{"id":1542,"date":"2013-07-13T01:35:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:35:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:35:34","slug":"21-on-translating-the-upanishads-vol-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/18-kena-and-other-upanishads\/21-on-translating-the-upanishads-vol-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","title":{"rendered":"-21_On Translating the Upanishads.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Part Two <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Translations and Commentaries
\n<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

from Manuscripts <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

These texts written between c. 1900 and 1914 were found
\namong Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts and typescripts. He did not revise them for publication.
\n \t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Section One <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

Introduction <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

On Translating the Upanishads <\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

OM TAT SAT <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

This translation of a few of the simpler & more exoteric Upanishads to be followed by other sacred and philosophical writings
\nof the Hindus not included in the Revealed Scriptures, all under the one title of the Book of God, has been effected on one definite and unvarying principle, to present to England and through England to Europe the religious message of India only in those
\nparts of her written thought which the West is fit to hear and to present these in such a form as should be attractive & suggestive
\nto the Occidental intellect. The first branch of this principle necessitated a rigid selection on definite lines, the second dictated
\nthe choice of a style & method of rendering which should be literary rather than literal.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

The series of translations called the Sacred Books of the East, edited by the late Professor Max Muller, was executed in
\na scholastic and peculiar spirit. Professor Max Muller, a scholar of wide attainments, great versatility and a refreshingly active,
\ningenious & irresponsible fancy, has won considerable respect in India by his attachment to Vedic studies, but it must fairly be
\nrecognized that he was more of a grammarian and philologist, than a sound Sanscrit scholar. He could construe Sanscrit well
\nenough, but he could not feel the language or realise the spirit behind the letter. Accordingly he committed two serious errors
\nof judgment; he imagined that by sitting in Oxford and evolving new meanings out of his own brilliant fancy he could understand the Upanishads better than Shankaracharya or any other Hindu of parts and learning; and he also imagined that what was
\nimportant for Europe to know about the Upanishads was what he and other European scholars considered they ought to mean.
\nThis, however, is a matter of no importance to anybody but the <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 163<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

scholars themselves. What it is really important for Europe to know is in the first place what the Upanishads really do mean, so
\nfar as their exoteric teaching extends, and in a less degree what philosophic Hinduism took them to mean. The latter knowledge
\nmay be gathered from the commentaries of Shankaracharya and other philosophers which may be studied in the original or in the
\ntranslations which the Dravidian Presidency, ignorantly called benighted by the materialists, has been issuing with a truly noble
\nlearning & high-minded enterprise. The former this book makes some attempt to convey.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

