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CORRIGIBILITY, ALLEGORY, UNIVERSALITY: A HISTORY OF THE GITA'S TRANSNATIONAL RECEPTION, 1785–1945*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2010

MISHKA SINHA
MISHKA SINHA*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This essay lays out a history of the translation, interpretation, transmission and reception of the Bhagavad Gita as a cultural, religious and philosophical text in the West from 1785 to 1945; in doing so it focuses primarily on Britain, although it also refers to other contexts of reception where they are connected to the British context, or to present revealing or helpful comparisons. The object of the essay is to investigate relationships between the Gita's interpretive history and assumptions about the Gita, both as a transcultural philosophical source and as an essentially Hindu religious text, which have been in place since the twentieth century. Although there have been other transnational surveys and histories of the Gita's translation, this essay differs from them in positing a specific period of interpretation between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, during which time, it argues, the Gita as a received and translated text was significantly altered in certain specific ways which continue to influence its present understanding both in the West and in India.

Type
Forum
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 297 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 I am indebted to scholars who have explored the Gita's interpretive flexibility in discussions of its reception within transnational contexts, especially Larson, Gerald James, “The ‘Bhagavad-Gita’ as Cross-cultural Process: Towards an Analysis of the Social Locations of a Religious Text”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43/4 (Dec. 1975), 651–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharpe, Eric J., The Universal Gītā: Western Images of the Bhagavadgiītā, a Bicentenary Survey (London: Duckworth, 1985)Google Scholar; and Robinson, Catherine A., Interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gītā and Images of the Hindu Tradition: the Song of the Lord (London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar.

2 Larson, “The ‘Bhagavad-Gita’”, 659, suggests that the Gita was composed between 200 BCE and 200 CE. Angelika Malinar recognizes 400 BCE to 400 CE as a broader general period of composition.

3 Remembered/traditional.

4 Heard/revealed.

5 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and method, trans. from the German, trans. ed. by Barden, Garrett and Cumming, John (London: Sheed & Ward, 1975)Google Scholar.

6 E.g. Kapoor, J. C., Bhagavad-Gita, an International Bibliography of 1785–1979 Imprints (New York: Garland Publishers, 1983)Google Scholar.

7 Sharpe, The Universal Gītā, 62–3.

8 Larson, “The ‘Bhagavad-Gita’”, 665–6; and Introduction to Robinson, Interpretations.

9 The boundaries of this “universality” depend on the interpretive context – for example, whether they extend to include all Hindus, or all Indians, or all humans.

10 Taking the Latin word translatio.

11 Wilkins, Charles, Bhagvat Geeta or the Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon (London: Nourse, 1785)Google Scholar.

12 See p. v of Hastings’ “Introduction” and p. xvi of Wilkins’ “Translator's Preface”, in the 1849 reprint of the original text, edited by Rev. J. Garrett.

13 “Remarks on the Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon”, Gentleman's Magazine LV/12/2 (Oct. 1785), 955–7.

14 Anonymous review, Gentleman's Magazine 55/12 (December 1875), 955–7, 957.

15 Monthly Review 1 (1785), Article II, 198–210 and 295–301.

16 Ibid.

17 Rev. Garrett, J., ed., The Bhagavat Geeta or Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon in Eighteen Lectures. Sanskrit Canarese and English in Parallel Columns. The Canarese newly translated from the Sanskrit, and the English from the translation by Sir Charles Wilkins (Bangalore: Wesleyan Mission Press, 1846)Google Scholar.

18 See, for example, Holwell's, J. Z.Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan, 3 vols. (London, 1765–71)Google Scholar.

19 This is well illustrated by the diminishing numbers of articles on India in British journals, such as the Edinburgh Review, for instance, from the early 1800s to the 1830s.

20 T. B. Macaulay was a Whig politician, historian, and, from 1834, member of the Supreme Council of India. His “Minute on Indian Education” (1834) persuaded the Governor-General to adopt English, rather than Sanskrit or Arabic, as the medium of instruction in higher education in India. The Orientalists, including scholars and government officials such as H. H. Wilson, had maintained the importance of instruction in Indian languages, and of the need to educate Indians about their own texts and traditions. Macaulay, who was unversed in oriental studies, argued that modern European knowledge was superior to Asian knowledge, and that proficiency in English would be of greater benefit to Indians than Indian languages. Macaulay's minute laid the foundation for higher education in India as well as a colonial system based on the cooperation of English-speaking Indians: it also catalysed the sharp decline in the value assigned to Indian languages, culture and history in Britain for the next century and more.

21 Mill, James, The History of British India (London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1817)Google Scholar.

