[Advaita-l] subscription

[jiva das]

You asked for some background. 
   
  I am approaching my 69th birthday [Dec.18]. I live in Toronto, Canada. 
   
  I have been studying Yoga Vasishtha for 25 years or so, and am currently engaged in a translation of this mighty masterpiece. You can see the beginning of the Vairagya at 
   
  http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/vasishtha/ 
   
  I have budgeted 7 years to completing this work, but seriously expect to need 10 years. I will need to live well! 
   
  If you look at the group postings, you will see that I have only got serious about posting the text this year; currently less than a canto a week. This is because much of my time is spent on later parts of the work than the Vairagya. I hope to be posting two or three cantos a week in the months to come. 
   
  The postings contain a translation and a transliteration. 
   
  The translation is a 'literary' one that hopes to imitate the magnificent poetry of the YV; and to do so in the sort of English that will be preferred by younger readers to the "thou/thee" translations that are so common. 
  To give a sense of the poetic form of the work, the shlokas, for instance, are translated in 8-syllable groups, to reflect the shloka form. The more elaborate verses that conclude most sargas are translated into an identical syllabic form. To do so while being faithful to the original is, believe me, no easy job! 
   
  The transliteration is in the Harvard-Kyoto transliteration. It is a very ugly form [making Rishyashringa into <RSyazRGga>, for example]--but its advantage is that it can easily be converted into other transliterations or Devanagari text. 
  Its greatest advantage is that it is ASCII and requires no special fonts. It is readily searchable on any computer. Moreover, it works beautifully with the Desktop Google, that most wonderful invention that allows you to search your own files easily.  
   
  As to the bhakti attitude, I am a lifelong devotee of Ramana Maharshi and Arunachala, the sacred mountain where he taught. 
   
  ...
   
  I noted a remark that you were not aware of a complete text of YV. 
   
  There is a bilingual edition by Parimal Publications, which has a fairly good Devanagari text. The "translation" is, unfortunately, very bad. 
   
  Chaukamba Sanskrit Pratishthan publish the Sanskrit with Hindi commentary by Pandit Thakur Prasad Dwivedi.
   
  NAG Publishers have a Devanagari edition edited by Dr [Mrs] Kanta Gupta, with the commentary of Anandabodhendra. This is beautifully printed, with an informative introduction, and an index of every shloka. Its only fault is that, like every Sanskrit text coming out of India, it has not been well proof-read, so that there is some small misprint on almost every page--but usually these are easy to spot. 
   
  I hope soon to receive your postings.
   
  jivadas


May the long-time sun shine upon you, 
all love surround you,
and the pure light within you 
guide your way home.
 		
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