Bhagavad Gita

Unknowntranslated Bysir Edwin Arnold and Translated Bysir Edwin Arnold

Read by LibriVox Volunteers

(3.4 stars; 100 reviews)

The content of the text is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra just prior to the start of a climactic war. Responding to Arjuna's confusion and moral dilemma, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and Prince and elaborates on a number of different Yogic and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu philosophy and also as a practical, self-contained guide to life. During the discourse, Krishna reveals his identity as the Supreme Being Himself (Bhagavan), blessing Arjuna with an awe-inspiring glimpse of His divine absolute form. (Wikipedia) (2 hr 54 min)

Chapters

Introduction	3:03	Read by Chris Masterson
Chapter 1: Of the Distress of Arjuna	9:40	Read by Chris Masterson
Chapter 2: Of Doctrines	17:56	Read by Peter Eastman
Chapter 3: Virtue in Work	8:59	Read by Priya, India
Chapter 4: Of the Religion of Knowledge	9:42	Read by shweta.marda
Chapter 5: Of Religion by Renouncing Fruit of Works	7:36	Read by Carl Manchester
Chapter 6: Of Religion of Self-Restraint	9:57	Read by Leon Mire
Chapter 7: Of Religion by Discernment	6:30	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 8: Of Religion by Devotion to the One Supreme God	5:52	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 9: Of Religion by the Kingly Knowledge and the Kingly Mystery	9:38	Read by Shubda
Chapter 10: Of Religion by the Heavenly Perfections	10:10	Read by Shubda
Chapter 11: Of the Manifesting of the One and Manifold	20:38	Read by Shubda
Chapter 12: Of the Religion of Faith	4:59	Read by Nicholas James Bridgewater
Chapter 13: Of Religion by Separation of Matter and Spirit	7:46	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 14: Of Religion by Separation from the Qualities	5:58	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 15: Of Religion by Attaining the Supreme	6:22	Read by Shubda
Chapter 16: Of the Separateness of the Divine and the Undivine	5:55	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 17: Of Religion by the Threefold Kinds of Faith	5:45	Read by Raju Venkateswaran
Chapter 18: Of Religion by Deliverance and Renunciation	18:27	Read by Leon Mire

Reviews

Strange Reading

(1 stars)

durgadas

I found this reading to be strange and literally impossible to listen to. I am happy that someone put the effort into making this audiobook, but like many other audio versions of this great book, there are inexplicably strange qualities to the reading. First, this is HEAVILY spliced. I got the impression that the regular reader wasn't reading the Sanskrit and other Indian names correctly, so someone edited them in a completely different voice for those names, plus what is worse, the names are said incorrectly. Krishna or "Kreeshna" is quite simple, but here is pronounced "Krooshna"- ridiculous!

(1 stars)

Aashna

I am Hindu and this seems to make fun of a sacred scripture the way the names are pronounced. if he couldn't pronounce the Sanskrit ( which btw are easy to pronounce) then an Indian should of reading the whole. I don't like the switching between two people just so someone can say the Sanskrit. poor recording. I couldn't sit through it at all. please make a better recording of this.

So hard to understand

(2 stars)

Ray

I appreciate that the Bhagavad Gita came out of India but that does not mean that its English translation should be read by people whose English is hard to understand. I get almost nothing out of this work, largely because it's so difficult to understand some of the readers. Hopefully Librivox will reassign some of the chapters to native English speakers (and hopefully those readers have some knowledge of Hindi or Sanskrit so they don't butcher the names of the characters)

I agree with the other reviewer

(3 stars)

zz_07

In my experience, librivox recordings are better when there is a single reader. In this case, there are a number of readers, some of which were difficult to understand.

Bhagavad Gita - Sir E. Arnold

(3 stars)

squirrel99

Read by a veriety of readers with a veriety of accents. I found some of them to be hard to understand.

(3 stars)

Pedro Vazquez

some of the readers were difficult to understand but I still enjoyed a decent amount of chapters

(1 stars)

A LibriVox Listener

needs an Indian Hindu whos literate of Sanskrit to read this book. Same with any archaic text

Improper sanskrit

(1 stars)

Vijayender

Waste translation and the narrator couldn't even speak yhe sanskrit words properly