Bhagavadgita for the Young (An Old and Rare Book)

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Born in 1918, Shri Ramanathan took a Science degree from the Presidency College, Chennai and studied Sanskrit at home. Later he joined the Indian Railways as an Executive and served in various line and staff positions till he retired in 1976 as General Manager. Since then he has been contributing articles on Hinduism in India and abroad and on political-cum-administrative subjects. He is the author of Bhavan's Publication, Bhagavadgita for Executives.

Several years ago, a book titled "Bhagavadgita for Executives" was written by me. It was meant primarily for the English speaking young persons of to-day who are more familiar with the English language than with Indian tongues and Sanskrit. It consisted of a translation in English verse of about five hundred and fifty shlokas of the Gita's total of seven hundred. The chapters dealing with buddhiyoga, karmayoga and bhaktiyoga in general were fully or almost fully translated. The other chapters were condensed to a greater or lesser extent depending on their relevance to the needs of the modern young. It was my hope that such a book would be read frequently and periodically by those interested in Hindu thought and way of life, so that their attitude to their work might be permeated by the Gita spirit.

In practice I find that though the book had a favourable reception, having gone through two editions and the second edition being released by the President of India through the courtesy of the publishers Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the initial hope of frequent reading has not materialised sufficiently. Introspection revealed that five hundred and fifty constituted too large a number for this purpose.

So in this little book the number has been reduced to one hundred and twentyfive. Of these one hundred and twenty- three have been taken from the previous book. Two are fresh translations. The emphasis is on the path of action and the path of bhakti with some references to the nature of Knowledge. Some of the preliminary verses indicating Arjuna's dilemma and almost all the verses of the final summary given by the Gita itself in the concluding chapter are included.

The previous book had an introduction to each chapter. These introductions have been dispensed with now. Nor is it possible to retain them because all the one hundred and twentyfive verses have been rolled into one chapter. The original order of the verses as given in the Gita has also not been fully followed and some rearrangement has been attempted to give more of a logical continuity as may appeal to the modern mind. Here and there in the translation a word has been added to make the continuity clear. The original chapterwise and numberwise position of the shloka corresponding to a verse is indicated opposite that verse. The translations are almost literal; here is no free rendering.