Dear Guru Maharaja,

please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Thank you for always encouraging words in your responses.

Situated in a whirlwind of Kali Yuga consciousness, I attempt to cultivate the tender bhakti creeper (better say sprout).

I said it few times, that I do not want to burden you much with many of letters. So, I write from time to time. If having some inquiry, I wait a bit, research the possible answers, and (specifically if nothing comes about), then, write you.

I am doing a detailed study of Bhagavad Gita and observed that in 1.1. purport, second sentence, SP writes: "There (in Gita-mahatmya) it says that one should read Bhagavad-gītā very scrutinizingly with the help of a person who is a devotee of Śrī Kṛṣṇa and try to understand it without personally motivated interpretations. "

I went back one page to SP's Introduction where he cites the Gita-mahatmya. There it is easy to see the "scrutiny" idea, but nowhere could I read or imply the association of other devotees or anything similar. I find it interesting that SP first mentions (in the first sentence of his BG purport) the Gita-mahatmya and then says that there exists something which is not. According to my momentary understanding.

Another interesting point is that this is the only place SP mentions Gita-mahatmya.

And another interesting point is that it is a text coming from Adi Sankaracarya.

One background to my question is the perspective that I (we) have about SP's exactness in knowing and citing sastra and texts that uphold it.

If you think that I could understand, would you like to comment to the above?

Thank you!

Your servant Namacarya Das

HpS - AgtSP. I have had very similar experiences. I even had some thoughts just like yours on these specific texts.

I seem to remember that the full translation of the Gita Mahatmya was not in the earlier BG As It Is.

I wonder what is the actual original Sanskrita. I think a translation is in other book like Science of Self Realization. Maybe the 'other devotee' idea is from a commentary by Visvanatha Cakravarti.

I have basically the same observations and questions that you have. Cannot add much on this particular point.

Wonder when the purport was written. In the USA. Thinking that is SP was writing it in India he would have be very literal in his work because he expected scholatically inclined Indian readers.

As we remember discussions with Radhika-raman Das, he said that he and Krsna-ksetra Swami got this invitation from Columbia University Press to write summary of SB with specific extracts which would become a standard study book for university students.

It was wonderful, but, they were worried that they would have to give a scholarly and less devotional translation than Srila Prabhupad was doing.

Then, to their surprise, the first thing they discovered was that whether it was impersonal or personal, the translations that SP was giving were just the translations that our Acharya's had given.

So, any distortion to religious translation with their fault, not his.

Then going further to the standard Sanskrit dictionaries comming down for centuries, the religious, personal, translation of the word was the first one given. The impersonal translations were not the primary meaning of the words!

So many questions to answer, yet the first principle of the SB is: Reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all.

That's so fine, no?