To begin this conference, I first offer my humble and respectful obeisances to my beloved spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder-acarya of ISKCON and author of Bhagavad-gita As It Is.

I next offer my respectful obeisances to all the previous acaryas in the disciplic succession through which this book has been received.

I offer my respectful obeisances to Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura, who composed and published a rendering of Bhagavad-gita into Bengali that Srila Prabhupada surely consulted.

I offer my respectful obeisances unto Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana, the author of the Gita Bhusana commentary. It is to him that Srila Prabhupada dedicates Bhagavad-gita As It Is, and Srila Prabhupada mentions his comments several times in the text.

I offer my respectful obeisances to Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, author of the Sarartha Varsani Gita commentary. Srila Prabhupada has told us that a comment, in this book, about following the orders of the spiritual master guided Srila Prabhupada in his own life.

Next I offer my respects to the original editors of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. As I have written elsewhere, “the editors of the first edition are to be praised. They did a fine job of making a tough manuscript ready to print.”

My respectful obeisances, also, to all the devotees involved in publishing and distributing Bhagavad-gita As It Is in many different languages of the world.

I offer my respectful obeisances to all who read and study Bhagavad-gita As It Is. As stated in Bhagavad-gita itself, they worship Lord Krsna by their intelligence.

And finally I offer my obeisances to the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the original speaker of Bhagavad-gita.

By the grace of Lord Sri Krsna and His devotees, may we all gain a deeper and clearer understanding of Bhagavad-gita As It Is.

Hare Krsna.

Jayadvaita Swami

In this conference, I shall present and discuss some of the more interesting, instructive, and controversial revisions made for the Second Edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is.

Unlike comparisons published elsewhere, these discussions will include comparisons to the original unpublished manuscripts. (You can expect to see, as in Krsna’s universal form, “many wonderful things which no one has ever seen or heard of before.”)

A few words of explanation:

“Original manuscripts” means different things, according to different Gita chapters. For the first five or six chapters, it refers to original manuscripts apparently typed by Srila Prabhupada himself. For the middle six chapters, it refers to the original transcriptions of his tapes. And for the last chapters it refers to the old retyped manuscripts from which the 1972 Macmillan edition was produced. In all cases, “original manuscripts” means the oldest and most reliable manuscripts in the BBT files.

The “retyped manuscripts” for the last six chapters were copied from original transcriptions on which much editing had already been done. The typist followed the edited version, adding what the editor had added and deleting what he had deleted. Sometime before 1972, the original transcriptions themselves were apparently lost. (This loss is why the revisions in the last six chapters of the Second Edition are particularly light.)

The text of the manuscripts for all eighteen chapters has been converted into digital form, and for convenience while traveling I am relying on the digital version. If this results in any significant errors that later come to my attention, I shall report them.

Thank you. Hare Krsna.

The old version is simply wrong.

The new version more closely follows the meaning of both the original manuscript and the Sanskrit.

The shark may be a dangerous fish, but the locution “of the Ramayana” at once alerted me that something else fishy was going on. Is Lord Ramacandra a character from a book, like Alice “of Alice in Wonderland”? Sure enough, in the original manuscript the text about Lord Ramacandra doesn’t appear; it seems to have been added by the editor.

For certain, the editor of the First Edition was trying to be helpful. But sometimes we are better off without help. The word rama may of course refer to Lord Ramacandra—or to Balarama, or even to Krsna Himself. Nonetheless, our sampradaya acaryas comment here that rama refers to—whom? Lord Parasurama.

According to a message I received not long ago from a correspondent in Bangalore, some devotees there were pointing to this revision as evidence that Bhagavad-gita As It Is is not really “as it is.” The critics pointed out that the original 1972 edition did not contain the sentence about the inability to progress by independent study of books. The sentence had been added by the GBC (so the critics charged) to support a guru system never desired by Srila Prabhupada.

