How to Start Reading

You don’t have to read the whole library — no one ever has. Choose a door, choose a good translation, and go slowly. Here are five paths to begin.

Most people who decide to “read the Hindu scriptures” start bravely and stop within a fortnight — usually somewhere in the middle of a long, unexplained translation. That is not a failure of devotion; it is a failure of route. The tradition never expected anyone to begin alone, at random, with the hardest book. It offers ways in. This page gathers some of them, with honest estimates of how long each step takes.

Choosing a translation

Your translation matters more than you might think. A few things to look for:

📖Bilingual if you canOriginal beside translation

An edition that prints the Sanskrit or Tamil with a transliteration and translation lets you chant the verse, notice repeated words, and slowly learn the vocabulary. Winthrop Sargeant’s Bhagavad Gītā (SUNY Press) even gives a word-by-word breakdown of every verse.

🧭Know whose reading it isEvery translator has a school

Many popular translations come from a living tradition and translate through its commentary. That is a strength, not a trick — as long as you know it. Check the introduction: whose sampradāya or teacher does it follow?

⚖️Accessible or scholarly?Different jobs

A readable translation gets you through the book; a scholarly one tells you what the words actually say and where they are uncertain. Ideally, read one of each, side by side.

✂️Retellings are not cheatingStory first, text later

For the epics and Purāṇas, an abridged retelling is a perfectly traditional start — grandmothers have always told the story before anyone read the book. Just know it is a retelling, with its author’s choices.

One Gītā, many lenses
  • A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Bhagavad-gītā As It Is (1968; rev. 1972) — Gauḍīya Vaishnava Krishna is the Supreme Person; the purports teach the ISKCON path.
  • Swami Gambhirananda, Bhagavad Gītā with the Commentary of Shankaracharya (Advaita Ashrama), and Swami Chinmayananda, The Holy Geeta — Advaita the Self is Brahman.
  • Swami Adidevananda, Śrī Ramanuja Gītā Bhāṣya (Sri Ramakrishna Math) — Viśiṣṭādvaita devotion and surrender to Nārāyaṇa.
  • Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita (Nilgiri Press) — Modern reading clear, warm, meditation-centred; the easiest first read.
  • Laurie L. Patton, The Bhagavad Gita (Penguin Classics, 2008) — a scholar’s verse translation, close to the Sanskrit, without a sectarian commentary.

None of these is “the right one.” A good habit is to keep one devotional and one scholarly translation open together, and notice where they differ.

Five reading paths

Each path is a ladder of steps. Times assume about twenty to thirty minutes a day; take longer if you like — slowness is a virtue here. Choose the path that matches what you are hungry for:

The essentials

For anyone who wants the shape of the whole tradition. About four to six months.

  1. Get your bearingsRead Seeker’s A Map of the Texts and What is Sanatan Dharma? One evening · easy.
  2. The Bhagavad GītāEaswaran’s translation, one chapter every two or three days. Three to six weeks · easy to moderate.
  3. Two short UpanishadsThe Īśa (eighteen verses) and the Kaṭha — Yama teaching the boy Naciketas about death — in Easwaran’s The Upanishads or Patrick Olivelle’s Upaniṣads (Oxford World’s Classics). Two weeks · moderate.
  4. A Rāmāyaṇa retellingC. Rajagopalachari’s Ramayana (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan) or R. K. Narayan’s The Ramayana. Two weeks · easy.
  5. A Mahābhārata retellingRajagopalachari’s Mahabharata — now you will see where the Gītā sits. Three to four weeks · easy.
  6. The Gītā again, with a commentaryChoose one from a school (above) and reread slowly. Two to three months · moderate.

The story path

A fifth path, for families and for anyone who loves a story: the epics and Purāṇas, from children’s versions to the full texts. Several years, if you go all the way — and every step is worth it on its own.

