Hindu Scriptures [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Since 1938 Everyman's Library has included a volume entitled Hindu Scriptures, and when the present author was invited to produce a new edition of this volume he was faced with the alternatives of either retaining the previous selection from the vast corpus of Hindu sacred texts in the translations selected by the former editor, or of making a new selection and using already existing translations, or of making his own selection and translation. In the event it was the last alternative he chose. There seemed to be good reasons for this, for although the 'canon' of Hindu Scripture known collectively as the Veda is vast, it is generally agreed that only a relatively small portion of it is of abiding importance and interest; and this portion is the latest in time,—what is called the Veddnta or 'End of the Veda', which means those speculative treatises in prose and verse known as the Upanishads. In addition there is the Bhagavad-Gitd, which actually falls outside the canon but which has from the earliest times been held to rank equally with it in authority. Obviously, then, the Upanishads and the Gita would have to take pride of place in any new edition of the volume. The earlier edition contained thirty hymns from the Rig- Veda, the two long prose Upanishads almost in toto, three shorter verse ones and the Bhagavad-Gita. This meant that eight of the 'classical' Upanishads were totally unrepresented, though both in matter and in quality some of them at least are of the greatest importance and of striking beauty. The balance of this selection seemed to be wrong, as the previous edition contained much matter (particularly in the two long prose Upanishads) that is frankly incomprehensible to modem readers. Indeed the former editor, Nicol Macnicol, went so far as to say that 'the Upanishads are themselves witnesses how foolish and how futile their thinking often was as well as sometimes so wise and so discerning' (pp. xviii-xix). Or, in the late Professor Edgerton's words, 'the dty bones of the Vedic ritual cult frequently rattle about in them in quite a noisy fashion and seriously strain our patience and our charity'.^ It is these passages which even the most ardent admirers of the Upanishads (arriong whom I count myself) find embarrassing, and I have not hesitated to eliminate them. To compensate I have included all ^ Franklin Edgerton, The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy, p. 28. V