I take such criticism as a sign that restoring this sentence from Srila Prabhupada’s manuscript was worth doing.

By the way: How did the missing portion go missing? Here’s a guess. Suppose the original editor did the text this way: “Therefore, mental speculation or dry arguments cannot HELP lead one to the right path. Nor can independent study of books of knowledge HELP one progress in spiritual life.” [capitals supplied] If you jump from the first HELP to the second, leaving out everything between—a very common sort of typist’s error—you get precisely what was published in the First Edition.

The First Edition was typeset on a now-extinct “IBM Composer” on which each typeset line had to be typed twice, making this sort of error even more likely. When you notice that in the First Edition the word HELP comes at the end of a line, you can figure that you’ve pretty well solved the case: The typesetting person left out one complete line. The Second Edition restores it.

This fix illustrates the sort of work done for the Second Edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is. And the response to it illustrates how an over-suspicious mind and a hyperactive imagination can turn a typist’s error into an international conspiracy.

The old version means roughly the opposite of what Srila Prabhupada (and Lord Krsna) said.

A line of Sanskrit has been left untranslated:

nihatya dhartarastra nah
ka pritih syaj janardana

It’s there in the Sanskrit and in Srila Prabhupada’s word for word. The omission clearly appears unintended. (And it’s the sort of omission that scholars and professors notice.) Supplying such missing lines was routine work for the BBT Sanskrit editors on all of Srila Prabhupada’s later books, a standard set by Pradyumna Dasa and appreciated by Srila Prabhupada. Here the supplied translation derives directly from Srila Prabhupada’s word-for-word meanings.

What we find in the First Edition is philosophically all right. What we find in the Second Edition is what Srila Prabhupada said.

This revision is hardly worth mentioning. I bring it up only because some critics have cited it, seemingly as evidence that the Second Edition whittles away the importance of the spiritual master. As you can see, what the Second Edition actually does here is restores Srila Prabhupada’s words.

Botanists classify the banyan tree as a species of fig. People in India, however, do not worship fig trees in general; they worship the banyan.

Though the banyan is “the holy fig tree” and tulasi is “the holy basil,” people worship the banyan tree and the tulasi plant, not figs and basils.

Clearly, “beginning tree,” “brilliant tree,” and “Indian tree” are all mis-transcriptions of “banyan tree.”

See also Bhagavad-gita 15.1, which speaks of a banyan (not fig) tree with its roots up and branches down.

More about 10.26 in our next message.

No big deal here, but “sage among the demigods” was Srila Prabhupada’s standard translation.

“Perpetually living entities”? All living entities are perpetually living. The Gita text here is siddhanam kapilo munih: “Among the perfect [Srila Prabhupada would usually say “perfected”] living entities I am Kapila.” So “perpetually living entities” is clearly a mis-hearing.

Looking at the manuscript again: the Second Edition should certainly have said “son of Kardama Muni” rather than “son of Devahuti.” (I don’t know how I missed that.) But either name—that of His mother or His father—serves Srila Prabhupada’s purpose of distinguishing the genuine Lord Kapiladeva from the atheist. In the First Edition, neither parent is mentioned.

Draupadi was not forced to strip.

I suppose I could have edited this further—“while the attempt was being made to force her to appear naked”—but I didn’t. I’m not sure, now, whether I was being conservative or just lazy. Anyway, I chose to do the minimum: get rid of “strip.”

A matter of English. The word “altogether” is altogether the wrong word. The Random House Dictionary explains: “The forms ALTOGETHER and ALL TOGETHER, though often indistinguishable in speech, are distinct in meaning. The adverb ALTOGETHER means ‘wholly, entirely, completely’: an altogether confused report. The phrase ALL TOGETHER means ‘in a group’: The children were all together in the kitchen.” ALL the eight elements TOGETHER constitute the Lord’s material energies.

