A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-Gita with Literal Translation

A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-gita is unique in that it brings clarity to the wisdom of India’s most popular but many times misunderstood spiritual classic. The author, H.D. Goswami, as a trained Harvard scholar and lifetime student of the Bhagavad-gita, combines rigorous study with simple language to give both scholars and first-time readers easy access to the sacred literature’s complex and sophisticated treatise. This guide elucidates key Sanskrit terms in the original text, using the literal meaning of the Sanskrit words, thus allowing the text to define its own terms and make its own arguments. Along with hundreds of references, a systematic analysis is given of the Gita’s major themes such as knowledge, reincarnation, meditation, karma, yoga, devotion, sacrifice, renunciation, liberation, and the divinity of Krishna. The book also includes a precise, literal translation of the ancient text. For over 45 years H.D. Goswami has shared the wisdom of the Bhagavad-gita at prestigious universities and with spiritual communities around the world. Thus, this publication is the fruit and culmination of a long, distinguished career of studying, teaching, and living the text. A Comprehensive Guide to Bhagavad-gita is a companion and study guide to Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’s ground-breaking Bhagavad Gita As It Is, the largest-selling edition of the Bhagavad-gita in the Western world. Prabhupada personally instructed H.D. Goswami, his disciple, to present these teachings "in your own words" to learned Western audiences. “Anyone that has read one of the several English translations of the famed Bhagavad-gita, with its richness of life-affirming truth, may have come away feeling spiritually refreshed yet vaguely uncertain as to whether or not the Gita upholds a clearly developed system of thought. With its sophisticated thematic approach, this Comprehensive Guide brings clarity to the Gita’s content in a most thorough and systematic way, inviting both first-time and seasoned readers to vigorously engage with the text while enjoying the rewards of deep understanding.” – Kenneth Valpey Ph.D., Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies