What is the real translation of Gita 7.21?
From: Keshav
What is real translation of BG 7.21 ?
yo yo yāḿ yāḿ tanuḿ bhaktaḥ
śraddhayārcitum icchati
tasya tasyācalāḿ śraddhāḿ
tām eva vidadhāmy aham
SP translate 7.21 as
I am in everyone’s heart as the Supersoul. As soon as one desires to worship some demigod, I make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity.
But word to word translation gives :
Whoever worships me with devotion in whichever form, based on his faith and understanding, I respond to the devotee through that very form and stabilize the faith of that devotee.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
what i should go for and the prabhupada translates 7.21 as i am in everyone’s heart at the super soul as soon as one desires to worship some demigod but i make his faith steady so that he can devote himself to that particular deity but word to word translation gives whoever worships me with devotion in whichever form based on his own faith and understanding i respond to the devotee through that very form and stabilize the faith of that devotee answer the question of what we mean by a real translation is something which goes into complex field of semantics because unless we can get into the mind of krishna we can never nearly know what the real translation is but we also understand that language is a means of communication and language can help us understand to some extent what is being said so if krishna prabhupada wanted to impose one particular translation on us then he had no reason to give the word-to-word translation he could just have given the direct translation and we would not have been unless we had some knowledge of sanskrit we would not even have raised a question like this so the idea that krishna prabhupada is giving the wrong translation or an unpredictable translation suggests that krishna prabhupada had some underhanded motive or something like that but the first point is if krishna prabhupada had something like that why would he have given the word-to-word translation so certainly krishna prabhupada’s translation has in it much more than what is there in the word-to-word translation krishna prabhupada does that in many places in the bhagavad-gita and he doesn’t hide in doing that he lets us know more clearly what he’s doing by giving us the word-to-word translation and then he lets us think what what is the reason for doing this so yes the literal translations rather than using the word literal real translation i would prefer the word literal translation and then the essential meaning so literal translation means that what the word if you just go by literally word-to-word translation then what is it that you get so literal translations he may seem to be very maybe a fun seem to be a fun thing to do however it may be the best thing to do but it doesn’t work because we have to have an understanding of the sense of meaning in the history of computer translations there is a famous example of how computers don’t really don’t find it so easy to explain essential meaning so using automatic program which translates each word using the literal meaning the famous biblical saying the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak which refers to how we fall prey to the temptation of the flesh so that got translated as the vodka is strong but the meat is rotten so this completely distorts them in the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak so here spirit refers to not some drink intoxicant and flesh doesn’t refer to the meat that is eaten but that’s how literal translation can go completely haywire so the vodka is strong but the meat is rotten this refers to some kind of description of menu whereas the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak that was to a fundamental truth of life with respect to facing temptations now so literal translation doesn’t necessarily always convey the essential meaning because words have multiple meanings and we have to look at the context in which they are spoken to understand the meanings so now if you look at the context of this particular verse what comes after this after 7.21 in 7.22 krishna says that so let’s assume that the literal translation is what is what is equivalent to the essential meaning that whatever form one worships krishna whatever form one worships with devotion based on one’s own faith and understanding krishna response by krishna response to that devoted to that very point stabilizes the faith that’s fine the next verse says that so i indeed give you this so i give the results which come krishna says they attain the result with that faith they worship and they get the result but i give that result so in a sense krishna is saying that i accept that worship but then in the next verse is very very important we cannot neglect this verse so the those who worship the the those who worship the devatas they are alpha medas they are less intelligent because the proofs that they get are temporary whereas my devotees they come to me and krishna has explained earlier and he will in 4.9 he says that they will come to me and they will not come back to the material world not come back to this world so that the implication is mentioned several times later also in the 8th chapter elsewhere so krishna is if all the forms if worship of all all forms was the same equivalent it is actually worshipping krishna only and krishna wouldn’t contrast between the results and krishna wouldn’t call those who worship the devatas as alpha medas as less intelligent so now with this understanding if you look at 23 and clearly see that there are that krishna is contrasting two kinds of worship and he is saying that the other kinds of worship are also connected with him uh in the sense in which they the results are given and the faith is established but the end results are different he’s telling in the sense so now let’s go back and if you look at krishna’s rendition of this verse in his translation what we will see is first thing is that i am within a super soul in the human heart now this is not given anywhere in the verse fine but we understand faith is something which is internal where does faith come from so faith actually krishna explains 15.15 in the Bhagavad Gita that so faith is essentially a matter of knowledge forgetfulness and remembrance whatever we know and whatever we remember based on that gradually our faith gives us so krishna will knowledge and forgetfulness and he also enables us to have faith of course it is not that he’s partial and he gives faith to some people and not faith to others but rather it’s all based on how we choose to desire and according to krishna reciprocates so that’s the point that means if what shila prabhupada does in this translation is that he often integrate the transformation in the purpose so that we can get a clearer understanding and that may seem unwarranted from the point of view of the literal translation of that verse but from the point of view of gaining a holistic understanding of what is being spoken over there it does serve a valuable purpose and shila prabhupada doesn’t conceal what he’s doing that’s the most important prabhupada gives the word to a translation and then he gives a sentence translation so that he forces us to think what he’s doing and then after that if you look at the remaining part of the verse now there is tanu over there whichever form somebody chooses to worship yo-yo yam yam so now what form is being referred to over here that is not clear in this verse but clearly 21 22 23 are one flow of thought when 20 is a different flow of thought he’s talking about a different topic of how the gyani how four kind of people approach krishna and then they surrender to krishna uh then they become the anavan and then 7.24 is also talking about something different he’s talking about those who consider krishna to be impersonal so 21 to 23 is one unit of thought so what tanu is being referred to is not clear in 21 but when we see the continuity of thought in these three verses and look at 23 which states that antavat kalam tesam tat bhavaty alpam et namah devan devayi jayanthi so they are devan devayi jayanthi that they worship the devatas and in the contrast then they don’t worship so krishna here so so that devar can be equated with the tanu over here because they are one unit of thought in this different world we refer to used to refer to the same kind of concept that means there are multiple devatas and and at one level by the principle of chintam hita where the devatas are also in some ways manifestations of krishna although they are not on full manifestations of krishna but they have some reboot some parts of some reboots of krishna as you will learn in the 10th chapter but essentially what all this means is that it is one flow of thought and shloka rupa this is explaining to us what the form refers to by giving us the word translation in the word demigod in the in this translation so what is the real translation in the essential meaning is what shloka rupa gives us and that is that if somebody has attraction in particular form and wants to worship that form krishna makes that form quite strong and enables that person to worship that person worship that particular form so in this way we can look at the strategy that shloka rupa is used in his translations that he has given us the essential meaning usually in his translations and he’s also allowed us to gain a sense of the literal translation to this word to word translation and this way we can get a deeper understanding of what is going on in the bhagavad-gita and how shloka rupa is presenting it to us