Review. BHAGVAD GITA. A SONG SUNG BY GOD. Numen Books, 2015

I first encountered Bhagvad Gita when I was 16, but this was the Hare Krishna movement (ISKCON) version with lots of comments. I am not sure if I needed them but it helped to learn Sanskrit a little bit. This time, we see the real full text of “A Song sung by Lord” (भगवद्गीता), which is about only 100 pages. However, this book is essential to understand many things and, as Aldous Huxley once put it, “it is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed: hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity”.

It must be mentioned that this terrific book (http://numenbooks.com/spirit/product/13035) is not just a good translation of Gita, but also that it’s done by professor Raghupati Bhatt (originally from Karnataka, India). It’s his tenth book.

I liked that the translator/author had written only several pages after the original text’s translation, in which there are the names of Krishna and Arjuna and several other important things explained.

“All paths lead to God. The God is present in everybody. There are many planes on which different kinds of beings live. One becomes what one thinks. As Krishna says, we have to determine our course and follow it with determination. We have to do our duties without fail. Escapism has no place in the Gita. This is the secret of the Gita.” (p. 102–103)

700-verse Hindu scripture is a very important part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Probably it's age be 5–6th century BCE, or maybe even 3rd-4th millennium BCE. Anyway, it doesn’t matter when the Gita was sung by God. Just read it in our Kali Yuga. It’s one of the main texts that one must read in life.

As a Lithuanian, I want to add that Baltic nation Yotvingians, according to 1238 AD document, had a country Kirsnovia (Kirsnava), which is connected to Old Prussian’s word kirsnan “black”, Yotvingian kirsna “black”, Lithuanian kirsnas “dark black (about a horse)”. It is without any doubt connected with Krishna’s name, and there are many names of rivers and lakes in Lithuania which names are connected with this word: Kirsna, Kirsnupė (“Black river”) etc.