Why does Prabhupada give Sanskrit word-to-word translations that aren not found in Sanskrit dictionaries?

I have studied Sanskrit and I find that sometimes when Prabhupada gives the word-to-word translation of certain Sanskrit words, those translations are often not found in the dictionaries. I also ask my grandparents as well, who are also Sanskrit scholars. They also say that, my grandparents who are Sanskrit scholars also say that these translations are not so precise.

Yes. Actually, Prabhupada was not a person who focused on technical precision. He was a person who focused on essential conclusion.

Like, one time, a personalist, a Mayavadi teacher, Mayavadi person, he came to Shri Prabhupada and said, Swamiji, in this verse, Krishna doesn't say maam anywhere. Krishna doesn't say aa, there is no maam, there is no Krishna here, but you have put Krishna here. Why is that? How can you put Krishna when there is no Krishna in the verse? So then Prabhupada immediately, he quoted the translation commentary of a famous impersonalist.

9.34 is the verse, man manabhava madhvakto, madhyaji maam namaskuru, maame vaisya syukto evam, atmana madhparayanam. So, ma, man, these variations of me come six times in that verse. And yet in that verse, the impersonalist says that, actually it is not to Krishna we have to surrender, we have to surrender to the unborn within Krishna.

So then Prabhupada says that, you impersonalists have removed Krishna where he is there. So to counter that, I have put Krishna where he is not there. So the point which Prabhupada makes is that he stresses essential conclusions.

And in his stress of essential conclusions, he does not give a lot of stress on technical precision. If you see that way, if Sri Prabhupada had any malefied intention, then if at all he had, then he could have very well just given the English translation purport, not given the Sanskrit or if at all he wanted to do that, he could have avoided the word to word. Now Prabhupada knew that by giving the word to word, he is attracting attention there.

And what to speak of his word to word not matching with standard Sanskrit dictionary. Sometimes his word to word may not match even with the translation that he gives. Sometimes Prabhupada translates the word a particular way in his word to word.

And then when he goes into translation, he may not use that translation at all. He may use something else. That means if Prabhupada really wanted to do something, something underhanded, then he could have avoided the possibility of suspicion by just not giving the word to word translation.

But he gives the word to word translation. Therefore, what is he doing by that? He is provoking us to think, provoking us to think. That means every Acharya writes eternal message, but the eternal message is presented with a particular strategy to a particular audience.

So Prabhupada wrote in the last years of his life, towards the last years of his life, and Prabhupada wrote to an audience that was largely materialistic, that most of whom would not even consider reading a spiritual book or to speak of scrutinizingly go through the word to word translation of everything and to understand the technical flow of it. So Prabhupada says in one lecture that his goal is, the way he has presented his purpose, that any page anyone opens in my books, that person will find the essential conclusion there in that one page. So Prabhupada's strategy is compassionate, that people are lost in material existence and even that whatever they read, they should get the essential message.

So that essential conclusive message Prabhupada stresses on everywhere. And Prabhupada himself told us that we can read previous Acharya's commentaries also. So if you want to understand the technical precision of the Gita, there are many devotees who have given systematic classes on the Gita.

You can hear those classes. Nowadays, if you want to go deeper, there are few Acharya's commentaries also which have been translated, where also you can understand the technical precision of the Gita.