The Upanishads (Penguin Classics)
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Book Summary Information
Author: AnonymousTranslator: Juan Mascaro
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1965-11-30
ISBN: 0140441638
Number of pages: 144
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Book Reviews of The Upanishads (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: A Purist Blushes
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read the Upanishads at age 14, ploughing through the complete literal translation by Swami Nikhilânanda with its incessant footnotes and daunting commentaries. I had heard that the Brhadâranyaka Upanishad was the oldest, so I thought I should read that first. Bad choice. All the older Upanishads are packed with unexplained references to Vedic ritual, to archaic cosmologies and models of the body. I was fascinated but understood perhaps 1%.
A year later I found the Penguin Classic translated by Juan Mascaró and light shone on my mind. I suddenly understood what it was all about. His eloquent words opened a door for me, I went through and I have never gone back.
I now own 8 translations of the Upanishads, partial or complete, and I have read a number of others. Even with no Sanskrit, I can see Mascaró's versions for what they are: old-fashioned, Romantic, poetic paraphrases. My current Penguin says, First published 1965, but portions of these translations were printed under the title "Himalayas of the Soul" as early as 1938. Mascaró was writing in the era that gave us World War II, the Holocaust, Stalin's Purges, and yet in spirit he dwells with Wordsworth, Blake and Shelley, the Spanish mystics, Shakespeare and the translators of the King James Version.
I am known as a purist, a stickler, a nit-picker. Take the Mundaka Upanishad, 3:1,1. Mascaró translates, "Two birds, two sweet friends, dwell on the self-same tree". Others have, "Two birds, always united..." or "Two birds, close companions..." Mascaró has merely added the unjustified, unnecessary, weak and gooey word "sweet"... yet somehow I don't mind.
Useless for any scholarly purposes, this is still probably the best version for the general reader. Despite his atrocious liberties, Mascaró has got the heart of the matter. If you become deeply interested of course you will go on to read other translations: this book includes only short excerpts from the longer Upanishads. If you don't know these works, they are the world's oldest spiritual writings and have never been surpassed, or equalled. They are poetic, full of imagery rather than philosophy, and once read are never forgotten.
Summary of The Upanishads (Penguin Classics)
The Upanishads, the earliest of which were composed in Sanskrit between 800 and 400 bce by sages and poets, form part of the Vedas - the sacred and ancient scriptures that are the basis of the Hindu religion. Each Upanishad, or lesson, takes up a theme ranging from the attainment of spiritual bliss to karma and rebirth, and collectively they are meditations on life, death and immortality. The essence of their teachings is that truth can by reached by faith rather than by thought, and that the spirit of God is within each of us - we need not fear death as we carry within us the promise of eternal life.The poetic backbone of Hinduism, the millennia-old Upanishads transcend time. The selections offered here illuminate a path that is as "narrow as the edge of a razor" but pregnant with freedom and bliss. Through vivid metaphors and timeless prose, learn how the path of yoga leads beyond the treacherous web of karma to the final, blissful union of the personal soul, atman, with the universal soul, Brahman.
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