The «Bhagavad Gita» A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books)

288 Pages·2014·1.84 MB·English

by  Richard H. Davis

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LIVES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS
The Bhagavad Gita
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LIVES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS
The Dead Sea Scrolls, John J. Collins
The Bhagavad Gita, Richard H. Davis
The Book of Mormon, Paul C. Gutjahr
The Book of Genesis, Ronald Hendel
The Book of Common Prayer, Alan Jacobs
The Book of Job, Mark Larrimore
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, Martin E.
Marty
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, Bernard McGinn
The I Ching, Richard J. Smith
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, David Gordon White
Augustine’s Confessions, Garry Wills
FORTHCOMING:
The Book of Revelation, Timothy Beal
Confucius’s Analects, Annping Chin and Jonathan D. Spence
Josephus’s Jewish War, Martin Goodman
John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bruce Gordon
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The Lotus Sutra, Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, George Marsden
The Greatest Translations of All Time: The Septuagint and the
Vulgate, Jack Miles
The Passover Haggadah, Vanessa Ochs
The Song of Songs, Ilana Pardes
The Daode Jing, James Robson
Rumi’s Masnavi, Omid Safi
The Talmud, Barry Wimpfheimer
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The Bhagavad Gita
A BIOGRAPHY
Richard H. Davis
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton and Oxford
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Copyright © 2015 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu
Jacket illustration © B. G. Sharma. www.bgsharmaart.com
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davis, Richard H., 1951–
The Bhagavad Gita : a biography / Richard H. Davis.
pages cm — (Lives of great religious books)
Summary: “The Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the most famous of all Indian
scriptures, is universally regarded as one of the world’s spiritual and literary
masterpieces. Richard Davis tells the story of this venerable and enduring book,
from its origins in ancient India to its reception today as a spiritual classic that
has been translated into more than seventy-five languages. The Gita opens on
the eve of a mighty battle, when the warrior Arjuna is overwhelmed by despair
and refuses to fight. He turns to his charioteer, Krishna, who counsels him on
why he must. In the dialogue that follows, Arjuna comes to realize that the true
battle is for his own soul. Davis highlights the place of this legendary dialogue
in classical Indian culture, and then examines how it has lived on in diverse
settings and contexts. He looks at the medieval devotional traditions
surrounding the divine character of Krishna and traces how the Gita traveled
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from India to the West, where it found admirers in such figures as Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Aldous Huxley.
Davis explores how Indian nationalists like Mahatma Gandhi and Swami
Vivekananda used the Gita in their fight against colonial rule, and how
contemporary interpreters reanimate and perform this classical work for
audiences today. An essential biography of a timeless masterpiece, this book is
an ideal introduction to the Gita and its insights into the struggle for self-
mastery that we all must wage”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-13996-8 (hardback)
1. Bhagavadgita—History. 2. Bhagavadgita—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I.
Title.
BL1138.66.D38 2014
294.5'92409—dc23
2014023890
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Garamond Premier Pro
Printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VII

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IX

INTRODUCTION
1
CHAPTER 1
The Bhagavad Gita in the Time of Its Composition
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CHAPTER 2
Krishna and His Gita in Medieval India
43
CHAPTER 3
Passages from India
72
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CHAPTER 4
Krishna, the Gita, and the Indian Nation
115
CHAPTER 5
Modern Gitas: Translations
154
CHAPTER 6
The Gita in Our Time: Performances
178
EPILOGUE
The Bhagavad Gita in Great Time
204

NOTES
211

GLOSSARY OF SANSKRIT TERMS
227

SELECT ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA
229
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