This revision seems to have become a topic in the “Varnasrama Development” conference on COM, under the subject heading “Editing varnasrama-dharma out of the books?” As you can see, the answer is “No. Restoring what Srila Prabhupada said.”

Since this verse is so important to us, this revision has generated a great deal of comment and inquiry.

As you can see, the revision has its basis in Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript. Srila Prabhupada begins in the singular and ends in the plural. So does the revised translation.

Of course, Srila Prabhupada has his singular and plural in the same sentence—his subject is singular, his verb plural—and this transgresses English grammar. So I made the first sentence singular, the second plural.

The revision also lines up with the Sanskrit. The words upadeksyanti, jnaninah, and tattva-darsinah are all grammatically plural.

But isn’t there a hidden agenda here? Am I not trying to dilute the authority of the spiritual master?

Simply: no.

For evidence, read the next verse, 4.35:

1ST EDITION: And when you have thus learned the truth,
you will know that all living beings are but part of Me—and
that they are in Me, and are Mine.

2ND EDITION: Having obtained real knowledge from a
self-realized soul, you will never fall again into such
illusion, for by this knowledge you will see that all
living beings are but part of the Supreme, or, in other
words, that they are Mine.

MANUSCRIPT: By knowing real knowledge from the self-
realised soul you would would have no more any illusion
like this. . .

In a separate text, I’ll go into greater detail about the editing of verse 35. For now, all that needs to concern us is the opening clause. In the Second Edition, the verse begins: “Having obtained real knowledge from a self-realized soul”—singular.

Seen as a whole, therefore, the revision of these two verses is free from bias as to singular or plural. In fact, the Second Edition, by including text edited out of Text 35, emphasizes the need to obtain knowledge “from a self-realized soul.”

In short: The philosophy is not being changed.

Editing is not an exact science. As an editor, you look at each word with a critical eye, and you make value judgments: Is this clear? Is this grammatical? Is this faithful to what the author wrote?

And—especially when revising an already published text: Should this word change, or should I just let it stand as it is?

This revision to 4.34 was a close choice. And the version chosen is not one I’d go to battle for. Perhaps for the choice in this verse, history will condemn me. I suspect not.

Obviously, in Edition One Srila Prabhupada’s mention of the self-realized soul, repeated from the previous verse, has been deleted. In the Second Edition, it has been restored.

Apart from that: In Edition One Srila Prabhupada’s translation of na punar moham evam yasyasi pandava has been dropped. The Second Edition restores it: “You will never fall again into such illusion.” The Second Edition also restores his translation for yena (“by which”)—“by this knowledge.” Similarly, the Second Edition brings the translation for atmani, meaning “in the Supreme,” closer in line with what Srila Prabhupada originally said.

BY A CRITIC:

It’s only one word changed, but what a difference! In Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita we can understand Krsna by reading the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, after all the books are not different from Krsna!! But Jayadvaita has adjusted everything for us...[The critic ends here.]

BY JAYADVAITA SWAMI:

The critic is right: That one word does make a difference.

In Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript, one is advised to consult Krsna or the scriptures from Krsna’s representative—that is, through him, or with his help. As Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport to Chapter One, text 1, “one should read Bhagavad-gita very scrutinizingly with the help of a person who is a devotee of Sri Krsna. . . “

In the First Edition one is advised to consult Krsna and the scriptures or Krsna’s representative—an either/or proposition.

I leave it to you decide which advice better matches Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript and better gets across his intended meaning.

Apart from the content restored here, in the next paragraph Srila Prabhupada speaks, in the First Edition, about the kavi named Usana. But who is that? Where you read “Usana” in the First Edition, the original transcription says “sukacharya” and “Sukarta.” A doublecheck with the commentary of Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana confirmed what was obvious. So the Second Edition gets it right: Sukracarya.

Note also the word-for-word meanings of durena and avaram karma.

The verse says, tyaktva sva-dharmam. Sva-dharmam means “his occupational duties,” not “self-gratificatory pursuits.” (See Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.17.)

