The Bahagavad Gita: A New Translation with Commentary. vol. 39.

• Author: Bolle, Kees W.

In addition to his translation and brief explanatory notes interspersed in the text, Professor White's book has a general index. This index includes a selection of Sanskrit terms in transliteration that refer the reader to their translated equivalent (or approximation). Though the introduction tells us that "the translation is not primarily directed to the attention of Sanskritists or other Indologists" (p. 10), it is difficult to see why the same pages use diacritical marks in some instances and not in others, and sometimes with some letters in a word, while they are left out in the remainder of the same word. The same arbitrariness unfortunately also prevails in the text of the translation. It certainly would have been more helpful in the educational process for which the book is intended to have left them out altogether. Even though the book may not address itself primarily to Indologists, why irritate them needlessly by writing "Pandu" in the first sloka instead of "Pandu"? (The term sloka is used often, and spelled "shloka.") Some renderings and comments are not felicitous.

In 7.17, Krsna states that those who possess knowledge are "the best," whereby White comments, under the heading, "Krishna and the men and women of knowledge": "Krishna is here said to prefer the man or woman of knowledge to all other virtuous people. . . ." One does not need to be an enemy of political correctness to suggest that a more elegant way of conveying the message would have been conceivable. Such solemn attempts at inclusivity are unjust to a poetic text that has been chanted and meditated on for many centuries. Moreover, it does not seem to harmonize with White's stated purpose, viz., to provide us with a "teaching translation" (p. 4), of which, of course...