite their good intentions, however, those who would regard the supreme as formless are attacked “with regularity and vigor” throughout Prabhupada’s Gita (Baird, 309). Because worshippers of the formless Absolute—whom Prabhupada calls impersonalists or mayavadis—do not engage in devotional service, but rather “in simple Brahman speculation,” they “do not know the ultimate truth.” (Baird, 311).

Prabhupada consistently acknowledges that the impersonalists “also ultimately achieve the same goal, Sri Krishna,” but “for the common man, this method of impersonal realization is very difficult.” (Prabhupada, 615). By contrast, “the path of bhakti-yoga, devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is easier and is natural for the embodied soul.” (Prabhupada, 616). Again, Prabhupada cautions the reader that, although impersonal meditation is a legitimate path to God, “one should not take up this process.” (Prabhupada, 618). Why? Prabhupada argues that since we are individuals and are naturally attracted to relationship, attempting to meditate on the formless aspect of God “is against the nature of [one’s] spiritual blissful self.” (Prabhupada, 618). Furthermore, since impersonal meditation has the practitioner negate the pull of the senses without personal engagement with a personal deity, “there is the danger of turning to atheism” (Prabhupada, 618). Prabhupada practically pleads with the would-be practitioner to steer clear of such a dangerous approach to spirituality, saying that it “should never be encouraged at any time, especially in this age.” (Prabhupada, 618). On the other hand, devotional service is “the highest perfection of life” and Prabhupada invites readers, “let everyone take shelter of the supreme omnipotent Godhead, Krishna.” (Prabhupada, 621).

Although followers of the advaita and dvaita schools have been at loggerheads for centuries in India, it is the impersonal leaning of Westerners that seemed to most concern Prabhupada. Wheeler offers another insightful memory, this time of an incident in which Prabhupada taught his young followers a lesson about who the impersonalists actually were:

“But he’s right,” Wally says. “All the commentators try to avoid Krishna. You’ve read Bhagavad Gita before. Until meeting Swamiji [Prabhupada] did you ever think of worshipping Krishna?”

I have to admit that it never crossed my mind.

Thus we discover that we are also Mayavadi impersonalists. Addicted to inactivity and hedonism, we know nothing of spiritual personality and action. Swamiji has to shout loud indeed to make us understand that God is a person and that action for His sake is on the spiritual platform. (Wheeler, 51).

Finally, Prabhupada chose an inspired method of attracting others to Krishna’s personality: he drew them a picture. Or, to be more accurate, he instructed the artists among his following to create paintings to supplement the text of the Gita. These paintings, excluded from the first Macmillan edition for space, but included as color plates in subsequent editions of the book, gave a discernible “face” to Krishna, one that was passed down in parampara, with generations of pious artists capturing the details of scripture. Opinions of the actual artwork vary. One critic was clearly unimpressed, branding it no more than “popular bazaar-type religious art.” (Sharpe, 146). On the other hand, R. C. Dogra of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, hails the “most beautiful illustrations, which are in themselves commentary on the text.” ⁴¹

Since art is by nature highly subjective, such varying opinions should not come as a surprise. The significance of the inclusion of the artwork is, however, difficult to overestimate. The colorful illustrations, especially the distinctive depiction of Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot used for the cover, quickly became the definitive visual representations of the Gita in general, even beyond the ISKCON sphere. George Harrison, a student of the Gita and an informal devotee of Krishna, included a copy of the famous chariot painting as an insert in his album “Living in the Material World,” bringing Krishna and Arjuna to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. ⁴² In 1988, Bollywood filmmaker B. R. Chopra obtained permission to use the illustrations as part of a montage during the opening credits of his immensely popular Mahabharat miniseries. ⁴³ As the Hindu diaspora continues to grow, the artwork continues to find new audiences, and it is commonplace to find reproductions of the paintings (many of them larger than life) adorning the walls of temples and Hindu households.

Conclusion

“I am successful only because I am following strictly the orders of my Guru Maharaja, and I do not deviate. Therefore people respect what I am saying and they listen because I do not say one thing and do another. So now you are doing my work and you shall be like me and be yourselves the worthy representatives of our disciplic succession.”

—Prabhupada, letter to Madhudvisha, June 16, 1972

“If personally I have any credit in this matter,” Prabhupada writes in the Preface to the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, “it is only that I have tried to present Bhagavad Gita as it is, without any adulteration.” (Prabhupada, xviii). And yet behind this seemingly simple claim, are more than eight hundred pages of stimulating, exhausting, and perhaps inconceivable complexity. For, as much as Prabhupada simply wanted to present Krishna’s song as it is, he is credited in great measure—and criticized in equal amount—for trying to do just that.

