Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad Gita: a translation of the poem

by Mani Rao

Bhagavad Gita (Song of God) is a sacred Hindu scripture considered among the  most important texts in the history of literature and philosophy. The Gita comprises roughly seven hundred verses and is a part of the larger Mahabharata.

While other versions have focused on its philosophy and religion, Mani Rao’s translation emphasizes the work’s poetic beauty, its essence as a poetic text for today.

“The great virtue of The Bhagavad Gita is courage, and in her luminous new translation, Rao is courageous indeed. Her lines venture to keep pace with the original, stride for stride, revelation for revelation. As Wittgenstein wrote, ‘courage is always original.’ I can avow that Rao’s is the first truly original version of this sacred text to appear in decades.”
—Donald Revell

“Mani Rao has transformed the most famous spiritual poem in India to a multi-layered poem, giving shapes to multiple meanings and sounds to multiple forms. Just as Arjuna saw the universe in Krishna’s mouth and like the endless tree, the tree of life, which reveals its roots above and leaves below, Mani Rao has shown us this universe, this endless life  with its supporting philosophy, as a poem to be perceived directly, intuitively, cutting through reason and linearity to arrive at the underlying undying poetry and grace of this epic work.”
—Frederick Smith

Read a review by Eric M. Gurevitch