Jayadvaita's Book Changes -- Closer to Srila Prabhupada, or Further Away?
BY: HOTRA DAS
Aug 25, 2010 — AUSTRIA (SUN) — This article is a comment on the recent article by Rama dasa, "Chief Editors of the Book Changes" and Mahasana dasa, "I Like the New Bhagavad-gita".
After going through Jayadvaita's www.BBTedit.com website, which is an elaborate justification for perverting Srila Prabhupada's Bhagavad-gita and all His other books, the first thing you notice is that it oozes with self-aggrandizement and an air of disapproval.
'…How dare you to doubt us and criticize us so harshly because we keep editing Srila Prabhupada's books. We, the pure and devoted souls, can go on editing His books as long as we feel free, because we become more pure and more qualified every passing year. Srila Prabhupada has put his unflinching faith and trust into us and all His statements like: "… In future you don't do any changes without asking me first …", "… Do not try to change anything without my permission…", "I also do not like too much editorial work. This too much editorial work on Geetopanishad (the typed manuscript of the Gita)…", etc., etc., they are just a myth. You don't understand Srila Prabhupada, but we do. He was unhappy with His Gita during His lifetime but luckily He has us, the devoted, supremely qualified, lifetime appointed editors, we go on perfecting his books. And don't dare to criticize us again, you lowborn and ignorant worms.'
This message is conveyed to us with many little video clips. But every hoax is self-revealing. Jayadvaita is permitting us a gracious glimpse into his heroic revisions, which have been scanned and digitized and can be seen in "See the Changes", handwritten on the 1972 Macmillan Gita.
And miraculously we find in Bhagavad-gita 4.34 Translation the Verse unchanged and without remarks:
"Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized soul can impart knowledge unto you because he has seen the truth."
Then why do we find in the 1983 revised and enlarged edition the following?:
"Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth."
This is just one example out of the many thousands of changes, an orgy of falsification, what to think of such fickle minded, absurd editing. Srila Prabhupada was giving lectures from His 1972 Gita all over the world. Many devotees would read excerpts to Him, He was personally reading it.
Or was He just a bewildered old man, and the world had to wait for an upstart like Jayadvaita to reveal the transcendental meaning of the Bhagavad-gita? What impertinent audacity and shameless self-overestimation. Just judge the result, Jayadvaita has defiled this pure, transcendental literature by becoming more than his Guru overnight. A born mleccha wants to be an accomplished scholar. What a calamity.
At last we are told on www.bbtedit.com that those "hopeless skeptics" who still want to read Srila Prabhupada's beloved 1972 Macmillan Gita can get it, of course, from the BBT. But obviously you need a private investigator to recover one. Nowhere on the official www.krishna.com website can it be found. There is a choice of five different Gitas, no Macmillan Gita, and no information whatsoever about what edition it might be. You don't know what Gita you are holding in hand. This seems to be on purpose, and it leaves the door open for any amount of cheating, falsification, manipulation and deception.
What "glorious" service, the Bhagavad Gita As It Never Should Have Been.