In examining the roles that Prabhupada played (and why he played them), we have shed some light on what drove his interpretative choices while authoring the Bhagavad Gita As It Is. We have seen that, although Prabhupada approached the Gita in ways that were radically different from—and at times in opposition to—the academic paradigm of his day, he did so intentionally, consistently, and in keeping with his own hermeneutical principles. To Prabhupada, his Gita was the only English edition that was presenting Krishna’s message as it is, because it belonged entirely to Krishna, directly and through the agency of parampara. In his view, his own interpretation was, strictly speaking, neither an interpretation, nor his own; it was simply an offering to Krishna on behalf of his sacred lineage. And anything he did to share Krishna and his song with the Western world—whether faithful to orthodoxy or wildly innovative, whether as resourceful mother or chaste messenger—was merely in furtherance of that offering.

In the almost forty years that the American-born Bhagavad Gita As It Is has grown up, not entirely unaware of the baggage that comes with its name, the world has grown up alongside it. Prabhupada’s once fledgling society is now a veritable institution, having grown from a few rented storefronts and a handful of counter-culture refugees into a worldwide confederation of more than 400 temples and over one million practitioners. Youthful seekers who were introduced to Krishna by Prabhupada’s Gita less than four decades ago, are now teachers of it; they endeavor to imbibe Prabhupada’s characteristic blend of fidelity and flexibility in their own explanations of Vaishnava teaching. And while the names of some of them have been officially added to the list of parampara messengers, all of them labor to live up to the lofty expectations of their master.

Now an adult, Prabhupada’s Gita has sired progeny of its own. Some of these, like Swami B.V. Tripurari’s Bhagavad Gita: Its Feeling and Philosophy (San Rafael, CA: Mandala Publishing Group, 2001) ⁴⁴ and Ranchor Prime’s The Illustrated Bhagavad Gita: a New Translation with Commentary (London: Barron’s Educational Services, 2003), follow Prabhupada’s interpretations closely, adopting his principles as their own, building from his work as a foundation to share Krishna’s song in new tunes, while still showing deference to the parampara. ⁴⁵

Others, like Graham Schweig’s Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord’s Secret Love Song (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2007), are the work of scholars but undeniably owe a debt of gratitude to Prabhupada’s version. They operate within the academic framework, yet they are profoundly and unapologetically sympathetic to the authentic devotional insights of the practitioner. Although it is early to say definitively, these “grandchildren” texts may well serve as conduits, bridging what was once thought to have been the “unbridgeable gulf” between Prabhupada’s presentation and the world of the scholar (Baird, 301).

Endnotes

1. For more on how the Immigration Act of 1965 impacted Prabhupada’s mission, see Rosen, “1965 Was a Very Good Year.” (See bibliography)

2. In an essay on Prabhupada’s hermeneutics, ISKCON scholar William Deadwyler (Ravindra Svarupa) calls Prabhupada’s claim that his edition was the Gita as it is “utterly incredible to modern historical consciousness.” (Deadwyler, 110).

3. Some disagree that the Bhagavad Gita As It Is is, in fact, Western at all. Eric Sharpe says it exhibits “an almost aggressive Indianness” and “made no concessions to the West, other than the use of English.” (Sharpe, 141-142).

4. He mentions this significant theft in a series of letters to disciples. He was robbed again—this time of his cassette player and tape recorder, among other incidentals—when he temporarily stayed on the Upper Westside of New York, shortly after his arrival in the West. This latter burglary is mentioned in a diary he kept at the time, which has since been published by the Bhaktivedanta Archives as The Beginning: The 1966 New York Journal of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1996).

5. For the full history of Prabhupada’s Macmillan connection, see Satyaraja Dasa, “The Macmillan Miracle,” Back to Godhead magazine, forthcoming (2008).

6. Prabhupada had, by this time, started engaging his artist disciples in creating paintings that could be used to beautify his centers and as illustrations for his publications.

7. Quoted in Wheeler, 272.

8. For more on the way Vrindavan residents view Prabhupada and his disciples, see Charles R. Brooks, The Hare Krishnas in India (Princeton University Press, 1989).

9. See the Hanuman Chalisa of Vaishnava poet saint Tulasidas: ramaduta atulita bala dhama, anjani-putra pavana suta nama.

10. See A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srimad Bahagavatam, Canto 6; Chapter 2 (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1982).

11. See Jan Brzezenski, Mystic Poetry: Rupa Gosvami's Uddhava-sandesa and Hamsaduta (San Rafael, California: Mandala Publishing Group, 1999).

