by Salvatore Familia
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Winthrop Sargeant. Revised edition edited by Christopher Chapple. Foreword by Swami Samatananda. Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1984, pp. xxiv, 739.
The Concise Yoga Vasistha, translated by Swami Venkatesananda. With an Introduction and Bibliography by Christopher Chapple. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1984, pp. xv, 430.
The two books under review here present me with a challenge that not every book reviewer must meet. It is usually the reviewer’s task to present the reader with critical comments regarding the book’s content, style and importance. When the text in question is identifiable as a novel, narrative, poem, or as philosophical, theological, historical and scientific literature, it is assumed the reader is familiar with the general significance of each particular genre. The question of genre must be addressed, however, when the textual form is alien to the accustomed styles of the reader. That is the crux of my challenge. This book review must attempt to bridge a rift between two cultures, for that is what we have here, a chasm dividing author and reader that threatens to keep these texts at a distance from us. A distance that, out of necessity, is far greater than the distance confronted between us and a characteristically “Western” text.
As varied as the styles of the two texts under review are (one is written in aphoristic-like slokas, the other in poetry and dialogue), is there any feature that unites them? They speak to the issues of human bondage and freedom, of duhkha (pain, sorrow, disappointment) and moksa (freedom, liberation, enlightenment). But do they speak in any unified way? How do they communicate to us? These are questions I will attempt to answer as a preface to the actual reviews.
When in the Yoga Vasistha the sage Vasistha discusses the problem of the ‘truthfulness’ and meaning of liberative systems of knowledge, his example is a parabolic tale of a rich mister who has lost a penny:
There was a wealthy villager in the Vindhya Hills. Once when he was walking in the forest, he lost a copper coin (one cent). He was a miser, and so he began to search for it in the thick bush. All the time he was calculating, ‘With that one cent I shall do some business, it will become four cents, and then eight cents and so on! For three days he search, unmindful of the taunts of spectators. At the end of those three days he suddenly found a precious stone! Taking it with him he returned home and lived happily (p. 346).
This tale parallels a story purported to have been told by the Buddha and recorded in the Lotus Sutra which tells the tale of a rich man whose children played heedlessly inside their house as it was being consumed by fire. Unable to enter the house to rescue them, he called to them, but they were ignorant of such words as ‘fire’ and ‘perish’ and thus continued to play as before. Finally the father called, promising gifts of dazzling chariots drawn by oxen, goats and deer. Leaving the house in hot pursuit of new playthings, they found not many chariots drawn by exotic animals but one large chariot that carried them to safety.
All of the possible interpretations of these two tales, even those that are not patently obvious, are concerned with the nature of all forms of discourse on enlightenment. Vasistha even goes so far as preface his parable of the miser with the following comment for those who may miss its subtlety and hence its significance:
The instruction of a disciple by a preceptor is but a tradition; the cause of enlightenment is but the purity of the disciple’s consciousness. Not by hearing nor by righteous acts is self-knowledge attained. Only the self knows the self, only the snake knows its feet! Yet. . . (p. 346).
The conjunctive term “yet” that concludes this comment sets it into opposition with the parable. The force of this opposition functions subversively to overthrow the primacy of reason that, because of its priority in the West, has served to often-times trivialize or discredit Eastern “philosophical” traditions. Vasistha makes the opposition thematic when he says, “. . .the instruction of the preceptor is considered the cause of self-knowledge – and yet it is not the cause! Look at this mystery of Maya, O Rama! One seeks something and obtains something else!”
This problematic opposition has a dual significance. It indicates to us that the meaning of Eastern “philosophical” texts, their functional validity, cannot be arrived at by an appeal to traditional Western textual models that function only on the level of signification, logic, representation, metaphor, etc. The contradictory nature of the opposition also lays bare the practical aspect of liberative discourse; exactly what it says (i.e. its content) plays a secondary role to what it does (i.e. the action a ‘disciple’ performs). It is within the dimension of human embodiment and not merely the reductive realm of cognitive abilities that these texts function. “Philosophical” texts of the East are constituted by “flesh” – not mere ideation. In both parabolic tales cited above, discourse resulted in a body in action, a decision being made that liberated rather than constrained. Likewise, the texts under review attack binding cognitive and bodily habituations.
These two texts offer us examples of the most profound discourses on enlightenment from the Indian tradition. Both have been translated into English previously (although alternate translations of the Yoga Vasistha are rare) and so I will be concerned with why these specific translations are significant as well as why the original texts are important.
