The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita - Hardcover

$21.95
$21.95
Skip to product information
The Bhagavad Gita
  • The Bhagavad Gita
The Bhagavad Gita - Hardcover

The Bhagavad Gita - Hardcover

by Eknath Easwaran
$21.95
$21.95
Format
Hardcover $21.95 Paperback $12.95

Book Overview

The Bhagavad Gita is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Eknath Easwaran's best-selling translation is reliable, readable, and profound.

Easwaran's 55-page introduction places the Bhagavad Gita in its historical setting, and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions clarify key concepts, and notes and a glossary explain Sanskrit terms.


Easwaran grew up in the Hindu tradition in India, and learned Sanskrit from a young age. He was a professor of English literature before coming to the West on a Fulbright scholarship. A gifted teacher, he is recognized as an authority on the Indian classics and world mysticism.


The Bhagavad Gita opens, dramatically, on a battlefield, as the warrior Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life. Yet, as Easwaran points out, the Gita is not what it seems - it's not a dialogue between two mythical figures at the dawn of Indian history. "The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the Gita's subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious."

Arjuna's struggle in the Bhagavad Gita is acutely modern. He has lost his way on the battlefield of life and turns to find the path again by asking direct, uncompromising questions of his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, the Lord himself. Krishna replies in 700 verses of sublime instruction on living and dying, loving and working, and the nature of the soul.

Easwaran shows the Gita's relevance to us today as we strive, like Arjuna, to do what is right.


"No one in modern times is more qualified - no, make that 'as qualified' - to translate the epochal Classics of Indian Spirituality than Eknath Easwaran. And the reason is clear. It is impossible to get to the heart of those classics unless you live them, and he did live them. My admiration of the man and his works is boundless." - Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions.

Back Jacket

The Bhagavad Gita, "The Song of the Lord," is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Eknath Easwaran's reliable, readable version has consistently been the best-selling translation.


Easwaran's introduction places the Gita in its historical setting and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions give clear explanations of key concepts, and notes and a glossary explain Sanskrit terms.


The Bhagavad Gita opens, dramatically, on a battlefield, as the warrior Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life.


But, as Easwaran points out, the Gita is not what it seems -- it's not a dialogue between two mythical figures at the dawn of Indian history. "The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the Gita's subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage" to live a life that is meaningful, fulfilling, and worthwhile.
ISBN9781586381301
Author Eknath Easwaran
PublisherNilgiri Press
GenreReligion & spirituality and Philosophy
FormatHardcover
PublishedFebruary 2019
Edition2
LanguageENG- English
Pages296
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Body, Mind & Spirit Nonfiction Philosophy

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Eknath Easwaran

The Bhagavad Gita: Large Print Edition

The Bhagavad Gita: Large Print Edition - Paperback

The Bhagavad Gita: Large Print Edition - Paperback

By Eknath Easwaran

About Eknath Easwaran

Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) brings to this volume a rare combination of credentials. He was trained from an early age in Sanskrit, of which Pali, the language of the Buddha, is a simplified version. Later he studied English literature and was chairman of the English department at a major Indian university when he came to the United States on a Fulbright fellowship in 1959. Huston Smith writes, "His Indian heritage, literary gifts, and spiritual sensibilities here produce a sublime rendering of the words of the Buddha. Verse after verse shimmers with quiet, confident authority."In 1961 Easwaran founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in California, and in 1967, at the University of California, Berkeley, he taught the first academic course on meditation ever offered for credit at a major American university. He continued to teach passage meditation and his eight-point program for spiritual living to an American and international audience for almost forty years. His thirty-three books on meditation and the classics of world mysticism are translated into twenty-five languages.From the mid-1970s onwards, Easwaran held classes on the Dhammapada for a primarily American audience. A gifted teacher, he was able to anticipate the problems that Western readers may have with the concepts underlying the classics of Indian spirituality, and to explain them in fresh and profoundly simple ways. But for Easwaran the Dhammapada was not just of intellectual interest. His main qualification for interpreting the Dhammapada, he said, was that he knew from his own experience that these verses could truly transform our lives.

You may also like