The English Bhagavad Gita: Translation, Transcreations, and Transformation (Routledge South Asian Religion Series)

This book examines English translations and transcreations of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most sacred and influential texts in Hinduism, exploring how textual transfers, affected by languages, cultures, and time, reconfigure the Gita’s content and meaning, thus transforming it. Thought to be the first academic volume to apply a comparative methodology to English renderings of the Bhagavad Gita, the book differentiates between widely accepted ‘equivalent’ translations, and creative re-imaginings of the text in the form of transcreations.Chapters explore conversations that occur in translation: both between the Gita and its interpreters, and among various translated versions of the text.By employing a novel analytical framework, termed the ‘dialectic of intimacy’, the book examines how translators negotiate their personal, cultural, and ideological closeness to, or distance from, the text.Ultimately expanding textual transfer beyond simple linguistic equivalence, the book demonstrates