But it may be asked, why these particular Upanishads alone, when there are so many others far larger in plan and of a not
\ninferior importance? In answer I may quote a sentence from Professor Max Muller’s Preface to the Sacred Books of the East.
\n“I confess” he says “it has been for many years a problem to me, aye, and to a great extent is so still, how the Sacred Books of the
\nEast should, by the side of so much that is fresh, natural, simple, beautiful and true, contain so much that is not only unmeaning,
\nartificial and silly, but even hideous and repellent.” Now I am myself only a poor coarseminded Oriental and therefore not
\ndisposed to deny the gross physical facts of life & nature or able to see why we should scuttle them out of sight and put on
\na smug, respectable expression which suggests while it affects to hide their existence. This perhaps is the reason why I am
\nsomewhat at a loss to imagine what the Professor found in the Upanishads that is hideous and repellent. Still I was brought up
\nalmost from my infancy in England and received an English education, so that sometimes I have glimmerings. But as to what he
\nintends by the unmeaning, artificial and silly elements, there can be no doubt. Everything is unmeaning in the Upanishads which
\nthe Europeans cannot understand, everything is artificial which does not come within the circle of their mental experience and
\neverything is silly which is not explicable by European science and wisdom. Now this attitude is almost inevitable on the part of
\nan European, for we all judge according to our lights and those who keep their minds really open, who can realise that there may
\nbe lights which are not theirs and yet as illuminating or more <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 164<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nilluminating than theirs, are in any nation a very small handful. For the most part men are the slaves of their associations.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nLet us suppose that the ceremonies & services of the Roman Catholic were not mere ceremonies and formularies, borrowed
\nfor the most part from Eastern occultisms without understanding them,\u2014that they had been arranged so as to be perfect
\nsymbols of certain deep metaphysical truths and to produce certain effects spiritual and material according to a scientific
\nknowledge of the power of sound over both mind and matter; let us suppose that deep philosophical works had been written
\nin the terminology of these symbols and often in a veiled allusive language; and let us suppose finally that these were translated
\ninto Bengali or Hindustani and presented to an educated Pundit who had studied both at Calcutta & at Nuddea or Benares.
\nWhat would he make of them? It will be as well to take a concrete instance. Jesus Christ was a great thinker, a man who
\nhad caught, apparently by his unaided power, though this is not certain, something of the divine knowledge, but the writers who
\nrecorded his sayings were for the most part ordinary men of a very narrow culture and scope of thought and they seem grossly
\nto have misunderstood his deepest sayings. For instance when he said “I and my Father are one” expressing the deep truth that
\nthe human self and the divine self are identical, they imagined that he was setting up an individual claim to be God; hence
\nthe extraordinary legend of the Virgin Mary & all that followed from it. Well, we all know the story of the Last Supper and Jesus’
\nmarvellously pregnant utterance as he broke the bread and gave of the wine to his disciples “This is my body and this is my
\nblood” and the remarkable rite of the Eucharist and the doctrine of Transubstantiation which the Roman Catholic Church
\nhas founded upon it. “Corruption! superstition! blasphemous nonsense!” cries the Protestant. “Only a vivid Oriental metaphor
\nand nothing more.” If so, it was certainly an “unmeaning, artificial and silly” metaphor, nay, “even a hideous and repellent”
\none. But I prefer to believe that Jesus’ words had always a meaning & generally a true & beautiful one. On the other
\nhand the Transubstantiation doctrine is one which the Catholics <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 165<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