Someone seems upset that I’ve deleted the words “and organs,” found in Edition One. But, as you see, those words were nowhere in Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript. And for good reason: “senses of action”—what Srila Prabhupada originally said—fully translates the Sanskrit word karma-indriyani. Nothing more needed to be added.

The extra “and organs” offers only redundancy, confusion, or both. Are we supposed to restrain the senses and, in addition, the “organs of action”? Or the “senses of action” plus the “organs of action”?

We are supposed to control the karma-indriyas—“the senses of action.” Just as Srila Prabhupada said.

No comment needed.

The word-for-word meanings in both editions are the same, except that for tvam the First Edition said “yourself.” In the Second Edition this has been changed—quite rightly—to “you.” Tvam is not a reflexive pronoun, and the English reflexive pronoun “yourself” doesn’t belong here. What fits is the simple pronoun—“you.” “You [not “yourself”] never deserve to lament.” “You [not “yourself”] need not grieve.”

The words “is eternal” (First Edition) do not appear in Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript. The word nityam here means “eternally”—or, as Srila Prabhupada gives it, “always.” It modifies avadhyah. Thus, “always unfit for being slain.” Putting that negatively, as the original editor chose to do, the “always” becomes “never”—“he can never be slain.”

For the First Edition, the Sanskrit editor revised Srila Prabhupada’s original word-for-word meanings to fit the editor’s version of the translation. It’s a good translation and commits no philosophical errors. But here again, obviously, Edition Two sticks more closely to Srila Prabhupada’s original words.

So if you want to criticize the version in Edition Two, your criticism should go like this: The editor has revised the word meanings and translation to make them closer to what Srila Prabhupada said, but he shouldn’t have [for whatever reasons you may want to give].

Srila Prabhupada’s reference to brahmacaris and grhasthas (dropped from the First Edition) comes directly from the translations and comments of the acaryas.

When regulated householders perform acts of sense gratification in accordance with religious principles, they offer to the senses the objects of the senses, as a sacrifice. Therefore “in the fire of the senses,” as Srila Prabhupada originally had it, was correct.

Another verse where the Second Edition more closely matches Srila Prabhupada’s original words.

Brahma, Visnu, and Siva are the guna-avataras, the incarnations of the material qualities of the Supreme Lord.

The rest of this purport will come in the next installment.

Access to the Sanskrit commentaries of the acaryas Srila Prabhupada followed made it possible for the editors of Edition Two to restore Srila Prabhupada’s purport correctly. To enumerate the fourteen books of knowledge, Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana quotes:

angani vedas catvaro
mimamsa nyaya vistarah
dharma-sastra puranas ca
vidya hy etas caturdasa

That’s the list.

And Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana further says, paraphrasing Lord Krsna, vidyanam madhye ’dhyatma-vidya. . . vedanta-vidyaham: “Among all kinds of education, I am spiritual knowledge—in particular, the knowledge of Vedanta.”

The rest of this purport will come in the next installment.

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s commentary discusses and defines vada, vitanda, and jalpa (not “japa”).

Among logicians these technical terms are well known. Both in the First Edition and in the Second Edition, the editors tried to clarify what Srila Prabhupada says they are. For the Second Edition, the BBT Sanskrit editor had the advantage of being familiar with the terms, actually knowing what they mean, and being able to read Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s explanation.

Whichever edition you follow, the final conclusion represents Krsna.

In a website disparaging the Second Edition, one critic suggests (in regard to another verse) that the Second Edition twists things to try to be “more palitable [sic] for the public.” Hmmm.

A critic challenges, “Why has Jayadvaita removed the fact one who always performs his prescribed duties for Krishna remains unattached?” Answer: Because in Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript, it wasn’t there to begin with.

