The Upanishads were translated from Sanskrit into Persian

[KALKI]

THE ancient Vedic literature, the foundation of the whole literature of India, which has been handed down in that country in an unbroken succession from the earliest times within the recollection of man to the present day, became known for the first time beyond the frontiers of India through the Upanishads.

The Upanishads were translated from Sanskrit into Persian by, or, it may be,
for Dârâ Shukoh, the eldest son of Shâh Jehân, an enlightened prince, who openly professed the liberal religious tenets of the great Emperor Akbar, and even wrote a book intended to reconcile the religious doctrines of Hindus and Mohammedans.

He seems first to have heard of the Upanishads during his stay in Kashmir in 1640. He afterwards invited several Pandits from Benares to Delhi,
who were to assist him in the work of translation. The translation was finished in 1657.

Three years after the accomplishment of this work, in 1659, the prince was put to death by his brother Aurangzib[1], in reality, no doubt, because he was the eldest son and legitimate successor of Shâh Jehân, but under the pretext that he was an infidel, and dangerous to the established religion of the
empire.

When the Upanishads had once been translated from Sanskrit into Persian, at that time the most widely read language of the East and understood likewise by many European scholars, they became generally accessible to

[1. Elphinstone, History of India, ed. Cowell, p. 610.]
all who took an interest in the religious literature of India.

It is true that under Akbar's reign (1556-1586) similar translations had been
prepared[1], but neither those nor the translations of Dârâ Shukoh attracted the attention of European scholars till the year 1775.

In that year Anquetil Duperron, the famous traveller and discoverer of the Zend-avesta received one MS. of the Persian translation of the Upanishads, sent to him by M. Gentil, the French resident at the court of Shuja ud daula, and brought to France by M. Bernier.

After receiving another MS., Anquetil Duperron collated the two, and translated the Persian translation [2] into French (not published), and into Latin. That Latin translation was published in 1801 and 1802, under
the title of 'Oupnek'hat, id est, Secreturn tegendum: opus ipsa in India rarissimum, continens antiquam et arcanam, seu theologicam et philosophicam doctrinam, e quatuor sacris Indorum libris Rak baid, Djedjer baid, Sam baid, Athrban baid excerptam; ad verbum, e Persico idiomate, Samkreticis
vocabulis intermixto, in Latinum conversum: Dissertationibus et Annotationibus
difficiliora explanantibus, illustratum: studio et opera Anquetil Duperron, Indicopleustæ.

Argentorati, typis et impensis fratrum Levrault, vol. i,
1801; vol. ii, 1802 [3].'

This translation, though it attracted considerable interest among scholars, was written in so utterly unintelligible a style, that it required the lynxlike perspicacity of an intrepid [1. M. M., Introduction to the Science of Religion, p. 79.

2. Several other MSS. of this translation have since come to Iight; one at Oxford, Codices Wilsoniani, 399 and 400. Anquetil Duperron gives the following title of
the Persian translation: 'Hanc interpretationem [tôn] Oupnekhathai quorumvis quatuor librorum Beid, quod, designatum cum secreto magno (per secretum magnum) est, et integram cognitionem luminis luminum, hic Fakir sine tristitia (Sultan)

Mohammed Dara Schakoh ipse, cum significatione recta, cum sinceritate, in tempore sex mensium (postremo die, secundo [toû] Schonbeh, vigesimo) sexto mensis [toû]
Ramazzan, anno 1067 [toû] Hedjri (Christi, 1657) in urbe Delhi, in mansione nakhe noudeh, cum absolutione ad finem fecit pervenire.'

The MS. was copied by Âtma Ram in the year 1767 A.D. Anquetil Duperron adds: 'Absolutum est hoc Apographum versionis Latinæ [tôn] quinquaginta Oupnekhatha, ad verbum, e Persico idiomate, Samskreticis vocabulis intermixto, factæ, die 9 Octobris, 1796, 18 Brumaire, anni 4, Reipublic. Gall. Parisiis.'

3 M. M., History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, second edition, p.325.]
philosopher, such as Schopenhauer, to discover a thread through such a labyrinth.

Schopenhauer, however, not only found and
followed such a thread, but he had the courage to proclaim to an incredulous age the vast treasures of thought which were lying
buried beneath that fearful jargon.


Khandogas, the followers of the Sâma-veda, or, on account of the prominent placeoccupied in it by the Upanishad, the Upanishad-brâhmana[1].

In that case it would be one of the eight Brâhmanas of the Sâma-veda, enumerated by Kumârila Bhatta and others[2], and called simply Upanishad, scil. Brâhmana.

The text of the Upanishad with the commentary of Sankara and the gloss of Ânandagiri has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica.
The edition can only claim the character of a manuscript, and of a manuscript not always very correctly read.
A translation of the Upanishad was published, likewise in the Bibliotheca Indica, by Rajendralal Mitra.

It is one of the Upanishads that was translated into Persian under the auspices of Dârâ Shukoh [3], and from Persian into French by
Anquetil Duperron, in his Oupnekhat, i.e. Secreturn Tegendum. Portions of it were translated into English by Colebrooke in his Miscellaneous Essays, into Latin and German by F. W. Windischmann, in his Sankara, seu de theologumenis Vedanticorum. (Bonn, 1833), and in a work published by his father, K. J. H. Windischmann, Die Philosophie im Fortgang der Weltgeschichte (Bonn, 1827-34). Professor A. Weber has treated of this Upanishad in his Indische Studien I, 254;

likewise M. P. Regnaud in his Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire dc la philosophie de I'Inde (Paris, 1876) and Mr. Gough in several articles on 'the Philosophy of the Upanishads,' in the Calcutta Review, No. CXXXI.