12. Interestingly, in 1965 the Scindia Steam Navigation Company boasted a fleet of over 50 ships, all named with the prefix Jala- (“of the sea”)—including “Jalakrishna,” “Jalagovind,” and “Jalagopal.” The fact that Prabhupada traveled on the Jaladuta is thus seen as especially prophetic of his particular mission as a messenger.

13. For this section, especially, I am indebted to Robert D. Baird’s insightful analysis in his “Swami Bhaktivedanta and the Bhagavadgita ‘As It Is’” in Robert D. Baird, Essays in the History of Religions (New York: Peter Lang, 1991). I hope that my own exploration of many of the same examples Baird uses will not be repetitive, but rather will build upon his work to shed new light on Prabhupada’s approach to the Gita.

14. Prabhupada told the story during a lecture in Los Angeles, on May 21, 1972. His telling is recounted in Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami, Prabhupada Nectar (Port Royal, Pennsylvania: Gita Nagari Press, 1990).

15. Herman describes Prabhupada as taking “obvious karma yoga and bhakti yoga passages [sic] . . . and tortur[ing] them a bit either by translation or interpretation in order to get them to come out as bhakti passages.” (Herman,139).

16. Thus the text repeatedly characterizes this knowledge as guhyam, secret or concealed. For an excellent exposition on this theme of secrecy, see Graham M. Schweig, Bhagavad Gita: The Beloved Lord’s Secret Love Song (San Francisco: Harper, 2007).

17. Since Prabhavananda and Isherwood also draw on previous commentaries and also represent an evangelical brand of Hinduism come West, it would be interesting to compare the efficacy of their approach to that of Prabhupada in connecting non-Indians with the Gita. Such a detailed comparison is, however, beyond the scope of this paper.

18. As a Vaishnava, Prabhupada would find such a view—which implies that the individuality of the soul and God is an illusion or, as here something that “we can imagine”—to be anathema, to say the least.

19. For ISKCON this is a key verse, and it is often cited by the movement’s members. The verse’s popularity may partly owe to an ISKCON legend, difficult to verify, that Prabhupada specifically meditated on this verse while preparing for his journey West.

20. Indeed, under the influence of Swami Vivekananda, the Ramakrishna Mission came to represent just the type of “service to man, is service to God” ethos that Prabhupada is critical of in this verse and in others like it.

21. For instance, in 18.66, Krishna exhorts Arjuna: mam ekam saranam vraja, or “To Me only should you go for shelter.”

22. Vishvanath is listed as twenty-seventh in the enumerated parampara given in the front of the book. His commentary on the Gita was one of several Vaishnava texts that Prabhupada consulted while writing his own treatment of the work.

23. The leading student of Vishvanath, Baladeva is listed as twenty-eighth from Krishna in the succession. Prabhupada also used his Gita commentary, and dedicates the Bhagavad Gita As It Is to him in appreciation of his exemplary commentary on Vedanta Sutra.

24. This quote and the others that follow in this paragraph, unless otherwise noted, are taken from reviews of Prabhupada’s Gita, furnished by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. The quotes are included as front matter, on un-numbered pages, in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is.

25. One contemporary translator who took issue with Prabhupada’s use of “electricity” was Kees Bolle. See his The Bhagavadgita: A New Translation (University of California Press, 1979), 233.

26. Mascaró particularly focuses on the idea of Love (bhakti) as a concept in his translator’s introduction, contrasting it with Light (jnana) and Life (karma).

27. Mascaró’s translation reads “By love he knows me in truth” (Mascaró, 84) and Prabhavananda’s is “To know is to love me . . .”

28. In a fascinating correspondence between Prabhupada and Professor J. F. Staal (the University of California, Berkley), Prabhupada argues that the Bhagavad Gita supports and encourages the chanting of Hare Krishna, using these same authorities. The discussion is excerpted as an essay entitled “Krishna Consciousness is the Genuine Vedic Way” in A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, The Science of Self Realization (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1978).

29. Prabhupada’s specifying Westerners is especially significant, in that it sheds light on his thought process. Clearly, he was concerned that his non-Indian audience not become discouraged by a process that seemed overly exotic, difficult, or impractical.

30. Because it would be impractical for readers in the West to seek out secluded mountain caves and deerskins, he dismisses this as a practice for a different time and place.

31. In the purport to 8.5, Prabhupada spells out the entire maha-mantra twice.

32. “They are in the actual service of the Lord, specifically by the process of hearing and chanting. The pure devotees hear from the authorities and chant, sing and write of the glories of the Lord. Mahamuni Vyasadeva heard from Narada, and then he chanted in writing . . .” (Bhag. 1.13.10) A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Srimad Bhagavatam (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1989).

33. Considering the great struggle Prabhupada endured, briefly described in Part I, here “labor” is intended as a double entendre.

