New York Times:- The Bhagavad Gita was first translated into Russian in 1788, but if a
court in the Siberian city of Tomsk rules against it this week, one
version of the ancient Hindu text will be added to Russia’s 1,057-item
list of banned material deemed extremist.
Prosecutors in Tomsk say
a 1968 edition of the book, “The Bhagavad Gita As It Is,” which
includes commentary by the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, is
hostile toward other religious groups and contains extremist language.
The case has caused outrage in India and has put the Russian government
on the defensive.
In the face of mounting outrage from India, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, tried to clarify the situation late last week. The case focuses not on the Bhagavad Gita text, but on the specific commentaries in the Hare Krishna version by the movement’s founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Mr. Lukashevich said in a statement released on Thursday.
In the face of mounting outrage from India, Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, tried to clarify the situation late last week. The case focuses not on the Bhagavad Gita text, but on the specific commentaries in the Hare Krishna version by the movement’s founder, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Mr. Lukashevich said in a statement released on Thursday.
“This is not about the book per se, but about the unsuccessful translation and the preface written by the author,” he said.
The
case relies on testimony from several university professors who read
the text for an audit by Russia’s Federal Security Service. According
to a report in the Moscow Times,
while the experts have said the book expresses religious hatred, one
university dean included in the audit also said it “depends on
perception” and another professor said the text is not “extremist,” but
polemical.
The defendants, the Tomsk chapter of the “Russian
Society of Krishna Consciousness,” say the potentially offensive quotes
were taken out of context. On Monday, the national organization released
a statement on a Russian Web site, “World Religions,” claiming that
quotes under scrutiny, like one calling it a sacred duty to fight, “even
if you have to fight with friends,” were taken out of context.
One of the quotes in question comes from Chapter 2: “Contents of the Gita Summarized,” from Text 15. It states (in the English translation):
“But one who is serious about making his life perfect surely adopts the sannyasa
order of life in spite of all difficulties. The difficulties usually
arise from having to sever family relationships, to give up the
connection of wife and children. But if anyone is able to tolerate such
difficulties, surely his path to spiritual realization is complete.
Similarly, in Arjuna’s discharge of duties as a ksatriya, he is advised to persevere, even if it is difficult to fight with his family members or similarly beloved persons.”
The preface
of Bhagavad Gita: “As It Is” was written in 1971 and contains, among
other things, Swami Prabhupada’s reasons for writing the translation (he
felt other English translations were “introduced to fulfill someone’s
personal ambition”) and advice on following Lord Krishna, including:
“Lord Krsna first spoke Bhagavad-gita
to the sun-god some hundreds of millions of years ago. We have to
accept this fact and thus understand the historical significance of Bhagavad-gita, without misinterpretation, on the authority of Krsna.”
and,
“Generally the so-called scholars, politicians, philosophers, and svamis, without perfect knowledge of Krsna, try to banish or kill Krsna when writing commentary on Bhagavad-gita. Such unauthorized commentary upon Bhagavad-gita is known as Mayavadi-bhasya, and Lord Caitanya has warned us about these unauthorized men.”
The
Tomsk Hare Krisha group disputes the contention that the trial is
directed not at the Baghavad Gita, but against the Krishna version,
noting that texts labeled as extremist include quotes from the original
book, as well as commentary by Swami Prabhupada.
The organization,
which has grown in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, has
battled charges of extremism before. For almost a decade, the Moscow
branch struggled to gain permission to build a new temple, facing
opposition from some members of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2010,
the city’s new mayor gave the movement permission to build on a
five-acre plot of land near Moscow’s largest airport.
In an
interview last week on Indian television, Russia’s ambassador to India,
Alexander Kadakin, harshly criticized the complainants, calling them
“madmen.”
“It is not the Russian government that started the case,” he told IBN
TV. “These are some petty people in a far away, though very beautiful,
city of Tomsk who did it. The government has nothing to apologize for.
The government can only testify and reiterate the love and affection and
highest esteem our nation has for Bhagavad Gita.”