THE BHAGAVAD GITA
Winthrop Sargeant begins his translation of the Bhagavad Gita by asking the question, “Why add one more to the numerous English translations of the Bhagavad Gita?” His justification for the project is that of the hundreds of translations available, none but his provide the original Sanskrit along with a translation, interlinear breakdown, and a running vocabulary with the grammatical forms of each word. Indeed it is this feature, his scholarly exhaustiveness, that makes this translation invaluable to anyone involved with the study of the Gita. But the reader must exercise caution and not conclude that scholarly exhaustiveness of this kind can ever arrive at anything which we could call a final and ultimate translation. Why this is so relates to the problematic nature of translation itself. Philosophers who engage in the discipline of hermeneutics, which is concerned with interpretation and hence translation, have become critically self-aware of the obstacles to translation such as differences in perspectives, language, worldviews, etc. A book review, however, is not the place to discuss the philosophical problems with translation, regardless of the importance of this issue, so I will instead focus on two fundamental questions: why is Sargeant’s translation commendable and who is it for?
The Bhagavad Gita, probably composed during the second century B.C. in India, is a poem which constitutes part of a much larger epic poem known as the Mahabharata. Although several “schools” of Indian thought are exemplified in the Gita, it by no means provides a systematic account of any of them. The Gita instead tells the tale of human crisis and freedom. Crisis is seen as the bodily identification with fear and alienation which results in a bondage that can be articulated as our inability to act freely with a clear understanding of our historical situation, bodily condition, and future orientation. The Gita aims to show the way towards congealing these three as a coherent whole in action. It is perhaps one of the most important Indian accounts of the way of liberation or enlightenment (moksa) to have been written.
As mentioned above, there are numerous translations of the Gita available. Some of these are to be avoided at all cost. The fundamental problem with them is that they tend to appropriate the language of the East through alien philosophical and theological concerns and conceptual categories of the West. For example, Radhakrishnan entitles chapter nine of the Gita “The Lord is More Than His Creation” and chapter eleven “The Lord’s Transformation” both of which are grossly misleading to say the least. Van Buitenen’s translation is marred by such ambiguous (and hardly Indian) terms such as “spirit” and “soul”. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada’s translation known as The Bhagavad Gita As It Is is more a polemic aimed at promoting his Neo-vaisnava sect than a responsible rendering into English. This list could easily be expanded to at least a dozen popular English translations. Adequate translations however are not lacking. Perhaps the most accurate to date is Antonio T. deNicolas’ which he includes along with a philosophical interpretation in Avatara: The Humanisation of Philosophy Through the Bhagavad Gita.
The strength of Sargeant’s translation and the reason I find it highly commendable has more to do with the form in which he presents it than with the actual translation. Each page of this long book (over 700 pages) contains one stanza, arranged, in Sargeant’s words, to offer:
an interlinear word-for-word arrangement that permits the reader to learn the sound as well as the meaning of each word. The arrangement also makes it possible for the reader to see the metrical formation of the poem’s stanzas, and their grammatical structure. It should also enable the studious reader to savor something of the original language, which is elegant and extremely concise. As an added aid, a running vocabulary is provided, referring to the Sanskrit words on each page, along with their grammatical forms. Below each stanza will be found a readable English translation. . .my object has been to stick as closely as possible to literal meaning rather than to attempt a masterpiece of English prose (p. 1).
Additionally, the bottom of the page may contain footnoted references to obscure terms or phrases providing helpful, cultural and historical information that contributes to a contextual understanding of the term or stanza.
By taking this approach to translation, Sargeant’s book serves at once the dual functions of a fair English rendering of the Gita and a scholarly sourcebook for more advanced analysis and interpretation. The strength of Sargeant’s Gita could more easily be realized when used in conjunction with a translation such as deNicolas. In that way, a continuous reading could be augmented by a careful analysis of critical terminology in order to overcome the shortcomings inherent in all translations. It should also be mentioned that besides a foreword by Swami Samantananda, which is of questionable value, Sargeant has included several brief sections that contribute to the overall openness and hermeneutical import of his translation. “The Language of the Bhagavad Gita” offers historical and linguistic information on Sanskrit, providing rudimentary philological skills. “The Setting of the Bhagavad Gita” is a highly condensed account of the Mahabharata which in its original form “is estimated to be seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together, or nearly three times as long as the Judeo-Christian Bible” (p. 9). As brief as it is, this literary “hors d’oeuvre” is an excellent accounting of the contextual “flavor” (i.e. cultural, mythological, etc.) in which the Gita is situated. The “List of Abreviations Used in the Vocabularies” serves an obvious function. Finally, “Epithets Used in the Bhagavad Gita” is actually a guide to the dozens of nicknames for Krsna and Arjuna (the principal characters in the poem) that defines the meaning of the nickname and generally helps the reader know who is saying what to whom.
