The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
The Gospel of Ramakrishna, 1942 edition.
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| Author | Mahendranath Gupta |
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| Translator | Swami Nikhilananda |
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Spirituality |
| Publisher | Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center |
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Publication date
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1942 |
| Pages | 1062 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 19930528 |
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna translated by Swami Nikhilananda is an English translation of the Bengali religious text Sri Sri Rāmakrishna Kathāmrita. The text records conversations of Ramakrishna with his disciples, devotees, and visitors, recorded by Mahendranath Gupta, who wrote the book under the pseudonym of "M." The first edition was published in 1942.
Swami Nikhilananda worked with Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson. Margaret helped the swami to refine his literary style into "flowing American English". The mystic hymns were rendered into free verse by the American poet John Moffitt. Wilson and American scholar Joseph Campbell helped edit the manuscript.Swami Nikhilananda wrote that he had written an accurate translation of the Kathamrita, "omitting only a few pages of no particular interest to English-speaking readers" and stating that "often literary grace has been sacrificed for the sake of literal translation."
Aldous Huxley likened it to James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. The book was voted as one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century" by the American scholars convened by HarperCollins publishers. Scholars Lex Hixon, Swami Tyagananda, Somnath Bhattacharyya argue that the translations considered the cross-cultural factors and western decorum.
Walter G. Neevel in his 1976 essay, The Transformation of Ramakrishna, writes that Nikhilananda's translation are "accurate and reliable efforts...it should be possible to get as close to Sri Ramakrishna's original teachings as is possible without a knowledge of Bengali and to have an adequate degree of certainty about their meaning." Philosopher Lex Hixon writes that the Gospel is "spiritually authentic" and "powerful rendering of the Kathamrita into dignified English." Hixon writes that an eyewitness to the teachings of Ramakrishna reported that Ramakrishna's "linguistic style was unique, even to those who spoke Bengali" and it was "not literally translatable into English or any other language." Hixon writes that Ramakrishna's "colorful village Bengali, replete with obscure local words and idioms" adds to the difficulty of translation. His "obscure local words" were interspersed with technical Sanskrit terms from "various strands of Hindu yoga and philosophy" and "extensive references" to the "complex realm of sacred history" of the Vedas, Puranas, Tantras.
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