Recently, as a way to ressurect my Sanskrit studies begun some years ago at the University of Washington, I endeavored to create my own translation of Shree Guru Gita, a Sanskrit text dear to my heart that I have chanted regularly for the past 20 or so years as an integral part of my yoga sadhana of meditation, chanting, scriptural studies, etc.

The Guru Gita presented here is the one that I am accustomed to chanting that contains 182 verses. It was compiled by Baba Muktananda of Ganeshpuri apparently from a larger work of over 350 verses. This concise 182 verse Guru Gita can be chanted in less than an hour and is done so every morning in homes, meditation centers, and ashrams all around the world. It is generally preceded by some introductory mantras and a kirtan and then the Shree Guru Paduka-Panchakam. After chanting the text of the Guru Gita, there follows an arati, a kirtan, and some closing mantras.

I have discovered on Amazon.com a translation of a larger Guru Gita published by Pranava, Inc. which contains 352 verses. There is also a version of the Guru Gita published by Shree Yoga Vedanta Ashram that contains 216 verses. All of the other publications of the Guru Gita that I know of contain 182 verses. It interesting to compare all these editions noting not only the different arrangements of the verses, but also the differences in the content of some of the common verses.

For those scholarly types, there is a large Skanda Purana research project underway in the Netherlands. Go to www.rug.nl/india and click on Skandapurana for details. The final verse of the Guru Gita indicates that it belongs in a latter khanda of the Skanda Purana. I am on the lookout for an original manuscript of the Guru Gita, but have yet to locate one. If anyone has any leads on this, I would definately love to hear about it!

I hope you enjoy these translations, as I am trying to render them in a way that maintains the original Sanskrit meanings, preserves the original word order as best as possible, and preserves the poetic flow of the verses. Naturally, this often produces some inelegant English, but the reader can quickly adjust to the Sanskritese, as it were, and thus reap the benefits of a more direct connection to the original thought patterns of the sages who produced this great work.

Yours,

Matthew Weiss
09 Apr 2004