I would not recommend Sargeant’s translation to the casual first-time reader of the Gita who has no familiarity with Sanskrit. However, even with no background in Sanskrit, the serious reader or scholar will benefit greatly from his efforts. Sargeant’s Gita should be part of the library of any one who has a philosophical, religious, cultural or historical interest in India.
THE CONCISE YOGA VASISTHA
Philosophers and theologians in the West have devised various methods to describe the human condition in order to communicate it to others. Even though the technologies of observation and analysis have grown in sophistication and complexity, it is doubtful that any progress has been made toward addressing the most fundamental questions of human existence. It is not so curious then that philosophers continue to return to a moment in our past, to the dialogues of Plato, in order to uncover insights into these basic questions. As great as Plato was, his dialogical style flourished only while he lived and we have little else written in that form from any other Western thinker. When we turn to “philosophical” literature of the East we find a radically different situation. Some of the Vedic hymms, Upanisads, the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata, the Ramayana, some Buddhist sutras as well as the text now under review, the Yoga Vasistha, all employ the dialogical form. We are fortunate then to finally have in translation one of the greatest “philosophical” dialogues of India, the dialogue of Rama and the sage Vasistha.
Swami Venkatesananda’s work, The Concise Yoga Vasistha is a summary translation of this long text which captures, according to Dr. Chapple’s introduction, “the sense of the original without sacrificing philosophical depth.” This 13th century text integrates all of the “philosophical” concerns of India and expresses them dialogically in six sections: On Dispassion, On the Behavior of a Seeker, On Creation, On Existence, On Dissolution, and On Liberation. Its style ranges from simplistic, though subtle, parables such as the miser tale quoted above, to a detailed phenomenology that describes the quintessential religious experience of pure or unconditioned consciousness.
Perhaps the most significant feature of this text for scholar and practitioner alike it its continual attempt to demystify liberation and thus avoid the tendency to rely on reified metaphysical explanations. For example, in the section “On Liberation,” Vasistha describes one of his enlightenment experiences (samadhi) as follows:
Rudra began to dance in space. I saw a shadow behind him. . .that shadow (female) stepped in front of Rudra, and she was dancing, too… Only the eternal, infinite consciousness existed. . . Consciousness is never without some movement within itself. Birth, death, maya, delusion, wisdom, bondage, liberation, good and evil, you and I and all the rest of it. . . are nothing but infinite consciousness to the enlightened. . . The movement was experienced by me as the dance of the lord, on account of my own psychological conditioning (pp. 405-406) (emphasis added).
Vasistha experienced a “cosmic dance” because his tradition offered this explanation to him. He is well aware of the limits of reason, the inability of language to get behind the incarnate condition of liberation. His demystification should not be construed as a reductive more to trivialize the existential import of enlightenment. Its vital function in alleviating conventional suffering in the form of fear, sorrow, guilt, anxiety, etc. always remains the motivating impulse that grounds this text. This is illustrated quite graphically in the section “On Dispassion” where Rama laments that:
The rat of time gnaws at the life-span without respite. The termite of disease eats (destroys) the very vitals of the living being. Just as a cat, intent on catching a rat looks at it with great alertness and readiness, death is ever keeping a watch over this life-span (p.10).
The few excerpts from The Concise Yoga Vasistha quoted here as well as those quoted earlier stand witness to the richness of style and depth of insight displayed in this text. Besides being a profoundly deep account of human existence it is also a thoroughly enjoyable book to read. For those with even a cursory familiarity with Indian thought, the dialogues within The Concise Yoga Vasistha are sources of profound philosophical insight as well as foundations for meditative practice.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The publication of these two texts inaugurates the latest attempt to bring the East closer to us in two exceedingly important ways. First, the long awaited translation of the Yoga Vasistha reviewed here signals the attempt being made in contemporary scholarship to offer essentially important “philosophical” texts of India in translation. Since the history of the translation of Indian Sanskrit texts dates back to only the 18th century, much either remains to be translated or in urgent need of re-translation. Secondly, Sargeant’s Gita presents what amounts to a paradigm for scholarly, responsible translation in that it allows the reader to enter into the hermeneutical dimensions of translation and interpretation. What remains is for more secondary sources (commentaries, interpretations, etc.) to begin to capture the liberative or what we may term the “existential” aspects of Indian texts. At any rate, the two texts represented here constitute an excellent place for the Western reader to begin.
Sal Familia is a graduate student in Philosophy at the State University of New York as Stony Brook.