34. namaste sarasvate deve, gauravani pracharine, nirvishesha sunyavadi paschatya desha tarine. The particular translation is mine.

35. The extent to which Prabhupada did and did not affiliate Vaishnavism with the broader Hindu tradition has been the cause of spirited and intriguing discussion among devotees and scholars. While such a discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to point out that there were also several instances when Prabhupada chose to self-identify ISKCON as within the Hindu fold.

36. Merton’s essay, entitled, “The Significance of the Bhagavad Gita,” was also published as part of his collected writings. See Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1975).

37. Whether or not Merton’s explanation provides a satisfying Vaishnava response to the challenges of a pacifist, it likely served to allay the fears of a generation in the midst of the polarizing Vietnam War. For more nuanced perspectives on the Gita and war, see Steven J. Rosen, ed., Holy War: Violence and the Bhagavad Gita (Hampton, Virginia: Deepak Heritage Books, 2002).

38. According to Brahmananda Dasa (Bruce Scharf), who helped to line up the endorsements, Alan Watts was also approached but he refused because he found Prabhupada's Vaishnava viewpoint too restrictive.

39. Curiously, subsequent editions of the book did not carry these (or any) full-essay endorsements, instead including only short “sound-byte” style appreciations from scholars. Those currently involved in publishing Prabhupada’s books seem uninterested in obtaining outsider endorsements. This is especially surprising in the contemporary context, considering the number of possible endorsers available in a world that is more familiar with ISKCON, Krishna, and Vaishnava or Hindu culture generally. One might argue that this reflects the shift ISKCON has made towards being a more established, conservative, and therefore less innovative institution.

40. For an excellent argument that the Gita does, in fact, favor a personal conception of God, see Howard J. Resnick, “Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita: A Beginning Ontology from the Gaudiya Perspective,” Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Volume 3, Number 2 (Spring 1995). Also see Steven J. Rosen’s “Nothing Personal, Part 1: The Gita’s Refutation of Advaita Vedanta” in Krishna’s Song: A New Look at the Bhagavad Gita (Westport, CT.: Praeger, 2007).

41. This statement appears, along with others, in a list of appreciations by scholars included as an appendix to a recent edition of the Bhagavad Gita As It Is.

42. For more on George Harrison’s relationship with Vaishnavism, see Joshua M. Greene, Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2006).

43. The popularity of the Mahabharata serial in India was astounding. The series, released on DVD with English subtitles, has also proven popular with second-generation Indian Americans.

44. For a review of Swami Tripurari’s edition, see Arvind Sharma, “Book Review: Swami B. V. Tripurari, The Bhagavad Gita: Its Feeling and Philosophy” in Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Volume 13, Number 2 (Spring, 2005). Sharma says that what separates Tripurari’s edition from Prabhupada’s, is that the disciple’s work is “more academic than homiletic in nature.”

45. Other significant studies of the Gita that can be counted, in some way, as Prabhupada’s offspring: Bhurijana Dasa, “Surrender Unto Me”: An Overview of the Bhagavad Gita (Vrindavan, India: VIHE Publications, 1997); Jean Griesser, God’s Song (Fremont, California: Jain Publishing Company, 1999); and Carl E. Woodham, Bhagavad Gita: The Song Divine (Badger, California: Torchlight Publishing, 2000). There are others as well.

Select Bibliography

Baird, Robert D. “Swami Bhaktivedanta and the Bhagavadgita As It Is” in Robert D. Baird, Essays in the History of Religions (New York: Peter Lang, 1991).

Deadwyler, William H. “Bringing the Lord’s Song to a Strange Land: Srila Prabhupada’s Startegy of ‘Cultural Conquest’ and its Prospects” in Graham Dwyer and Ricahrd J. Cole (eds.), The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change (London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 2007).

Herman, A. L. A Brief Introduction in Hinduism (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1991).

Mascaró, Juan. The Bhagavad Gita (London: Penguin Books, 1962).

Merton, Thomas. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1975).

Prabhavananda, Swami and Isherwood, Christopher. Bhagavad-Gita—The Song of God (New York: Signet Classic, 2002).

Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. Bhagavad-Gita As It Is (Los Angles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1986).

Robinson, Catherine A. Interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gita and Images of the Hindu Tradition (London: Routledge, 2006).

Rosen, Steven J. “1965 was a Very Good Year and 2005 is Better Still” in Graham Dwyer and Ricahrd J. Cole (eds.), The Hare Krishna Movement: Forty Years of Chant and Change (London: I. B. Tauris & Co., 2007).

Sharpe, Eric J. The Universal Gita (La Salle, IL.: Open Court Publishing, 1985).

Wheeler, Howard. The Hare Krishna Explosion (Wheeling, West Virginia: Palace Press, 1985).