Rereading The Bhagavad Gita.
I’ve been looking forward to this masterful bilingual translation by Bibek Debroy. This new hardcover edition includes his own introduction, written at the end of his life. The translation has been left intact, with minor corrections to the Sanskrit text.
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Invocation
Om! O Bhagavadgita, which Bhagavan (Lord) Narayana (Krishna's name) himself used to enlighten Partha (Arjuna) and which was incorporated into the Mahabharata by the ancient sage Vyasa (Vyasadeva or Vedavyasa)!
O you, of eighteen chapters, who showers down the immortal knowledge of advaita! O divine mother! I meditate on you, O Bhagavadgita, that frees me from worldly existence!
I bow before you, Vyasa, with the great intellect and eyes that are as large as the petals of a lotus in bloom! You lit the lamp of knowledge in which the Mahabharata provides the oil!
O you, who made the parijata (a divine flower) bloom and who holds the rod for driving cows! I bow before Krishna the giver of knowledge, who milked the ambrosia of the Gita!
All the Upanishads are like cows, Partha is the calf and the learned drink the milk that is the great ambrosia of the Gita.
I bow before Krishna, the Lord of the Universe! God, the son of Vasudeva (Krishna's father), the destroyer of Kansa (Krishna's evil uncle) and Chanura (a wrestler sent by Kansa), the supreme bliss of Devaki (Krishna's mother)!
Bhishma and Drona were the banks (this is a description of the Kurukshetra war), Jayadratha was the water, the king of Gandhara was the blue lotus, Shalya was the shark (or crocodile), Kripa was the current and Karna was the waves on the banks.
Ashvatthama and Vikarna were the terrible crocodiles, and Duryodhana was the whirlpool. With Keshava (Krishna) as the boatman, the Pandavas indeed crossed the river that was the war.
The words of Parashara's son (Vyasa) are the immortal lotus, its stamens are the different stories therein, bloomed by Hari's (Krishna) discourse, and its powerful fragrance the essence of the Gita.
The good and pure bees of this world drink this, every day and every night. May this produce great good in him who wishes to destroy the taint of kali yuga!
I bow before Madhava (Krishna), provider of supreme bliss! His compassion provides the dumb with speech and enables the crippled to traverse mountains.
Brahma, Varuna, Indra, Rudra and the Maruts praise him through divine hymns and the singers of the Sama Veda sing to him with their hymns and the consecutive parts of the Upanishads.
When established in meditation, the yogis see him, whose limits are unknown to even the gods and the demons, in their minds. I bow before that great God!
— The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Bibek Debroy
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