The word “unattached,” we suppose, would have to be a translation of mukta-sangah. Undoubtedly some translators other than Srila Prabhupada have rendered mukta-sangah that way. Fine. But Srila Prabhupada’s translation—“immune from the bondage” (or “free from bondage”)—is entirely adequate (and, by the way, more precise). There is no need to translate the word twice.

Srila Prabhupada’s purport, by the way, says nothing about remaining unattached. It does, however, speak about bondage and about acting “in a liberated state” (in other words, “free from bondage”).

In Text 28 the Lord says, “Of serpents I am Vasuki.” Then why does He say in Text 29 that of serpents He is Ananta? Answer: The serpents in Text 28 have only one hood; the serpents in Text 29, many. This is indicated in the original manuscript (“m any rules” is almost certainly a mis-hearing of “many hoods”), and it is confirmed by the commentary of Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana.

Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana (10.28) says, sarpanam eka-sirasam madhye vasukir aham: “Among the serpents with one hood I am Vasuki.” And (10.29), naganam aneka-sirasam madhye ’nantah-seso ’ham: “Among the many-hooded Nagas I am Ananta Sesa.”

In the First Edition, the purport to Text 29 also has the famous line about “the planet of the trees,” about which nothing further needs to be said.

The phrase “whose manifold faces turn everywhere” is a legitimate translation of visvatomukhah, but it’s not what Srila Prabhupada said. Here, as in many places, the editor for the first edition appears to have borrowed from some other published translation.

Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana, and Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura all explicitly state that visvatomukhah refers here to the four-headed Brahma.

It’s a small matter, but the First Edition puts eva with janaka-adayah: “EVEN kings like Janaka.” Srila Prabhupada, in his manuscript, however, puts eva with karmana, to give “solely by performance of prescribed duties.” Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura also puts karmana eva hi all together, to mean “by prescribed duties.” And Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana begins his commentary by saying, sadacara-matra, “simply by proper activities.” The Second Edition restores Srila Prabhupada’s version.

In “kings like Janaka and others,” the words “and others” are redundant. “Kings such as Janaka” says precisely the same thing, without the redundancy.

“The perfectional stage” is equivalent to “perfection.”

The example King Janaka had to teach his subjects was not simply how to fight righteously but how to perform prescribed duties. That’s what this verse, this purport, and this entire section of the Gita are about.

The First Edition leaves out some text, with the result that it has Janaka and his subjects, rather than Krsna and Arjuna, fighting to teach people in general that violence is necessary when good arguments fail. The Second Edition restores the missing text.

Srila Prabhupada, in his writings, uses many set phrases: “devotional service,” “internal energy,” “fruitive activities,” “spiritual sky,” “regulative principles,” “Supreme Personality of Godhead,” and so on. These phrases have distinct and important meanings.

One of such phrases is “prescribed duties.” Mere “work” and “prescribed duties” are not necessarily the same. The guy cooking burgers at McDonald’s is “engaged in work,” but he is not engaged in what Srila Prabhupada would call “prescribed duties.”

In the First Edition, “prescribed duties” has been dropped from verses 22, 23, 24, and 26. In the Second Edition the phrase is restored.

No comment needed.

The Second Edition has left out the word “regularly,” for no apparent reason. This seems to be an editorial lapse, of the sort the BBT sets straight when they come to our attention.

The more conspicuous change here concerns “doomed to ignorance and bondage.” Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana glosses the word nastan as purusartha-vibhrastan, meaning “failing to achieve the goals of human life.” As Srila Prabhupada says in his purport, those who neglect Krsna’s teachings have “no hope for perfection of life.” In other words, they are ruined in their endeavors for perfection. In Srila Prabhupada’s original manuscript, the phrase “doomed to ignorance and bondage” does not appear.