themselves do not understand, it is to them a “mystery”. And yet how plain the meaning is to an Oriental intelligence! The plasm
\nof matter, the foodsheath of the universe to which bread and wine belong, is indeed the blood and body of God and typifies
\nthe great primal sacrifice by which God crucified himself so that the world might exist. The Infinite had to become finite, the Unconditioned to condition himself, Spirit to evolve matter. In the bread and the wine which the communicant eats, God actually is
\nbut he is not present to our consciousness, and he only becomes so present by an act of faith; this is the whole doctrine of the
\nTransubstantiation. For as the Upanishad says, we must believe in God before we can know him; we must realise him as the “He
\nis” before we realise him in his essential. And indeed if the child had not believed in what his teacher or his book told him, how
\ncould the grown man know anything? But if a deep philosophical work were written on the Eucharist hinting at great truths but
\nalways using the symbol of the bread and wine and making its terminology from the symbol & from the doctrine of Transubstantiation based upon the symbol, what would our Hindu Pundit make of it? Being a scholar & philosopher, he would find
\nthere undoubtedly much that was fresh, natural, simple, beautiful & true but also a great deal that was unmeaning, artificial &
\nsilly & even to his vegetarian imagination hideous & repellent. As for the symbol itself, its probable effect on the poor vegetarian
\nwould be to make him vomit. “What hideous nonsense,” says the Protestant, “we are to believe that we are eating God!” But
\nthat is exactly what the Protestant himself does believe if he is sincere & not a parrot when he says “God is everywhere”, which
\nis true enough, though it would be truer to say everything is in God. If God is everywhere, He must be in the food we eat. Not
\nonly is God the eaten, but He is the eater and eventually, says the Vedanta, when you come to the bottom fact of existence there
\nis neither eaten or eater, but all is God. These are hard sayings for the rationalist who insists on limiting knowledge within the
\ncircle of the five senses. “God to whom the sages are as meat & princes as excellent eating & Death is the spice of his banquet,
\nhow shall such an one know of Him where He abideth?” <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 166<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMany of the Upanishads are similarly written round symbols and in a phraseology and figures which have or had once a
\ndeep meaning and a sacred association to the Hindus but must be unintelligible and repellent to the European. What possible
\nuse can be served by presenting to Europe such works as the Chandogya or Aitareya Upanishads in which even the majority
\nof Hindus find it difficult or impossible to penetrate every symbol to its underlying truth? Only the few Upanishads have been
\nselected which contain the kernel of the matter in the least technical and most poetical form; the one exception is the Upanishad
\nof the Questions which will be necessarily strange and not quite penetrable to the European mind. It was, however, necessary
\nto include it for the sake of a due presentation of Upanishad philosophy in some of its details as well as in its main ideas, and
\nits technical element has a more universal appeal than that of the Chandogya or Taittiriya.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAn objection may be urged to the method of translation that has been adopted. Professor Max Muller in his translation did
\nnot make any attempt to render into English the precise shades of Aryan philosophical terms like Atman & Prana which do
\nnot correspond to any philosophical conception familiar to the West; he believed that the very unfamiliarity of the terms he used
\nto translate them would be like a bracing splash of cold water to the mind forcing it to rouse itself and think. In this I think the
\nProfessor was in error; his proposition may be true of undaunted philosophical intellects such as Schopenhauer’s or of those who
\nare already somewhat familiar with the Sanscrit language, but to the ordinary reader the unfamiliar terminology forms a high
\n& thick hedge of brambles shutting him off from the noble palace & beautiful gardens of the Upanishads. Moreover the
\nresult of a scholastic faithfulness to the letter has been to make the style of the translation intolerably uncouth and unworthy
\nof the solemn rhythmic grandeur and ineffable poetical depth and beauty of these great religious poems. I do not say that this
\ntranslation is worthy of them, for in no other human tongue than Sanscrit is such grandeur & beauty possible. But there are ways
\n <\/i> and their degrees. For instance \u00c9<\/font>tadwaitad<\/i>, the refrain of the
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 167<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Katha Upanishad has a deep & solemn ring in Sanscrit because  <\/i>\u00e9<\/font>tad <\/i>and tad <\/i>so used have in Sanscrit a profound and grandiose philosophical signification which everybody at once feels; but in
\nEnglish “This truly is That” can be nothing but a juggling with demonstrative pronouns; it is far better and renders more nearly
\nboth rhythm & meaning to translate “This is the God of your seeking” however inadequate such a translation may be.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