22 Jones was one of the earliest scholars known to have noticed the philological relationship, although it may have been noted previously by medieval scholars working in Persian or Arabic. There is at least one European contender for Jones's status: see Godfrey, John J., “Sir William Jones and Pere Coeurdoux: A Philological Footnote,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 87/1 (Jan.–March 1967), 57–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Anquetil-Duperron's version was based on the Persian translation written or commissioned by Dara Shukoh.

24 The only exception is Swami Vivekananda's interpretation of the Gita in lectures delivered in Europe, America and India, which shares these characteristics. However, Vivekananda's Gita was more important to the reception of the text within neo-Hindu movements in India than in a transnational context.

25 The Sacred Anthology: A Book of Ethical Scriptures Collected and Edited by Moncure Conway (London: Trübner and Company, 1873).

26 Müller, Friedrich Max, The Life and Letters of the Honourable Friedrich Max Müller in Two Volumes Edited by His Wife (Bombay, London and New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1903)Google Scholar, Müller to Moncure Conway, 5 Jan. 1883, 2: 135.

27 Müller to W. E. Gladstone, 18 Jan. 1883, Life and Letters, 2: 138.

28 Girardot, N. J., “Max Muller's ‘Sacred Books’ and the Nineteenth-Century Production of the Comparative Science of Religions”, History of Religions 41/3 (Feb. 2002), 227 n. 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Müller, Life and Letters, 2: 10.

30 Girardot, “Max Muller's ‘Sacred Books’”, 228 n. 29. See Max Müller, “Statement to the Delegates of the Oxford University press, 1878,” OUP Archive.

31 Girardot, “Max Muller's ‘Sacred Books’”, 215–16.

32 Ibid., pp. 215–216.

33 Funny Folks, 3 June 1882.

34 This is noted by Girardot, “Max Muller's ‘Sacred Books’”, 220.

35 “The Year 1885”, Liverpool Mercury, 31 Dec. 1885.

36 Birmingham Daily Post, 13 Nov. 1885.

37 Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, Ireland), 28 Aug. 1885.

38 “Advertisements and Notices”, Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, Ireland), Saturday, 9 Dec. 1899, classified advertisements.

39 Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser (Dublin, Ireland), Saturday, 9 Dec. 1899.

40 Leeds Mercury, 25 July 1885.

41 “Local Notes and Queries”, number CCCXL, Leeds Mercury, 18 July 1885.

42 M. K. Gandhi, “The Meaning of the Gita”, Young India: A Weekly Journal VII/46 (12 Nov. 1925), 385–6.

43 Ibid., 385.

44 Ibid. 387.

45 Ibid., 386.

46 Gandhi, M. K., An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth, trans. Desai, Mahadev (Ahmedabad: Navjivan Book Trust, 1930), 35Google Scholar.

47 Blavatsky, H. P., The Key to Theosophy (London: The Theosophical Publishing Company and New York: W. Q. Judge, 1889)Google Scholar.

48 Gandhi, Autobiography, 35.

49 van der Veer, Peter, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), 59–60Google Scholar.

50 Besant, Annie, The Bhagavad Gita or the Lord's Song (Madras: G. A. Natesan and Company, 1907), ivGoogle Scholar.

51 Besant, Annie, “First lecture”, in idem, Hints on the Study of the Bhagavad Gita (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 1–2Google Scholar.

52 Swami, Purohit, An Indian Monk (London: Macmillan, 1932)Google Scholar.

53 T. S. Eliot File, Purohit Swami Collection, Nehru Memorial Archives, Delhi (unpublished letter from T. S. Eliot to Purohit Swami, 1 Nov. 1934).

54 T. S. Eliot File, Purohit Swami Collection, Nehru Memorial Archives, Delhi (unpublished letter from T.S. Eliot to Purohit Swami, 7 May 1937).

55 The Ten Principal Upanishads, trans. Purohit Swami and W. B. Yeats (London: Faber, 1937).

56 The Geeta: The Gospel of the Lord Shri Krishna, trans. from the original Sanskrit by Shri Purohit, Swami (London: Faber, 1935).

57 The Song of God: Bhagavadgita, trans. by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, with an Introduction by Aldous Huxley (Hollywood: M. Rodd Co., 1944).

58 The next year, Huxley published The Perennial Philosophy (London: Chatto and Windus, 1945), devoted to explicating its history and underlying principles.

59 Aldous Huxley, “Introduction”, Song of God, 11–12.

60 Ibid., p. 13. Huxley quotes Ananda Coomaraswamy on the Gita.

61 Ibid. This is Huxley's own conclusion.

62 Ibid., 23.