By Asta Sakhi Devi Dasi

Asta Sakhi devi dasi ACBSP Please take note. I was with Srila Prabhupada at the launch of his Bhagavad-gita with Macmillan in London. We could not distribute Bhagavad-gita until after this launch, which was held at the Marble Arch conference room upstairs in a hotel. There were many dignitaries, many publishing houses, London radio, the Telegraph newspaper, the Times newspaper and others.

Srila Prabhupada was asked at one point by a journalist if he had done a transliteration of Sanskrit word for word to English. Srila Prabhupada said “NO. There are not enough words in the English language compared to Sanskrit to give a safe translation. I HAVE GIVEN A TRANSLATION AS CLOSE TO THE SANSKRIT IN ENGLISH FROM MY OWN REALISATIONS OF THE VERSE.”

Jayadvaita Swami completely changed this by doing a transliteration from Sanskrit to English, changing the whole Bhagavad-gita. Unfortunately, he took Srila Prabhupada’s heartfelt realization out of Bhagavad-gita. Our Srila Prabhupada only asked for some mistakes to be corrected. Either done by Macmillan or by Pradyumna who copied them wrongly…

For instance, the original only had 11 Mahajans listed and there are actually 12. Mostly others were spelling mistakes, etc. To just correct them would not have compromised the integrity of the Bhagavad-gita. Now the GBC wants to press charges for anyone who prints Srila Prabhupada’s original Bhagavad-gita, stopping the world from reading the incredible realizations coming from his heart.

It is the most shameful and disrespectful activity against our Founder-Acharya. Jayadvaita Swami had not realized this when I spoke to him a few years ago. I’m not convinced he changed the Bhagavad-gita maliciously. He did it as a scholar misunderstanding the real heart of Srila Prabhupada, and no one corrected him.

To correct this, Srila Prabhupada’s name should be amended from Jayadvaita Swami’s translations..