MOSCOW, December 23 - RAPSI. Indian ambassador to Russia Ajai Malhotra said the trial held by a Tomsk court over the extremism of the Russian version of "the Bhagavad Gita as It is "is absurd bordering on a bizarre," The Indian Embassy in Moscow told RIA Novosti on Friday.

"The Bhagavad Gita has circulated freely across the world for centuries and there is not a single instance of it having encouraged extremism. So, the case before the Honourable Court in Tomsk is indeed absurd, bordering on a bizarre," the embassy's press office quotes Malhotra as saying.

Foreign Ministry's spokesman Alexander Lukashevich commented on the Tomsk prosecutor's office's claim on Thursday. He said the prosecutor's office is challenging not the Bhagavad Gita itself, but the comments made by the books author Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.

Lukashevich said the Russian-language version of the book is full of distortions of meaning.

In June the Tomsk prosecutor's office appealed to the court to place the Bhagavad Gita's Russian-language version on the federal extremist materials list. The prosecutor's office initiated the case following an inspection of the Tomsk Society for Krishna Consciousness. The court was expected to pass its judgment on December 19, but the case has been postponed until December 28.