Bhagavad-gita As It Is Manuscript
Manuscript — By Madhudvisa dasa on September 3, 2009 9:48 amPublished for the first time. The manuscript of Bhagavad-gita As It Is.
This is the “original manuscript” referred to by Jayadvaita Swami which he uses to justify the BBT changes to Srila Prabhuapda’s Gita.
As I have noted elsewhere ISKCON’s New Gita Closer to the Manuscript? Not Really…
this manuscript is not the authority, the published book is the authority. However out of interest we have decided to publish the “original manuscript” also.
The manuscript is presented as .pdf files and can best be viewed with the Adobe PDF viewer which can be downloaded free of charge from www.Adobe.com
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Observing the Armies on the Battlefield of Kuruksetra
- Chapter 2: Contents of the Gita Summarized
- Chapter 3: Karma-yoga
- Chapter 4: Transcendental Knowledge
- Chapter 5: Karma-yoga-Action in Krsna Consciousness
- Chapter 6: Sankhya-yoga
- Chapter 7: Knowledge of the Absolute
- Chapter 8: Attaining the Supreme
- Chapter 9: The Most Confidential Knowledge
- Chapter 10: The Opulence of the Absolute
- Chapter 11: The Universal Form
- Chapter 12: Devotional Service
- Chapter 13: Nature, the Enjoyer, and Consciousness
- Chapter 14: The Three Modes of Material Nature
- Chapter 15: The Yoga of the Supreme Person
- Chapter 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures
- Chapter 17: The Divisions of Faith
- Chapter 18: Conclusion-The Perfection of Renunciation
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15 Comments
Wow! This is quite a scoop!
Jayadvaita Swami has had plenty of opportunities to publish these but hasn’t done so.
It will be interesting to know what he has to say about this.
Thanks so much for posting this nectar. I assume the masters for chapters 14, 17 and 18 are missing, right?
The manuscripts for chapters 14, 17 and 18 are apparently lost, missing, they no longer exist. And they did not exist also in the early 80′s when Jayadviata Swami revised Srila Prabhupada’s Gita. I once wrote an article about this: “No Manuscript, No Problems…” I will try and find that and post it again…
There is no manuscript available for these chapters.
Actually this is not really the “manuscript” at all. It is an early draft of the book. Srila Prabhupada personally worked on this early draft with Haryagriva to produce the actual manuscript which was presented to Macmillan for printing. That is the real “original manuscript.” And that is almost identical to Srila Prabhupada’s original Macmillan Gita.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
What about the original dictation tapes ? where are they ?
Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
For the first 6 or so chapters Srila Prabhupada typed the manuscript himself so we have the typed pages from Prabhupada himself, therefore there are no dictation tapes for that. After that Prabhupada started dictating onto tape but as soon as the tapes were transcribed the tapes were apparently used again, recorded over, so as far as we are aware no dictation tapes exist for the Bhagavad gita. And the original typed transcriptions also may not exist, what is there is a collection of typed ‘manuscript’ pages from various points in the editing process. And for some chapters there are not even any ‘manuscript’ pages. Those chapters the only thing that exists is the printed 1972 Macmillan Gita which is the real, authorized version of the book…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
I am so very glad that the Original Version of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita As It Is has been made available. When I found out the post-1978 material was changed and edited, I had to discard it. I now own the original edition and must say it is so wonderful to read what Prabhupada actually had to say rather than read what others deemed he was meaning.
Dear Madhudvisa Prabhu!
“Prabhupada personally worked on this early draft with Haryagriva to produce the actual manuscript which was presented to Macmillan for printing. That is the real “original manuscript.” And that is almost identical to Srila Prabhupada’s original Macmillan Gita.”
Do we have this “original manuscript” now? I mean, if Prabhupada read and approved this manuscript before MacMillan published it, then how can anyone want to go back to the draft?
Your servant, Ajit Krishna Dasa
Hare Krishna Ajit Krishna Prabhu
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
It is very good to hear from you Prabhu.
The only manuscript that apparently exists for Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita As It Is is here on http://www.bookchanges.com at:
http://bookchanges.com/bhagavad-gita-as-it-is-manuscript/
It is not the manuscript that was submitted to the printers but more like the original transcription of Prabhupada’s dictation tapes and I am sure a lot of work went into refining this into the actual manuscript which was finally presented to the printers which as you testify was practically the same as the printed book obviously. And even Prabhupada and Hayagriva worked together on the Gita manuscripts for two months or more in San Francisco. So it is not that it was just Hayagriva polishing the manuscript, Prabhupada was working with him personally on the manuscript.
