/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15555783]

how do i start with this

[Anonymous No.15555871]

>>15555783
Just read it. In fact, just read the whole Mahabharata. It's a good time.

[Anonymous No.15555873]

>>15555783
Don’t start, read game of thrones instead

[Anonymous No.15555908]

>>15555783
Not with the Prabhupada's 'as it is' edition. The major medieval Hindu commentaries on the Gita (which include the whole text) btfo all the modern translations out of the water by how much better reads they are. Here are some of the best of them below. If you don't feel ready to read one of them and want a translation with some notes by a modern scholar/translator then the ones by Winthrop Sargeant and Isherwood are both good.

>Shankara's Gita commentary (8th century)
https://archive.org/details/Bhagavad-Gita.with.the.Commentary.of.Sri.Shankaracharya

>Abhinavagupta's Gita commentary (10th century)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/5ydfuxohdtms7um/Bhagavad_Gita_Abhinavagupta_Bhashya_%2528B_Marjanovic%2529.pdf/file

>Ramanuja's Gita commentary (11th century)
http://www.srimatham.com/uploads/5/5/4/9/5549439/ramanuja_gita_bhashya.pdf

>Jnanadeva's Gita commentary (13th century)
https://estudantedavedanta.net/Sri-Jnandevas-Bhvartha-Dipika-Jnaneswari_smaller.pdf

[Anonymous No.15555909]

Is there a primer? I read the intro and my brain is fried already

[Anonymous No.15555938]

Go for "Essence of Bhagavad Gita" by Kriyananda.

[Anonymous No.15555960]

>>15555938
>A jury in a court of law found Kriyananda aka Donald Walters guilty of fraudulently representing himself as a celibate religious leader or swami even though he had sex with several of his devotees during 30 years at the helm of Ananda. Several women came forward during the civil trial to testify that Walters had sexually exploited them. [8]

[Anonymous No.15556023]

>>15555909

https://www.iep.utm.edu/hindu-ph/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Hinduism_terms

[Anonymous No.15556025]

>>15555909
Probably just read Laws of Manu, have a pretty basic understanding of cyclical time, maybe also read some Guenon.

[Anonymous No.15556028]

>>15556025
>maybe also read some Guenon.
He is a hack

[Anonymous No.15556032]

>>15555783
Just read the tv show bro.

[Anonymous No.15556048]

>>15555783
I was gonna get mad at you for making this thread but then I realized you just want to get others to read it too, which I do like. But why make such a lazy thread? There has to be a better way

[Anonymous No.15556076]

>>15556028

>Guénon was a hac-
He could read and speak Greek, Latin, English, French, Italian, Russian, Polish, German, Spanish, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese, was trained in mathematics and was extremely well-read in both eastern and western philosophy
>Guénon was a stupid posing larpe-
He was initiated into both a Vietnamese Taoist Triad as well as the al-'Arabiyya Shadhiliyya Sufi order, furthermore in all his writings he stressed the need for personal and genuine participation in whatever Traditions one aspired to follow. His acquaintances both Egyptian and western observed that he scrupulously followed Islamic observances during his life in Egypt
>Guénon was a literal non-entity, he was not influenti-
Among the many western philosophers, artists and authors who were influenced by him or who heaped praise on him include Carl Schmitt, Georges Bataille, Aleksander Dugin, Antonin Artaud, Olavo de Carvalho, André Breton, Mircea Eliade, Alain Danielou, Julius Evola, André Malraux, Albert Gleizes, René Daumal, Raymond Queneau, Paul Ackerman, Huston Smith, William Chittick, Steve Bannon, Harry Oldmeadow, James Cutsinger and Hossein Nasr. Furthermore as Nasr notes in his article 'The Influence of Rene Guenon in the Islamic World', Guénon is well-known and influential among the intelligentsia including traditional Islamic scholars in certain Islamic countries such in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia.
>Guénon just made a bunch of stupid and unjustified comparisons between religio-
To the contrary over the course of some twenty odd books he painstakingly and patiently elucidated the fundamental agreement between the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, Sufism, Tantra, Hermeticism and Christian esoterism, work that Coomaraswamy built on and further confirmed

[Anonymous No.15556090]

>>15555871
>Mahabharata
What's a good translation/edition?

[Anonymous No.15556095]

>>15556076
Nice copypasta

[Anonymous No.15556139]

>>15556090
Bibek Debroy's is unabridged I believe if you want the full experience

[Anonymous No.15557332]

>>15555783
The premise sounds so nice but I hate this old school writing style that existed in every old culture for some reason. Just like homer lists a million names, this thing barrages you with ancient indian names and expects you to care.

>Here is bagagaradishan with his beard and his aunt kilisha nagarumajadunja is also there holding a speer and jriaolqjewnn doing x and ow gawoitriop doing y and keoallfvjsikfbeisp looking at ulsiömdbjaksh and oalfkoqdöakfh staring into the distance

Insufferable style. Ancient people were fucking dumb

[Anonymous No.15557356]

>>15557332
>this thing barrages you with ancient indian names and expects you to care.
the context is that it's a part of the larger Mahabharata and many of the various peoples and groups play roles in the larger tale

[Anonymous No.15557425]

[Anonymous No.15557437]

>>15555909
Any decent translation will have an introduction that puts it in context.

[Anonymous No.15557580]

>>15556139
Thanks. I'm not sure if I'm ready for the full experience but I have it on my list now.

>>15557332
I don't know why but the green text sounds like something Charles Manson would have said.

>>15557425
Is the Oxford edition of the Upanishads satisfactory? All I know is to avoid Doniger.

[Anonymous No.15557744]

>>15555960
Based