The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War

great read for beginners

Patanjali のヨーガ スートラの素晴らしい翻訳("YOGA:Discipline of Freedom") を読んで、Barbara Stoler Miller の見事な手腕に心を奪われてしまったが、このバガバッドギータの翻訳も決して期待を裏切らないテキストに仕上っている。簡潔で分かりやすい単語が選択され、しかもリズムや響きはあくまでも自然で美しく、へたな日本語よりよほど読みやすいと思えるほど(私は決して英語が得意というわけでない)。解説は少なめなので(序文と後書きだけ)、ギータを初めて読むという人には向かない面もあるかとは思うが、お勧めできる一冊。

As poetic translations go, it is one of the best.It is simple and suitable for modern times. Much better than sir Edwin Arnold's.The spirit of the original is mostly captured.

This is probably the best version of the Gita to share with people, both Hindu and non-Hindu. Sure, it has some problems, as some other reviewers point out, but overall, this is my favorite version of the Gita. Sleek and slender, it is easy to carry around everyone and thankfully lacks the often biased and partisan commentary found in some other versions of the Gita. If you want to go deeper into the Gita and the philosophy of Hinduism, then there are other versions of the book which, as a student interested in religion and religious history, I have read, but those those versions are of a more academic nature. If you want a copy of the Gita to keep by your bedside or table, or to skim through when you're feeling contemplative, then this edition is the one for you. If you want a somewhat annotated but not fully academic version, then the Easwaran and Radhakrishan versions are what I would recommend to you. In any case, this version is excellent because it manages to keep the poetic consistency of the original Gita while doing away with jargon yet without doing away with the meaning, even in a subtle form, of the Gita. Ironically, the Gita is a text more rooted in Vedic Hinduism, Samkhya, and to an extent, Yoga than it is in later traditions such as Vedanta and Vaishnavism, of which it has become an essential text for the latter two. All of these are later debates in Hindu theology which ought to not have any effect on the core and fairly straightfoward meaning of the Gita itself. I often find it more enjoyable to read the Gita when I'm not under that shadow of these later commentaries which in my opinion, over-analyze the Gita. I would like to note that this version is not modified in any way or concepts changed to suit the modern or non-Indian reader. It is merely written in an elegant, simple, jargon free English. Excellent Gita: I highly recommend to both Hindus and non-Hindus. I have one problem with the translation: the Sanskrit word yoga, used extensively throughout the text is consistently translated as "discipline" in English. This can produce a significant distortion and misunderstanding of the meaning of the text.

The most readable translation out there, in my opinion, without sacrificing fidelity to the original. Simple and elegant language. Love that it keeps the verse form of the original text.