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process of enlightenment can be attained by those who return to the Godhead and achieve their
own divinity (especially 18:46-68). 26
In a certain additional sense, in the Hindu tradition, all
persons already have or may become divine.
An additional difference concerns historical matters. Scholars are not sure if Krishna
ever lived or not. For example, in the introductory “Setting the Scene” in the volume above, it is
said that Krishna was believed to have spoken the text of the Bhagavad-Gita to his student
Arjuna some 5,000 years ago. Then we are told that, “The general pattern translators have
followed” is to count the larger work of which the Bhagavad-Gita is a part (the Mahābhārata) as
“quaint mythology” and Krishna himself as “a poetic device for presenting ideas.” “At best, He
becomes a minor historical personage.” 27
But shortly afterwards, editor A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda in the Preface
reports the simply startling comment that Krishna “first spoke Bhagavad-gītā to the sun-god
some hundreds of millions of years ago. We have to accept this fact” as part of the tradition. As
if this is not tough enough, we are also told that Krishna “descends to this planet once . . . every
8,600,000,000 years”! 28
But many questions rush upon us at once, especially issues concerning literalness and
historicity. For instance, what is the relation between the 5,000 years ago conversation with his
disciple Arjuna, the hundreds of millions of years ago discussion with the sun-god, and Krishna’s
26 In the popular version Bhagavad-Gita as it Is, Compete Ed., Rev. and Enlarged (including the original Sanskrit
text), ed. with commentary by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust,
1983), the editor (from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) makes several comments on the text of
18:46-68. For examples, Krishna’s followers “will achieve the highest perfection” (comment on 18:46, page 830),
as the actual text of 18:49 is translated. They “can attain to the supreme perfectional [sic] stage, Brahman, the state
of highest knowledge” as in the translation of 18:50. The accompanying commentary states that followers can attain
“the supreme stage of Brahman” (835).
27 Bhagavad-Gita as it Is, xiii.
28 Swami Prabhupāda, “Preface,” xix.
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