Seeking God, Seeking Moksha: The Teachings of Shri Krishna & Jesus Christ

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Before any word on the main text, I should mention, just in case you think this is a mistake on the Publisher's part, that Shri anil yesudas always writes his name in lower case.

Now on the contents themselves: The original text began its life as a series of lectures, and moves seamlessly from discussing the Geeta to discussing the New Testament and vice versa.

There was much discussion of whether those lecture texts should be published "as is" or whether the quoted sections of the Geeta and New Testament should be separated. The decision was to separate the sections, on the basis that this made the entire text so much easier to read. Once that was done, there was further discussion of whether the sections from the Geeta should be placed on the left-hand pages or on the right-hand pages.

Eventually, it was decided to place them on the right. Partly, because the first written records relating to the NT existed earlier than the first written record of the Geeta, and partly because we Indians consider the left hand "unclean" and/or "inauspicious".

Paul Sudhakar Menon (1922-2000)

Sudhakar was born into an aristocratic and well-to-do Menon family- staunch upper caste Hindus-from the village of Vadavanoor in the Palakkad District of Kerala, one of the southern-most States of India.

His father, Pangunni Menon, an Inspector of Schools in the Nilgiris, was cousin to V.K. Krishna Menon, former Defence Minister of India.

Sudhakar's mother, R. Vesuamma, was a grand-daughter of the Raja of Kollengode. Vesuamma's compassion for the poor and marginalised was remarkable. She wore only khadi clothes, and was involved in the struggle for the freedom of India from British rule, being associated with other freedom fighters such as Laxmi N. Menon and Leela Menon.

Having lost his father when he was barely eight years old, Sudhakar's childhood was dominated by strong matriarchal influences. As part of the joint- family, all the children of the family were brought up in a traditional Hindu manner, with Sudhakar's grandmother sitting on a tiger-skin to read aloud a regular portion of the Raamaayana and the Mahaabhaarata, and to ensure that the children recited their prayers in Sanskrit.

As a young boy, Sudhakar became keenly interested in the events and characters of the Bhagavad Geeta. At the age of nine, he started reading the Vedas and the Upanishads. He was not physically robust, and was oriented towards learning and knowledge. He always scored top marks in Mathematics and, after completing his schooling in the Government School, Kollengode (Palakkad), he was admitted to Presidency College, Madras, from which he took a First in his B. A. (Hons) in Economics.