Bhagavad-gita 

Bhagavad Gita


Bhagavad-gita is a storehouse of Vedic wisdom . Being the essence of all Vedic wisdom, it is a complete and complete work that reveals the secrets of being, the laws of nature, the relationship between God and the living entity. "Bhagavad-Gita" - was a reference book of such great people as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, etc. ...

The Bhagavad-Gita is a truly unique phenomenon in the history of world culture. The value of the Gita lies in its exceptional ability to influence the spiritual development of a person, which is manifested in ethical, social and psychological aspects. Through solving the “Who am I?” Problem, the Gita gives the correct answer to the question “What to do?” And opens up ways to achieve a special inner state in which one can not only comprehend the enduring spiritual values, but also put them into practice. The Gita gives a solution to the problems of the meaning of human existence, the clash of personal and universal ideas about morality. The teachings of the Gita affect the most diverse aspects of life, from the ordinary, everyday, and to the metaphysical, spiritual.

First Bhagavad-gitawas transferred to the West in 1785 by C. Wilkins and aroused great interest not only specialists, but also writers, poets, philosophers. V. Humboldt called it "the most beautiful and, perhaps, the only truly philosophical work written in languages ​​known to us." The influence of the Gita was reflected in the works of such outstanding figures of European culture as Goethe, Herder, Hartmann, Novikov. Hegel, Schopenhauer, Beethoven, Heine, Roden, Einstein, Nehru, Gandhi spoke with admiration about her. Many prominent scientists - H. Lassen, E. Byrnuf, E. Senar, Aurobindo Ghosh, L. Walle, S. Radhakrishnan, S. Levi were engaged in its research. The Gita became an inexhaustible source from which writers and poets of the West drew ideas. Acquaintance with the Bhagavad-Gita is clearly manifested in the works of Shelley, J. Russell, Wordsworth, R. Rollan, L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin, U.

In our country, the history of the Bhagavad-gita is as triumphant as dramatic. Widely learned about the Gita in 1788, when it was published by the still disgraced Novikov. Both Catherine II and the Holy Synod gave their "good" to the "Gita" then, who regarded the Hindu scripture as a book "soulful."

However , the Bhagavad-Gita first appeared in Russia about 170 years earlier - with the arrival of Indian merchants in Astrakhan. Most of them were Vishnuites. This is evident from the sketches of the "viewer" Emelyan Korneev and the nameless assistant to the Russian ethnographer Academician Peter Pallas.

Throughout the XIX century. The Bhagavad-Gita was very popular among the Russian intelligentsia. They say that even the Decembrists studied the Gita. She was found in the library of one deportee, either in Tomsk or in Tobolsk.

After the 1917 revolution, the Bhagavad-gita went into the shadows for a long time, sharing the fate of the Bible and other scriptures.

The second coming of the Gita took place at the International Book Fair at VDNH in 1977, where it was exhibited in English by Guru, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977).

Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada first translated the Bhagavad-gita from Sanskrit and wrote commentaries on it in the 1940s in India. However, a single copy of the manuscript disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Prabhupada again began work on translating and commenting on the Bhagavad-gita in 1965, shortly after arriving in New York. As a rule, Prabhupada woke up at one in the morning, chanted the Hare Krsna mantra on the rosary for an hour, and then worked on the Bhagavad-gita As It Is and before translating and commenting on another classic Sanskrit text - Bhagavata Puranas ". As a table, Prabhupada served as a chest in which he brought his supplies from India a few months earlier. The first six chapters of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Prabhupada typed,

Prabhupada already had publishing experience: in the early 1960s, he published in India his commentary translation of the first of the twelve parts of the Bhagavata Purana. However, publishing books in America was much more difficult than in India. Although Prabhupada already had a group of followers by the beginning of 1967, not one of them has so far shown any particular desire to reprint the manuscript, edit it, and engage in negotiations with American publishers. The prospects for publishing the Bhagavad-gita As It Is were vague, but despite this, Prabhupada in January 1967 began to work on another book, which was later published under the heading “The Teachings of Lord Caitanya.” Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami in the biography of Prabhupada “Srila Prabhupada-lilamrita” describes the writing and translation activities of his guru as follows:

"Wearing reading glasses, Prabhupada opened his books and turned on the recorder. After carefully reading Bengali and Sanskrit texts, he took a microphone in his hand, pressed the record button ... and began to dictate ... At one time he uttered no more than one phrase, then he paused, thought, and dictated the following: Prabhupada spoke or stopped, turning the recorder on and off, while he sat with his back straight, sometimes swaying slightly or nodding his head to the beat, sometimes bending low over the pages and carefully studying them through your points. "

You also need to pay attention to the Message of the Bhagavad-Gita to all of humanity, Mahatma Gandhi, who built his whole life on Her principles.

As we see, throughout history, the ancient Indian text of the Bhagavad-gita was addressed by writers, poets, scientists, moralists, religious scholars, philosophers. The meaning of the text has long gone beyond the Indian tradition. There is no doubt that the Gita is a source of invaluable religious, philosophical and ethical knowledge.

Therefore, one who has not read this literary source cannot be called a knowledgeable, educated person. Leo Tolstoy read the Gita in old age. Perhaps it was hidden from us at school. Now this secret has been revealed and this ancient treasury of literature has become available to us. In my opinion there is nothing more beautiful than this poem about God. People must study this work in order to know the Higher!