Objective criticism of Prabhupada

[Guest guest]

Objective criticism of Prabhupada translations and comentarys.

Transcript by Hare Krsna das (student of Linguistic and Literature in the U A de

C. Priest of Radha-Govinda Mandir ISKCON Saltillo North Mexico. He is working in

the thesis project The Real Ancientness of Srimad-Bhagavatam?)

Subject

It is very common between some conservative scholars deride and minimise the

vality of A.C. Bhaktivendanta Swami Srila Prabhupada translations and

commentaries of Bhagavad-gita and Bhagavata-Purana, etc. Saying that Prabhupda

did n't translate the texts like "As It is". However, many students in the

Indological camps, repeated this derogative slogan without reading the

Prabhupada's works. But let me show the poverty of this subjective idea with

the critical opinion of one of the most serious observer of Hare Krsna

Movement, Dr. Thomas J. Hopkins Ph D., from Yale University, and Chairma in

the Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. He is specialist in

Hindu devotional movements. His publications include the widely-used college

text The Hindu Religions Tradition, The Social Teachings of the Bhagavata

Purana, in Krishna, etc. This interview was in 1979 and 1981 and It is part

from the book Hare Krishna Hare Krishna. Five Distingued scholars on the

Krishna Movement in the West. Steven J. Gelberg ed. Goves Press 1983. (SJG)

means Steven Gelberg and (TH) DR. Hopkins.

Part. 2

SJG: I don't follow.

TH: Well, you have a verse, for instance, that says, "The forms of devotion are

this, and this, and this, and seva," Seva literally means service, but in

isolation that a doesn't really convey anything. So, in his commentary he

explains that there are different kids of service the devotee can render, such

as bathing the temple imagines, preparing food for the devotees, repairing the

temple building, cleaning the temple compound, and so forth. Obviously, he 's

drawing on his knowledge of what devotees of his own time did as act of

service. So, if you translate the term seva literally as service, you lose a

sense of what the term means in the context of devotional community. So, to

transliterate the term with specific reference to various examples of

devotional service is really more true to the original sense of term than style

of translate in Bhaktivedanta Swami's work, but in every case that I am aware of

it's done for the sake of making meaning of the original more clear, rather than

obscuring it.

To give another , more important, exempla: from a strictly scholarly, historical

standpoint, the Krishna who appears in the Bhagavad-gita is the princely Krishna

of the Mahabharata and not the pastoral, playful Krishna of Vrindavana. But from

the point of view of orthodox Vaisnavana tradition the Krishna of Gîta and the

Krishna of Vrindavana are one and the same. From the tradition 's point of

view, there is not a great deal of significance to the princely Krishna in

isolation from the other aspects of His life. It 's not Krishna the historical

prince and charioteer of Arjuna who is really important religiously; it is the

Krishna of Vrindavan —the transcendental Lord enjoying loving dealings

with His most intimate devotees— that is importan religious. If you look

at Bhaktivedanta Swami's translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-gita, you

can understand that it is the Bhagavad-gita as seen through the perspective of

the Bhagavata Purana. He 's not trying to deal with the Gîta in isolation form

the whole tradition. He 's dealing with it as it has meaning within the context

of the tradition. That s no more distorting, it seems to me, that to read back

into the teaching of Jesus the recognition that he is the resurrected Lord. The

believing Christian reads the Bible with that understanding. to the Christian,

words spoken by the Master are importan no because they're an accurate

transcription of what somebody once said takes on new significance. Every

tradition operates that way. As a Sankristist, one can argue that in

Bhaktivedanta Swami's translation, there is expansion of meaning and added

interpretation, but from the point of view of a religious Sankritist, his

approach is the only one that really conveys the meanings of Text.