{"id":10156,"date":"2011-12-24T16:38:12","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T15:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10156"},"modified":"2011-12-24T17:58:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-24T16:58:42","slug":"gita-not-on-trial-but-its-commentaries-says-russia-the-documents-of-the-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10156","title":{"rendered":"Gita not on trial but its commentaries, says Russia – The documents of the court"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bhakti Vijnana Goswami<\/strong><\/p>\n

We wrote an official statement which rejects this claim, and work to counteract it.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, since many members of this conference asked us to provide the concrete information about the nature of the accusations, I am attaching the file below to this letter with quotes from the “expert testimony”. You will have a lot of fun reading this file. :) It is so absurd! And also it clearly shows that it is Gita, not Prabhupada’s commentaries which is under attack. SO the claim of the Foregn Ministry is not correct.<\/p>\n

Once more my humble request, please ask the devotees to sign the petition on-line. You may read to them the exerpts from the “expert testimony” for the Sunday feast class!<\/p>\n

We did not even reach 50 thousand yet. Please, help us!<\/p>\n

www.petition24.com\/gita<\/p>\n

Your servant Bhakti Vijnana Goswami<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here is the latest article from TheHindu.com: http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/article2741599.ece<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

MOSCOW: Russia has rejected as misplaced India’s complaints about the trial in the Siberian city of Tomsk against a translation of the Bhagavad Gita.<\/p>\n

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was not the Bhagavad Gita as such that was on trial but some comments contained in a 20th-century Russian translation of the scripture.<\/p>\n

Russian prosecutors are seeking a court ban on the book, which they claim is extremist and insulting to non-believers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to emphasise that this is not about \u2018Bhagavad Gita,’ a religious philosophical poem, which forms part of the great Indian epic Mahabharata and is one of the most famous pieces of the ancient Hindu literature. In Russia, the book was first published in Russian in 1788 and then went through many editions in different years and in various translations,\u201d said Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tomsk court case is about classifying as extremist material the Russian-language edition of the Bhagavad Gita. As It Is, written in 1968 by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness,\u201d Mr. Lukashevich said in reply to a request from The Hindu to clarify the Russian official position on the court trial.<\/p>\n

The statement came a day after India upped the ante in the controversy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russian authorities have been approached at high levels to appropriately resolve this matter,\u201d said Indian Ambassador to Russia Ajai Malhotra.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bhagavad Gita is perhaps the most important and respected scripture in the world. First translated into Russian in 1788, it is not merely a religious text, but one of the defining treatises of Indian thought,\u201d Mr. Malhotra said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bhagavad Gita has circulated freely across the world for centuries and there is not a single instance of it having encouraged extremism. So, the case before the Honourable Court in Tomsk is indeed absurd, bordering on the bizarre,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that the Tomsk court was not trying the \u2018Bhagavad Gita.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs evident from the testimony, the complaints of law enforcement authorities relate, not so much to the text of the book as such, even though its double translation contains distortions, but rather to the author’s commentaries, which are considered to fall under Article 13 of the Federal Law \u2018On Counteracting Extremist Activity’,\u201d Mr. Lukashevich said.<\/p>\n

On Monday the Tomsk court adjourned the case till December 28 as it agreed to hear testimony from the Russian Ombudsman on Human Rights and Russian Indologists, who favour dismissal of the charges. <\/p>\n

…….<\/p>\n

Some comments:<\/p>\n

It would be very easy to show hundreds of extreme statements in the Bible…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This statement of the Russian foriegn minister makes a futile attempt at covering up the fault of banning the Bhagavadgita As It IS. The commentary they are referring to and claiming to be on trial is the commentary by Srila Prabhuapda. THis commentary has transformed lives of thousands of devotees world over, it made hippies happies. It has given new life to thousands, just as Krishna’s talk removed the dilemma of Arjuna and gave him new direction.
\nThe commentary of Srila Prabhupada in particular has been appreciated by many scholars.
\n“…Translation of such a work demands not only knowledge of Sanskrit, but an inward sympathy with the theme and a verbal artistry. …. The Swami does a real service for students by investing the beloved Indian epic with fresh meaning. Whatever our outlook may be we should all be grateful for the labor that has lead to this illuminating work.”
\nDr. Geddes MacGregor, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
\nUniversity of Southern California<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What do you say for the Russian Archbishop who called Lord Krishna “An Evil Demon”. That silly comment followed by complaints by certain groups in Tomsk calling for ban on Gita is a part of larger conspiracy using ISKCON as a punching bag. The Indian Ambassador Mr. Malhotra is absolutely right in calling this shameful episode as “indeed absurd, bordering on the bizarre”. There are more verses in Bible and Quran that are much more offensive, hateful to non-believers. Imagine if some high ranking Hindu leader had called gods of Christianity and Islam names. People like you will the first people to call for the head of that Hindu leader. Request you to read more on this controversy that blindly supporting the viewpoint of some non-descript groups petition in Tomsk, Russia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bhakti Vijnana Goswami<\/strong><\/p>\n

We wrote an official statement which rejects this claim, and work to counteract it. Once more my humble request, please ask the devotees to sign the petition on-line. You may read to them the exerpts from the “expert testimony” (included here) for the Sunday feast class! We did not even reach 50 thousand yet. Please, help us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appeals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}