Bhagavad Gita

Stanley Lombardo's new verse translation of the most famous free-standing sequence from the great Indian epic The Mahabharata hews closely to the meaning, verse structure, and performative quality of the original and is invigorated by its judicious incorporation of key Sanskrit terms in transliteration, for which a glossary is also provided.

The translation is accompanied by Richard H. Davis' brilliant Introduction and Afterword. The latter, "Krishna on Modern Fields of Battle," offers a fascinating look at the illuminating role the poem has played in the lives and struggles of a few of the most accomplished figures in recent world history.

Reviews:

"Lucid, detailed, and erupting with fearsome visions, the Bhagavad Gita has baffled English-language translators for 250 years. Stanley Lombardo is the first to recognize that at its root the Sanskrit Gita was oral performance. Beyond word and meaning, past nuance or doctrine, Lombardo restores the archaic tradition of voice and conch shell. When you read this edition aloud the hair on your neck will stand up. Add a drum and it’s a performance. A grand old culture comes to life.

"Both essays by Richard Davis are superb, placing the Gita in historical context, back then, and more recently."

—Andrew Schelling, Naropa University. Author of Love and the Turning Seasons: India’s Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing

"Lombardo's translation of the Bhagavad Gita is smooth, clear, and accurate with a keen poetic sensibility. Davis' Introduction fully places the Gita in its narrative context [and his] Afterword introduces fascinating contemporary applications of the Gita. This is truly a new state-of-the-art Bhagavad Gita version. Lombardo captures the colloquial quality of Barbara Stoler Miller's translation while retaining key Sanskrit words (unlike Miller's version) which are glossed in the glossary. The low price makes this especially attractive as a version to adopt for university courses. [T]his version is a great contribution to the study of the Bhagavad Gita.”

—H. Talat Halman, Department of Religion, Central Michigan University