Russian Court Clears Hindu Holy Text

A court in the Russian city of Tomsk has said that a sacred Hindu text does not contain extremist material.

The Tomsk district court upheld an earlier ruling by a lower court in December.

Prosecutors wanted the Bhagavad Gita banned because the text's Russian translation contained a prologue by Swami Prabhupada. He is the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, which has experienced difficulties with the law in post-Soviet Russia.

The case got the attention of India's government.

Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna said Russian prosecutors' attempts to ban the book were the result of "ignorant and misdirected or motivated individuals" who were attacking a text that defined the "very soul of our great civilization."

Based on AFP reports