How this library is made

This page sets down how a text comes to these shelves: where its words come from, the voice they are given, and the care taken before anything is shown as settled. It holds for every text in the library, the Bhagavad Gītā and each one that follows.

Where the words come from

Every Sanskrit text is sourced from a verified public domain edition, and the exact source and its address are recorded with the text. Nothing sacred is set down from memory. Each text is checked against a second witness, and where the two differ the difference is kept in the open: a clear error is corrected and the correction noted, a genuine variant is recorded rather than hidden. The transliteration into roman letters is made by a single mechanical pass, not by the eye.

The voice

The English here is our own. It is plain in its words and unhurried in its rhythm, and it tries to say exactly what the source says, at the source’s own pace, adding nothing. Beside it stands a plainer rendering, for a first reading, where each term is met in everyday words. Where a text is built to teach its own vocabulary, that vocabulary is kept, and its sense is given alongside.

Rights, and the public domain

The Sanskrit of these texts is public domain, ancient and held by no one. The English translation is ours, given freely. The provenance and rights of each layer, its source and its license, are recorded with the text, and a text cannot be published without them: the build itself refuses any layer that lacks a recorded source and license.

Reviewed, not assumed

A text is shown as settled only after a person has read it. Until then it is marked a draft, honestly. The mark is not decoration; it is the difference between what a machine has prepared and what a human has weighed.

Corrections

If you find an error, a mistaken reading, a wrong diacritic, a translation that has slipped, it can be set right. The text is corrected and the change is kept on the record, so the library improves in the open rather than in silence.

The keepers

This library is kept with care. Who keeps it will be named here when the time is right. For now, the work stands on its sources, which are shown, and on this method, which is written down. Return to the library, or read on in the Gītā or the Tattva Bodha.