By Sucitra Devi Dasi
In 1962, working alone with a manual typewriter, Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda condensed the Bhagavad-gītā’s seven hundred verses into simple rhyming Bengali couplets. His book, ‘Gītār Gān’, is a beautiful and easily-understood poetic rendition of the gītā, aimed at making its wisdom more accessible to Bengali-speaking people. When it was first published in 1973 it became a grand success, widely loved and appreciated by the Bengali populace. One distributor reported that bookstore owners said they had never seen a book sell so well. “When displayed in Bengali villages,” he said, “people crowd around to buy it and carefully wrap their copies in cloth to take back home. Everywhere I go people ask, ‘Where is Gītār Gān?’ They love the poetry because it is so easy to chant or sing.”
Śrīla Prabhupāda’s original Gītār Gān has sold nearly a million copies and is still widely popular throughout Bengal and Bangladesh today.
This Gītā Jayanti marks the release of the first full English translation of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Gītār Gān, painstakingly translated by Kalakaṇṭha dāsa (ACBSP) and Swarūpa Krishna dāsa of Kolkata. In Gītār Gān: Singing the Song Divine Kalakaṇṭha dāsa, a gifted poet, has created a captivating, rhythmic flow of rhymes, while maintaining the deep philosophical integrity of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s original work. By examining the Bengali/English synonyms in the considerable work of Swarūpa Krishna dāsa, it is easy to see how faithful this English presentation is to the original Gītār Gān. For the newcomer to Bhagavad-gītā and Gītār Gān, Kalakaṇṭha dāsa also includes many helpful footnotes to assist in navigating the text.
“Bengali speakers have savored the profound teachings of Bhagavad-gītā through Śrīla Prabhupāda’s simple Gītār Gān”, Kalakaṇṭha dāsa says. “Our translation aims to do the same for English speakers. Anyone familiar with Bhagavad-gītā As It Is will recognize dozens of fresh nuances and insights in Gītār Gān”.
Sitala Devi, author of The Glorious Life of Śrīla Narottama Dasa Thakur gave the following review of Gītār Gān: Singing the Song Divine: “Both veterans and newcomers to Bhagavad-gītā will appreciate this highly readable and inspiring edition. Rarely does one find answers to the big questions in such an enjoyable way.”
Gītār Gān: Singing the Song Divine is now available for purchase at sweetsongbooks.com and Amazon.com.
Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=104213
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