Being a collector of “Hare Krishna” books, I’ve found myself with a slew of Bhagavad-gitas. That’s how I came up with the idea of doing the Gita comparisons (one of which will post tomorrow).

My favorite translation was done by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, entitled Bhagavad-gita: As It Is. I’ve got three different versions of it.

The first one is a purple edition from 1968. It’s small with no Sanskrit and sparse in the annotations area. It was published by MacMillan (under their imprint Collier). The introductions were done by Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov and Thomas Merton. Not bad, eh? I talked about this edition here and here. While this was Prabhuada’s first Bhagavad-gita released in America, he wasn’t very happy with it. He wanted the full commentaries and Sanskrit, which MacMillan insisted be edited out.

By 1972, however, demand for his Bhagavag-gita increased and they released the full version. This is the version that most older devotees and Prabhupada himself used every day. The older purple ones were set aside and the new unedited version of Bhagavad-gita: As It Is, weighing in at 1,000 pages, with full index and tons of purports and Sanskrit took its place.

In the early 80’s, several years after Prabhupada’s passing, his Bhagavad-gita was “revised and enlarged” without prior consent or request by the original author. All older copies of Bhagavad-gita: As It Is were put aside at the insistence of ISKCON itself and the new, re-edited Gita with well over 700 changes took its place. The 1972 edition, which the devotees and Prabhupada used every day was no longer to be printed, read or distributed.

As time went on, more and more books were re-edited and more and more devotees desired again to print, read and distribute the original editions.

Eventually in 2002, ISKCON decided that it would be alright to reprint some original editions as historic “facsimile editions.” They did this for Bhagavad-gita: As It Is with a caveat warning the buyer that this is not the recommended edition. The recommended edition is the revised and re-edited one.

Oddly, this facsimile edition is now out of print. Other facsimile editions are also going out of print. Thankfully, a devotee-run company called Krishna Books is printing these spiritually and historically important volumes.

I don’t have the original 1972 edition. I only have a facsimile of it. It’s big and rather cumbersome. This is also the facsimile that is out of print. Fortunately for me (and those on the street distributing books), Krishna Books has made a smaller edition. It’s much smaller in size with thinner paper and that’s just perfect. It’s still hardbound, of course, but it’s small. It can be purchased here. Many other original printing books can be purchased on that site as well.

However, my own daily Gita doesn’t really fall into any of those categories.

Of course, it’s the same edition that Srila Prabhupada and the devotees used, but its printing history predates ISKCON’s facsimile edition by a decade or so.

It was given to me by Candramauli Swami in 1995 while I was living in New Vrndavana. He was teaching a Bhagavad-gita class every night and was very insistent that we used the original Gitas. He even called the re-editors “rascals” for what “they have done to Srila Prabhupada’s words.” He was very adamant about this then, though he has since changed his tune.

This Bhagavad-gita: As It Is claimed to be published by ISKCON’s Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (ISKCON’s book printing arm) in India in “Hare Krishna Land, Juhu Road.” I apparently have the 7th printing, which was done in 1992. The first printing was in 1983, just as the revised edition was being released.

Was this really done by ISKCON? I have my doubts. Why would they release Prabhupada’s original edition when they were pushing their own revised edition so heavily? My suspicion is that it was published by devotees outside of ISKCON. Though I could be wrong.

It is very obviously an Indian printing. The cover is bubbling, the pages have huge chunks of wood floating around in them. The print is blurry and blotchy at times. The few colored plates are washed out. The inside cover is upside down! It’s a book binder’s nightmare.

Oddly enough, however, unlike most Indian printings, the binding itself is fully intact. It’s strong and sturdy. Like I said, it’s my daily Gita. I love the feel and the smell of it. The pages are soft and a brownish tan that my eyes have grown accustomed to. The printing and even nonfatal binding errors give this Gita, my Gita, a personality. Yes, this was a mass produced book, but it has its own character.

I collect many editions of Bhagavad-gita: As It Is. There are a few more I’d still like to have (the original printing of the 1972 edition, for example), but this is the Gita that I use. I was trained up in this Gita, I have turned every page, read every line again and again. It never gets old.

This is the Bhagavad-gita for me. And you should find one for yourself. It’s great daily reading. Allow me to suggest this one. It’s Prabhupada’s original, the one he personally wrote and read from every day. How can you go wrong with that?

Related posts:

1. But getting back to the Bhagavad-gita…
2. More on the Gita
3. Godzilla vs. Bhagavad-gita: Two Classics Fight to the Death on My Blog!
4. Denise Levertov and the original original Gita
5. Bhagavad-gita: We Can Only Understand Krishna Through Love (18.55)