It may, however, fairly be said that a version managed on these lines cannot give a precise & accurate idea of the meaning. It is misleading to translate Prana sometimes by life, sometimes
\nby breath, sometimes by life breath or breath of life, because breath & life are merely subordinate aspects of the Prana. Atman again rendered indifferently by soul, spirit & self, must
\nmislead, because what the West calls the soul is really the Atman yoked with mind & intelligence, and spirit is a word of variable
\nconnotation often synonymous with soul; even “self” cannot be used precisely in that way in English. Again the Hindu idea of
\n“immortality” is different from the European; it implies not life after death, but freedom from both life and death, for what we
\ncall life is after all impossible without death. Similarly Being does not render
\nPurusha<\/i>, nor “matter” rayi<\/i>, nor askesis the whole
\nidea of “tapas”. To a certain extent all this may be admitted, but at the same time I do not think that any reader who can
\nthink & feel will be seriously misled, and at any rate he will catch more of the meaning from imperfect English substitutes
\nthan from Sanscrit terms which will be a blank to his intelligence. The mind of man demands, and the demand is legitimate, that
\nnew ideas shall be presented to him in words which convey to him some association, with which he will not feel like a foreigner
\nin a strange country where no one knows his language nor he theirs. The new must be presented to him in the terms of the
\nold; new wine must be put to some extent in old bottles. What is the use of avoiding the word “God” and speaking always of
\nthe Supreme as “It” simply because the Sanscrit usually,\u2014but not, be it observed, invariably\u2014employs the neuter gender?
\nThe neuter in Sanscrit applies not only to what is inanimate but to what is beyond such terms as animate and inanimate,
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 168<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\nnot only to what is below gender but to what is above gender. In English this is not the case. The use of “It” may therefore
\nlead to far more serious misconceptions than to use the term “God” & the pronoun “He”. When Matthew Arnold said that
\nGod was a stream of tendency making towards righteousness, men naturally scoffed because it seemed to turn God into an
\ninanimate force; yet surely such was not Arnold’s meaning. On the other side if the new ideas are presented with force and
\npower, a reader of intelligence will soon come to understand that something different is meant by “God” from the ideas he
\nattaches to that word. And in the meanwhile we gain this distinct advantage that he has not been repelled at the outset by what
\nwould naturally seem to him bizarre, repulsive or irreverent.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n It is true however that this translation will not convey a precise, full and categorical knowledge of the truths which underlie the Upanishads. To convey such knowledge is not the object of
\nthis translation, neither was it the object of the Upanishads themselves. It must always be remembered that these great treatises
\nare simply the gate of the Higher Knowledge; there is much that lies behind the gate. Srikrishna has indeed said that the knowledge in the Vedas is sufficient for a holy mind that is capable of knowing God, just as the water in a well is sufficient for a man’s
\npurpose though there may be whole floods of water all around. But this does not apply to ordinary men. The ordinary man
\nwho wishes to reach God through knowledge, must undergo an elaborate training. He must begin by becoming absolutely pure,
\nhe must cleanse thoroughly his body, his heart and his intellect, he must get himself a new heart and be born again; for only the twiceborn can understand or teach the Vedas. When he has done this he needs yet four things before he can succeed, the Sruti or
\nrecorded revelation, the Sacred Teacher, the practice of Yoga and the Grace of God. The business of the Sruti and especially of the
\nUpanishads is to seize the mind and draw it into a magic circle, to accustom it to the thought of God and aspirations after the
\nSupreme, to bathe it in certain ideas, surround it with a certain spiritual atmosphere; for this purpose it plunges & rolls the
\nmind over & over in an ocean of marvellous sound thro’ which <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 169<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

a certain train of associations goes ever rolling. In other words it appeals through the intellect, the ear and the imagination to the
\nsoul. The purpose of the Upanishad cannot therefore be served by a translation; a translation at best prepares him for & attracts
\nhim to the original. But even when he has steeped himself in the original, he may have understood what the Upanishad suggests,
\nbut he has not understood all that it implies, the great mass of religious truth that lies behind, of which the Upanishad is but
\na hint or an echo. For this he must go to the Teacher. “Awake ye, arise & learn of God seeking out the Best who have the
\nknowledge.” Hard is it in these days to find the Best; for the Best do not come to us, we have to show our sincerity, patience
\nand perseverance by seeking them. And when we have heard the whole of the Brahmavidya from the Teacher, we still know of
\nGod by theory only; we must farther learn from a preceptor the practical knowledge of God, the vision of Him and attainment
\nof Him which is Yoga and the goal of Yoga. And even in that we cannot succeed unless we have the Grace of God, for Yoga
\nis beset with temptations not the least of which are the powers it gives us, powers which the ignorant call supernatural. “Then
\nmust a man be very vigilant for Yoga, as it hath a beginning, so hath it an ending.” Only the Grace of God, the blessing
\nof triumphant self-mastery that comes from long and patient accumulation of soul-experience, can keep us firm and help us
\nover these temptations. “The Spirit is not to be won by eloquent teaching, nor by brain power, nor by much learning: but he
\nwhom the Spirit chooseth, he getteth the Spirit, and to him God discovereth His body.” Truly does the Upanishad say “for sharp
\nas a razor’s edge is the path, difficult & hard to traverse, say the seers.” Fortunately it is not necessary & indeed it is not possible
\nfor all to measure the whole journey in a single life, nor can we, or should we abandon our daily duties like Buddha and flee
\ninto the mountain or the forest. It is enough for us to make a beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage – 170<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part Two   Translations and Commentaries from Manuscripts   These texts written between c. 1900 and 1914 were found among Sri Aurobindo’s manuscripts and typescripts….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-18-kena-and-other-upanishads","wpcat-35-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}