“There is also a planet of trees presided over by Aryama, who represents Krsna.”
   —Bhagavad-gita As It Is, first edition, purport to 10.29

Turning many heads at last year’s Ratha-yatra festival in Los Angeles was a colorful sight: a man on stilts and dressed as a tree, lushly adorned with leaves and branches. Apparently he is a well-known figure at Venice Beach.

Spotting him, my godbrother Svavasa Prabhu, the president of the Los Angeles ISKCON temple, called out to me, “Look! The planet of the trees!”

I was too late to snap a picture of the tree-man. But I picked up pictures of him and other “tree people” from the internet.

Once, a few years before, in Long Island, I’d had a — well, I guess you could call it a chat — with a bold young fellow from Bangalore who proudly declared that since “the planet of the trees” was in the original edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, the edition Srila Prabhupada had personally approved, at least he (that bold young fellow from Bangalore) had full faith that there really is such a place.

So for those who would accord a special sacred status to “planet of the trees” and other such editorial errors (and for anyone else who might find such curious matters interesting), here you have them: images from… … . The Planet of the Trees!

Please don’t get me wrong. The first edition of Bhagavad-gita As It Is is a marvelous transcendental book, full of spiritual potency. So if that’s the edition you prefer, fine. In that case — if you’re sincere and honest about wanting to follow Srila Prabhupada’s instructions — please buy it from the BBT.

Hare Krishna.

A statement from the BBT

The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust publishes books about Krishna and devotional service to Krishna.

In all our publishing efforts, we strive to follow the guidelines and instructions given by our Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.

We take great care to ensure that whatever we publish is in accord with the conclusions of the Vedic scriptures, as understood through the Gaudiya-Vaishnava tradition.

BBT press release

A sentence handwritten by Srila Prabhupada for a purport of Bhagavad-gita As It Is but never included in any edition of the book has come to light at the Bhaktivedanta Archives.

The sentence, written on a newly discovered transcribed page for Chapter 10, text 36, disparages “the unfortunate commentator who wants to cheat Krsna and the public by saying that there is something greater than Krsna.”

A letter from Jayadvaita Swami discusses the question, What should the BBT do with the newly discovered sentence?

You can see the page and the letter.

Some devotees have asked for copies of posters advertizing BBTedit.com and BBTonly.com. So I’m attaching them as files you can download.

It’s a persistent image: Srila Prabhupada in Los Angeles in December of 1968, working side by side with Hayagriva Prabhu, carefully putting the finishing touches on Bhagavad-gita As It Is.

Govinda Dasi was personally serving Srila Prabhupada in Los Angeles at the time, and she is sure this is what she saw. And even if Srila Prabhupada wrote two weeks later that what he was working on with Hayagriva was the Bhagavatam, then they must have been working on both books—the Bhagavatam and the Gita.

But a careful look at the history shows that this is out of the question.

Why? Because even though Hayagriva worked on the Gita manuscript until October of 1967, by November of ’67 he was off the job and Srila Prabhupada handed over the task of finishing the Gita to another editor, Rayarama Dasa (Raymond Marais). When Hayagriva came to Los Angeles in December of 1968, that first Gita—the abridged Macmillan edition—had already been published. And work on the next edition—the unabridged—didn’t begin until 1970.

What Hayagriva was editing in December of 1968 was Srimad-Bhagavatam.

And so the image of Srila Prabhupada sitting with Hayagriva in December of 1968 carefully going over every verse of Bhagavad-gita As It Is, seeing to the finishing touches, is a persistent image of something that never took place.

That’s the truth. Here’s the timeline. See for yourself.

“Rascal editors!” Srila Prabhupada said. He had come upon an editorial mistake in a verse of Srimad-Bhagavatam, and so he strongly denounced “rascal editors” who make unauthorized editorial changes.

This incident, which took place in Vrindavan on June 22, 1977, has been known to Hare Krishna devotees for more than thirty years. And for more than thirty years, most devotees have been wrong about what mistake he had found.

This makes no difference to Srila Prabhupada’s point. Rascal editors are rascal editors.

Still, we might as well get straight what the editorial error was.

BBT press release:

The BBT has launched a new website, BBTedit.com, full of information about the editing of Srila Prabhupada’s books.

Among the features:

• More than 80 video clips: BBT editors and other senior devotees offer facts and perspectives on editorial history, myths, and controversies.
• A collection of Srila Prabhupada’s instructions about editing.
• First time ever: Annotated scans of Jayadvaita Swami’s copy of the 1972 Gita show his editing for the second edition.

The scans show practically all the revisions and restorations done for the word-for-word meanings and purports. (The translations were revised separately.) The annotations let you see what the original manuscripts said and tell the reasons for changes made.

On Janmastami I had the pleasure of reading with other devotees from Srila Prabhupada’s “Krishna Book” about Lord Krishna’s advent in this world. In the course of reading, we heard that when the goddess Durga appeared before Kamsa, “in her eight hands she held a bow, lancet, arrows, bell, conchshell, disc, club and shield.”

Wait a second. Lancet? Surely that couldn’t be right.

“At first I couldn’t believe it,” said Rijidatma Dasa. “The books, yes. But who would ever think the BBT would start monkeying with the Vaishnava Calendar?”

Today the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust released this statement.

The ISKCON Governing Body Commission has recommended to the BBT trustees that we insert endnotes or appendices into Srila Prabhupada’s books to explain statements Srila Prabhupada makes in Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.41, 4.25.42, and 4.26.26 concerning a woman’s attitude towards the aggressive advances of a man who is “expert at rape.” The GBC has also recommended that the endnotes or appendices explain “other such statements.”

The BBT directors, at their annual meeting in June of 2008, considered these recommendations and decided to turn them down.

An overview of the editorial history of the books of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

by Jayadvaita Swami

Reprinted from ISKCON Communications Journal, Volume 11 (2005)

by Jayadvaita Swami

This item was first posted on the web in May of 2003

The story, posted some time back, of how Hayagriva Prabhu painstakingly sat with Srila Prabhupada for two years to fine tune the text of Bhagavad-gita As It Is is only just one more internet myth. Who says? Hayagriva.

Criticism and insults I can tolerate. Fictitious history is harder to bear. So let’s set things straight, shall we?

by Jayadvaita Swami

What does “adi vani” mean?

The words adi vani are Sanskrit. According to the Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary, adi means “beginning” or “first,” and vani means “sound,” “voice,” “words,” “literary composition,” and so on.

So adi vani can be taken to mean “original words.”

Sometime around 2003, a group of “Hare Krishna” people began using the term to promote their editorial views about the books of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

The term never appears in Srila Prabhupada’s books, and we have no evidence he ever used it.

Want to learn more about the editing of BBT books?

These might interest you:

Bhagavatam Revisions Examined

The First Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam appeared in its first American edition in 1972. A second edition (still current) came out in 1976. Especially for the first two chapters, the translations were extensively revised.

Interested in the editing of Bhagavad-gita As It Is?

How the first and second editions differ?

You can see more than 175 examples online,
each showing you the text of

• the first edition
• the second edition
• the original manuscript

To see them, you can follow the links below to BBT.info.

Gita Revisions Explained

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3