Just see how Bhagavad-Gita As It Is rendition 1 (BGAII V1), also called the 1972 Macmillan edition, unfortunately, encourages ignorance. “Don’t study many books, just stay ignorant!”

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Let us, first of all, express our sadness and deepest sympathy for the relatives and friends of the slain devotees in the Bangladesh aggressions.

We seek two things:

  1. Justice – Those who are responsible for the recent violence must be held accountable and punished per Bangladesh law.
  2. Protection – We call on the Bangladesh government to ensure the safety of all religious minorities in Bangladesh._______________________________________________________________________

BGAII 10.34 purport.

The manuscript reads:

” Medha, memory, not only to read many books on many subject matter, but to keep them in the memory and produce them when necessary, that is also another opulence”

BGAII V1 points instead in the opposite direction, whence the title of my article:

“One need not read many books on different subject matters; the ability to remember a few and quote them when necessary is also another opulence.”

BGAII V2 respects the original “read many books”:

“And the ability not only to read many books on different subject matters but to understand them and apply them when necessary is intelligence (medha), another opulence.

BGAII V 3 possibly:

And the ability not only to read many books on different subject matters but to remember and quote them when necessary is intelligence (medha), another opulence.

Further considerations:

We note that the three word-for-word renditions translate the word medha as “intelligence” not “memory.”

Clearly, the idea of remembrance is present in the original transcript and should therefore be conserved in the final rendition. If one is able to remember and quote the subject matter, then understanding is implicit. No need to mention it.

The question will be how to best render “produce”, which in itself is not ideal:

“Quote” as in BGAII V1 or “apply” as in BGAII V2 ?

We may choose “quote” because Srila Prabhupada, the preacher, is always in the business of quoting Shastra as no one else knows how. Jai Srila Prabhupada!!!

Final remark: Such editorial discrepancies are very disturbing and cause discord. In Srila Prabhupada’s own words: ” If the books are printed with spelling mistakes and other mistakes, that will be a discredit for our publication.”

POST FINAL REMARK:

In order to improve the standard of presentation of BGAII V1, this point along with the number of qualities enumerated in the verse, which are in fact seven and not six, ought to be corrected just like the expression “cattle raising” of BGAII 18.44 has rightfully been corrected to “cow protection”, on Srila Prabhupada’s personal request.

The same applies to “avaricious” of BGAII 2.5 as well as the multiple use of “the Blessed Lord,” instead of “the “Supreme Personality of Godhead.” In BGAII 2.13 p. Hayagriva replaced Prabhupada’s “futile” with the word “meaningless.” and Jayadvaita Swami tolerates such whimsical change. What is wrong with “futile”, we may ask?

These are all inventions of Hayagriva Prabhu who thus takes the freedom of blocking access to Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad-Gita as It Is. In all honesty, his presentation of BGAII should therefore be called Bhagavad-Gita As It Is Not (BGAIIN) by Hayagriva Prabhu.

In conclusion and IMHO, but for the missing purport sentence “And the ability not only to read many books on different subject matters but to remember and quote them when necessary is intelligence (medha), another opulence”, we may say that BGAII V2 10.34 is just fine by the arrangement of HH Jayadvaita Swami.

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