A website devoted to criticizing the Second Edition insinuates that by leaving out the mention of Brahma as “the creator god” the Second Edition is somehow “changing the philosophy.” Of course, the term “the creator god,” although commonly found in books of Indian philosophy, appears nowhere else in Srila Prabhupada’s writings. And, as you can see, it appears here in this purport—in the First Edition—only because the editor inserted it. I deleted it—what would you say?—perhaps under the influence of “the destroyer god.” May the preserver god forgive me.

Being able to read the original commentary enabled the editors to rescue the lost passage.

The Sanskrit says, literally (or as literally as I can come without having a Sanskrit editor by my side): “He by a mere remnant of whose energy even the sun has so much power, He by whose plenary portion the universe is maintained—that Lord Krsna, in this Tenth Chapter, is worshiped.”

This one is purely for the sake of English grammar. The structure of the old sentence can send the reader straight into a roadblock, set up by the misuse of the word “that.” To get technical for a few moments (feel free to skip this if you’d like), the problem is that the reader doesn’t know whether the word “that” is a pronoun (as in “Give me that.”) or a conjunction (as in “I know that you’ll like it.”). In fact, in this sentence it tries to do double duty—that is, to serve as both. It tries to be a conjunction (“[I want you to] know that. . . .”) and at the same time tries to serve as a pronoun (“that which pervades”). This is grammatically confusing or illegal.

Grammatically, it would be ok to say, “Know that that which pervades. . .” But the double “that” is awkward. Alternatively, one might say, “Know that which pervades the entire body to be indestructible.” But then the reader encounters “that” at the beginning of the sentence but doesn’t know how to process it—which part of speech to read it as—until he reaches “to be,” near the end.

Fortunately, following more closely the structure of Srila Prabhupada’s original sentence enables the Second Edition to sidestep the problem.

Those who believe that transcendental literature ought to disregard all laws of grammar beyond the most basic (a view that Srila Prabhupada didn’t share) are likely to scorn the above discussion.

The mis-transcribed “subidioshami” is easy to decipher. And for those familiar with Srila Prabhupada’s favorite verses, the one intended here is obvious.

Here, neither Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura nor Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana quotes this Bhagavatam verse. As Srila Prabhupada sometimes said, the purports are his own personal ecstasies. In this purport, readers of the Second Edition can relish the ecstatic words from Srila Prabhupada that the First Edition left out.

Here the critics have detected a genuine error. The text should read “not the Visnu form.” The First Edition has it right, the Second Edition wrong. I don’t know how the error came about. The BBT will correct it for future printings.

My mistakes are not sacred. The BBT has a consistent policy: The errors of typists and editors need not be preserved.

Samata is obviously wrong, asamaurdhva obviously right. (Samata means “equanimity.” See Bg. 10.5.) The verse from the Padma Purana is one that Srila Prabhupada quoted often.

More from this purport in the next message.

: Hare Krsna.

The only change is that the comma after “processes of religion” has been replaced by a dash.

Srila Prabhupada is commenting on what the sarva-dharma is that one has to give up. The sentence begins, “The Lord has described various kinds of knowledge and processes of religion,” and the rest of the sentence lists what they are. The Second Edition makes this clear. The First Edition does not.

The manuscript version we are looking at is half-edited. Unfortunately, for this chapter it is the oldest manuscript we have.

More on this purport in the next message.

No such statement is made in the Eighth Chapter. The verse Srila Prabhupada is citing is clearly from the Seventh Chapter (7.28): yesam tv anta-gatam papam.

The Second Edition restores the missing verse. The rest of the paragraph is essentially a paraphrase of that verse, which is quoted in the commentaries of both Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana and Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura.

Though “desirous to” is historically defensible, to a modern reader it is likely to sound strange. The standard idiom is “desirous of.” Thus according to Theodore Bernstein, the respected authority on English usage, in The Careful Writer:

DESIROUS
Takes preposition of

And so, with “desirous,” we would have “desirous of fighting.” Which sounds stiff and clumsy. Following the language Srila Prabhupada uses in the “word-for-word” section, the new version