  1. Picture booksThe Amar Chitra Katha comics — a generation of Hindus first met Rama, Krishna and the Pāṇḍavas there. Easy · read with children.
  2. The two epics retoldRajagopalachari or Kamala Subramaniam (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan). One to two months · easy.
  3. A modern retellingModern reading Devdutt Pattanaik’s Jaya (2010) — the Mahābhārata with its regional and folk variants. Three weeks · easy.
  4. The PurāṇasCornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Purāṇas (Temple University Press, 1978). One to two months · moderate.
  5. The full VālmīkiArshia Sattar’s abridged Valmiki’s Ramayana first, then the complete Princeton translation edited by Robert P. Goldman. Months to a year · demanding.
  6. The full MahābhārataBibek Debroy’s unabridged translation (Penguin, ten volumes). A year or more · demanding, and unforgettable.

How to read

The Tirukkuṟaḷ gives the best advice in seven words:

கற்க கசடறக் கற்பவை கற்றபின்
நிற்க அதற்குத் தக kaṟka kacaṭaṟak kaṟpavai kaṟṟapiṉ / niṟka ataṟkut taka Learn what is worth learning, flawlessly; and having learned it, stand by it — live accordingly. Tirukkuṟaḷ 391 (opening the chapter on learning)
  1. SlowlyA few verses read well are worth more than a chapter skimmed. Many traditional readers take one verse a day.
  2. With a commentaryThe tradition has always read through its great bhāṣyas. When a verse puzzles you, see what a commentator says — and which school he speaks for.
  3. AloudThese texts were made to be heard. Chant the verse, or listen to a recording, before you read the translation.
  4. With notesWrite down one line that struck you and one question. Every Seeker page has a reflection box that saves your notes privately in this browser.
  5. With a teacherClassically, scripture is learned from a guru. Even a good class or a recorded series of talks will save you years of confusion.

This is svādhyāya, “one’s own study,” which Patañjali counts among the daily observances of yoga — reading as a practice, not just as information.

Finding others to read with

Reading together is an old Hindu habit. A satsaṅg, “company of the good,” may be a weekly Gītā class, a Tēvāram group, a family that reads the Rāmāyaṇa aloud, or a few friends on a video call.

Community practice Places to ask: your local temple, which may run classes in Tamil or English; organisations with study circles in many countries, including Malaysia, such as the Chinmaya Mission, the Ramakrishna Mission and the Divine Life Society; ISKCON centres for the Gītā and Bhāgavatam; and Śrīvaiṣṇava and Shaiva Siddhanta groups for the Tamil canon. Each teaches from its own school — which is fine, once you know it. If one group isn’t for you, try another.

Check your knowledge:

Quick check

Bhagavad-gītā As It Is reads the Gītā through which tradition?

Prabhupada was a Gauḍīya Vaishnava teacher, founder of ISKCON.

Traditionally, which of the three foundations is studied last?

It is the most compressed, and presupposes the other two.

“Kaṟka kacaṭaṟa…” — learn well, then stand by it — comes from…

Tirukkuṟaḷ 391, at the start of the chapter on learning.

Questions people often ask

Do I need to learn Sanskrit or Tamil?

No — but even a little helps. Learning to read the script and a few dozen key words (dharma, ātman, bhakti, aṟam…) changes how a translation feels. Bilingual editions let you grow into it.

Is it all right to read without a guru?

Most teachers today encourage reading, and say the reading itself may lead you to a teacher. Traditional schools add that the deepest texts — the Upanishads and Brahmasūtra — truly open only through a living teacher. Both can be true: begin on your own, and look for guidance as you go deeper.

What about the Vedas themselves?

Most readers meet the Vedic hymns through selections. Start with Seeker’s The Four Vedas, then try a selection such as Wendy Doniger’s The Rig Veda (Penguin Classics, 1981); the complete translation by Jamison and Brereton is for the dedicated.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Which path calls to you most — and why that one?
  2. What is one small, realistic reading habit you could keep this month?
  3. Who could you read with?

Your notes are saved privately in this browser.

Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading