Every great piece of spiritual writing seems to have its own special setting. The Tao Te Jing by Lao-tzu does not provide the reader with the setting, but it is not difficult to imagine an old man with a long white beard sitting serenely in a pristine Chinese countryside, absorbing the nature around him, and discoursing on the meaning of the Tao. Neither does the Dhammapada of the Buddha have a specific setting, but one can imagine the Buddha as a serene teacher walking or sitting among a group of disciples in the Indian countryside, sharing his stories and aphorisms. For Socrates, we have Plato’s recording of his trial and death wherein the serenity of Socrates in the face of injustice provides a dramatic setting in opposition to the foolishness of the crowd and the moaning of his followers.
The Old Testament provides some more dynamic settings. Moses going to the mountaintop creates a vivid image, and we can easily imagine Job in front of his tent in the desert groveling in the dust reciting his prayer of complaint. In the New Testament, we can imagine Jesus delivering the Sermon on the Mount is a peripatetic exercise, challenging his disciples and the curious to stay with him on his dynamic journey (I think of the scene of The Sermon on the Mount as filmed in Pier Paulo Pasolini’s The GospelAccording to St. Matthew).
But as vivid as these images are for me, none matches the dramatic setting of the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita is a short section embedded in the much larger Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The Bhagavad Gita begins with two great armies facing one another across a vast Indian plain. The war is over a throne and riches and on each side are cousins and uncles, brothers and teachers. It is a civil war. Out between the two prone armies rides the great warrior Arjuna with his charioteer, Krishna, the great Hindu god who is taken human form for this occasion. Stopping between the two competing forces, his and the foe’s, Arjuna despairs. He does not want to enter into the battle that he knows will destroy those whom he has loved and revered and which will leave the victors bereft of any fruits of victory. In response to despair, the great warrior Arjuna turns to Krishna and asks for his guidance. At this point, Krishna begins teaching Arjuna about duty (dharma), but more importantly, about the great issues of life. It is in the setting of imminent battle, death, and destruction, that this teaching is set.
In such a dramatic setting, you might wonder what these teachings might consist of. Any person from any faith tradition (and this would include philosophical skepticism) should find instruction and delight in the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna’s teaching goes to the very nature of the universe and life. To counter Arjuna’s despair, Krishna reveals secrets of the universe itself. He urges Arjuna to do his duty and fight (thus causing pause for many later readers), but more importantly, Krishna places every undertaking within the context of honoring God and knowing the great whole.
I have read other translations of the Bhagavad Gita before, including those by R. C. Zaehner, by Isherwood and Pravhanananda, and by Eknath Easwaran. As with any translation, you naturally fear that you are receiving instruction from the translator rather than from the original author (or authors). But this is true even of the Scriptures that are most native in our culture, as we depend on translators to deliver us a sense of New Testament Greek or Old Testament Hebrew. With Stephen Mitchell we have someone who has made a career of delving into spiritual and poetic masterpieces (Job, Dao Te Jing, Rilke, and the Gospels, among others). He has a point of view that you can follow through his various translations, and you can use any previous experience with his work to help you enjoy this translation. After having read it, I did not come away with a different feeling about the Bhagavad Gita than I had reading other translations. Yes, we might parse words and distinguish translations, but on the whole, I think the message is consistent with those other translations. In addition, it has the value of a continuing conversation with other spiritual traditions that help guide us through this ancient masterpiece.
One important addition to his translation is a short essay appended to the end by Gandhi discussing his encounter with the Bhagavad Gita. Because it is a poem set in war, a poem that addresses dharma and the need to do one’s duty, one might think that Gandhi would recoil from it. In fact, it became a centerpiece of Gandhi’s spirituality. Like the many puzzling and sometimes repugnant portions of the Bible, we must pull back from the literal to understand the figurative and the greater lessons that we can take from such writings.
If this review has had any value, I hope it encourages you to read the Bhagavad Gita. You don’t need to come to India to do so. You only have to want to encounter a great piece of literature and spiritual wisdom that will challenge you and enlighten you.
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