Now online: “Gita changes” for Chapter Eleven

BBT Press release

The “annotated scans” for Chapter Eleven of Bhagavad-gita As It Is are now online at BBTedit.com/changes.

The scans for this chapter are the latest in a series that shows all the revisions done for the transliterations, word meanings, and purports of the second edition. Nearly every revision also has a note explaining why it was done, along with an image from the BBT’s oldest manuscripts, allowing you to verify the history for yourself.

Jayadvaita Swami did his revisions for the second edition on a physical copy of the first edition. The scans show that copy. (Revisions to the translations aren’t shown, because he edited them separately, not in the book itself.) Each chapter forms one downloadable pdf file.

The revisions to this chapter were extensive, so the scans for this chapter give you much to see.

• You’ll see twenty Sanskrit quotations (and one in Bengali) and several lost passages in English now recovered—on average, more than one quotation for every three pages.
  
  
• You’ll see three spelling errors fixed in the Devanāgarī, the original Sanskrit text.

• You’ll see various mishearings corrected. For example, in the purport to text 37, Kṛṣṇa is the “shelter” (nivāsa) of the universe, not its “center.” In the purport to text 3, “Arjuna’s asking the Lord’s permission” was a significant mishearing, now fixed.
  
  
• You’ll see many editorial and transcription errors fixed in the word-for-word meanings. For example, in text 1 the meaning for vigataḥ is no longer “educated” but “removed” (that is, eradicated).

• You’ll see several places where the original editor misunderstood what the manuscript intended and the 1983 edition has recovered the correct sense.

Apart from images for specific changes, the scans for this chapter include twelve complete sample pages from the original manuscripts.

Whether you’re for “the changes,” against them, or neutral, here’s another opportunity to see what the changes actually are.

For devotees who have been critical of the second edition but are thoughtful and open-minded, the scans for this chapter provide ample food for thought.

See for yourself in the annotated scans for Chapter Eleven, now online at BBTedit.com/changes. The changes for the Preface, the Introduction, and the previous chapters are already online there too.