The Hindu holiday of Gita Jayanti has just passed, it being the commemoration of the original speaking of the Bhagavad-Gita. This book is not only a sacred scripture for Hindus, but respected by people of many religions. So let us consider what it is, and why it is so highly regarded.
To begin with, the Bhagavad-Gita comprises eighteen chapters of the vast epic Mahabharata; but widely published as a separate book, since it is the record of a conversation between God in His form as Krishna, and His friend, Arjuna, to whom He is acting as charioteer on a battlefield. Arjuna, knowing that the opposing side includes relatives of his, becomes disheartened and desires to abandon the fight; Krishna therefore guides him philosophically and spiritually through and past this crisis of faith, in the process summarizing many aspects of India's spirituality, and indeed the Perennial Philosophy shared by many wisdom traditions of the world.
I presume most ULCM ministers will have noticed that the online bookstore includes the Bhagavad-Gita translation of Eknath Easwaran. That is but one of a vast array, ever-increasing, of English translations from the original Sanskrit, so it is natural to wonder how to choose among them. When writing on this topic, I always like to mention that there was once a conversation between the Beatles and the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, which was recorded for posterity (it can be found online) in which the spiritually-seeking musicians repeatedly pressed the guru to recommend the best translation. Interestingly, he advised, "If you want to be a serious student of Bhagavad-Gita, learn Sanskrit!" This, despite the fact that he himself had written a translation and commentary.
Now, one difficulty with Gita translations is that they inevitably are in accord with the translator's philosophical and theological beliefs; and in the diverse world of Indian thought, this includes differences so wide as to be diametrically opposed at times. This is a good reason to consider the advice of the Hare Krishna founding guru; but for those for whom that is too daunting, the next best thing is to study translations that include the original text along with analysis of the individual words. Many translations do precisely that, including the aforementioned A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's "Bhagavad Gita As It Is", or the version by his close friend and colleague B.R. Sridhara Swami: "Hidden Treasure of the Sweet Absolute".
There is also a wonderful scholarly version by Winthrop Sargeant, with the avowed aim of being a simple, objective translation, with detailed grammatical and semantic analysis of the original text, allowing the student to achieve their own grasp of the meaning. Whereas most translations, including those I previously mentioned, reflect the translator's particular school of thought, Sargeant deliberately strives to avoid that situation for his readers. It is therefore recommendable, especially to those who aren't aligned with any school of Indian thought, or other philosophies analogous to them.
As previously mentioned, Krishna takes Arjuna briefly through what amounts to an overview of all or most of the main strands in Hindu thought. These start with matters of ethics and duty, and the organization and overall good of society. Other topics, with some repetition of ideas and themes, include basic yoga meditation practices; Vedanta theology; the Sankhya philosophy, an analysis of reality into its basic constituent parts; and bhakti, loving devotion, or devotional service, or, if we may put it into terms relevant to our Church's core teaching: conscious loving harmony between the Universe and Its Children: if we are all children of the same Universe, bhakti is when we children act like it by truly loving and serving our Parent and each other.
In this way, Bhagavad-Gita includes teachings and themes that are useful to people with different types of concerns within the realm of philosophy, religion, and spirituality and this shows us why many different people from different schools of thought have found great value in it. But we haven't yet said who they are! Naturally, many eminent people of India have spoken praise of the Gita, including Mohandas Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, and most other spiritual teachers, many of whom have translated and/or commentated the book. Prominent people outside India or other parts of the Hindu world include the Transcendentalist movement of early America, including famous writers and poets like Emerson and Thoreau; German writers and philosophers like Goethe and Schlegel. Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Merton praised it too. Beatnik poet Allan Ginsberg is yet another, and of course Beatle George Harrison, who so eagerly desired the best translation. Scientists have admired it, too, perhaps most famously Oppenheimer, the nuclear scientist who quoted the Gita ("Time I am, destroyer of worlds!" 11:32) upon witnessing the first nuclear bomb blast.
With all that in mind, on one hand, it is worth deep study for those so inclined; and for many ministers, the Bhagavad-Gita may at least be an excellent source of a great variety of wisdom quotes for sermons and counseling people.