So to go back and try and eliminate all this work by Srila Prabhupada and Hayagriva on the manuscript was a very, very great mistake indeed…
All glories to your service.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Your servant
Madhudvisa dasa
Dear Ajit Krishna Prabhu, I cannot agree with you more! The “manuscript” is not the “drafts” that Jayadvaita has, what Jayadvaita has is simply one version (of possibly many) ROUGH DRAFTS. It is insanity to go back to those drafts after the finished approved of finalized “Complete Edition” was published and personally read from by Srila Prabhupada! The manuscript (“man·u·script: the original text of an author’s work, handwritten or now usually typed, THAT IS SUBMITTED TO A PUBLISHER”. from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/manuscript) is what was sent to MacMillan to be turned into the hard copy book that is published and distributed.
What JAS has is a draft. So to revert all the work that SP (or empowered hayagriva to do) put into the final book is down write offensive and stupid! Thats all. I can not believe that any one in their right mind will accept such insanity as Jayadvaita is proposing. Second guessing Srila Prabhupada the Paramahansa Pure devotee of Krishna and using his conditioned imperfect mind and senses to revert a finalized transcendental work to a previous draft, with no shred of a direct order to do such a thing, is a serious offense and gross misunderstanding of the basic philosophy of Krishna Consciousness.
You are a very brave and honest brahmana. I can only think Srila Prabhupada is VERY pleased with your work.
My Message to Jayadvaita:
“AGAIN BECOME MOUSE!”
Hare Krishna Madhudvisa Prabhu
You are really doing god’s work by telling us neophytes about such a level of deceit that Jayadvaita has done (his name reminds me of Jayadratha for some reason). I posted on one of your threads about how to get the original books and i will await your reply , i also wanted to know if there is any way that i can verify the authenticity of the books written by our beloved spiritual master when i am purchasing them. God bless u really because had i not stumbled on your articles i would have been grossly misled , i will be going to our ISKCON centre here in Jaipur tomorrow and discuss this further with their president. Thank u so much for this , u have my utmost respect.
Hare Krishna Prabhu
The original Prabhupada books you can get from http://www.KrishnaStore.com and you can read them online at http://www.PrabhupadaBooks.com.
In Jaipur the ISKCON devotees in the temple there should be completely aware of the situation with the changes to Prabhupada’s books and should be able to provide you with the original 1972 edition of Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-gita As It Is printed by the Indian BBT and all the other original Prabhupada books printed by Krishna Books Inc. They are all printed in India and should all be available at the ISKCON Jayapur temple. If they are not you should make a serious inquiry from the devotees there as to why they are not making Prabhupada’s original books available to the devotees…
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa
I’ve been looking at your site and reviewing some of their items, all very interesting, indeed.
I looked at the manuscript have been published, it is true that this does not justify the changes to the original 1972 text of Srila Prabhupada.
However, I have a question that I hope will help me to clarify.
The manuscript definitely corresponds to the first edition of the Bhagavad Gita of Srila prabhupad 1968 …
Did Srila Prabhupada authorize those modifications??
Hare Krishna Murari
It is not a ‘manuscript’ it is a first draft. When you write a book you start by writing a draft and then you edit it and polish it and then when it is a state where it is finished and ready to be presented to a publisher to be printed that thing that you present to the publisher is called a manuscript. So this is only a fist draft. Srila Prabhupada worked with his editors to polish this draft and turn it into a manuscript. The editing was done under Srila Prabhupada’s direct supervision and everything was checked by and approved of by him. So this first draft actually has no authority at all. What has the authority is the final published book that was approved by Srila Prabhupada, that he read himself daily for more than ten years, and that he gave all of his classes from. There are a few actual real errors in the book, maybe 10 or so, and Srila Prabhupada himself pointed out at least 2 errors that he wanted corrected. But Prabhupada’s principle is “no changes” and Jayadvaita has made thousands of completely unauthorized changes that destroy the way the book reads. Prabhupada’s original Gita is in beautiful, well-edited English, Jayadviata has destroyed this beautiful English and in many places replaced it with horrible English that clouds the clear meaning of the text from the original edition.
So Jayadvaita is what Srila Prabhupada was fearing most. Prabhupada’s greatest fear was that after he left someone would come along and make unauthorized changes to his books, they would remove bona fide things and introduce non bona fide things. And that is exactly what Jayadvaita is doing. He has made it his life’s mission to destroy Srila Prabhupada’s books.
Prabhupada did not allow any changes at all to any aspect of his books on principle. Jayadvaita has changed everything. Thousands of changes where there is absolutely no reason to change the book at all. There are a handful of changes he can make a reasonable argument for, but 99% of his changes are simply change for the sake of change. There is no error in the original book that needs to be corrected, yet still Jayadvaita changes. He is change, change, change, change everything. And Prabhupada’s order is “NO CHANGES”.
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa