Samnyasa Upanishads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation c4: Note on the Translations
Saṃnyāsa Upaniṣads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation c4
- Language
- English
Note on the Translations
c4.1
The ideal of every translator is clarity and accuracy, two goals that often tend to exclude each other. I have attempted here to reproduce in English as accurately as current scholarship and my abilities permit the meaning of the original Sanskrit text. Although this work may be of some help to scholars who know Sanskrit, it is nevertheless aimed primarily at the non-specialist. The introduction provides a context for reading these documents, and I have tried to make the translation as clear and comprehensible as possible on its own without reference to the Sanskrit original.
c4.2
I have regularly ignored the Sanskrit syntax, therefore, using several short English sentences to translate a single Sanskrit sentence. I have also departed from the common practice of placing within parentheses all English words not directly founded on the Sanskrit. Such parenthetical words and phrases only distract the reader who has no access to the original. It is, furthermore, unnecessary to use parentheses when the English translates accurately the original and often succinct Sanskrit, even when the English idiom or the exigencies of comprehension may require more words. On a few occasions, however, I have used parentheses to demarcate phrases not found in the original but that I felt would add to the comprehension of the text.
c4.3
The translation follows Schrader’s critical edition. It contains numerous conjectural readings that are on the whole plausible and necessary. I have not noted all these conjectural readings in the translation; they are meaningless to readers unfamiliar with the original Sanskrit, and those who have access to the original can always find them in the critical edition. I have placed within brackets the following: (1) all explanatory material not syntactically connected to the translation; (2) numbers of sections not given in the critical edition; (3) page numbers of the critical edition; and (4) passages that are placed within brackets in the critical edition.
c4.4
I have given within brackets the page numbers of Schrader’s critical edition so as to facilitate cross-reference. For the same reason, I have also used these page numbers in the index. It is the current scholarly practice to refer to these Upaniṣads by the page numbers of that edition. These numbers may appear in the middle of sentences. Where the difference in syntax between the two languages made it impossible to place a page number at the proper place within a sentence, I have placed it at the beginning of that sentence.
c4.5
I have left *saṃsāra* untranslated. It has entered the English vocabulary and dictionaries, and there is no simple English equivalent. It means life subject to rebirth, the world in which that life is led, and the suffering nature of that life. The term *dharma* has such a vast semantic range that one can never be consistent in translating it. I have used “duty” (duties), “right,” “righteousness,” and “Law,” and on a few occasions I have left it untranslated. I have translated the several Sanskrit terms for the Veda uniformly as “Veda,” and the rather vague term *smṛti* as “scripture(s).” The terms *varṇa* and *āśrama* have been rendered as “class” and “order,” respectively. I have not attempted to translate directly such uniquely Sanskrit idioms as *katham iti cet* (NpU 171). Similarly, I have left untranslated the initial *atha*, except when it begins a narrative, where I have translated it as “once,” and the repetitions of final words that signal the conclusion of a major section.
c4.7
Although I am sensitive to the use of sexist language, I have consistently used the masculine pronouns unless the context calls for the inclusion of both sexes. There is no point in hiding the fact that these documents and much of Brāhmaṇical theology speak almost exclusively to men. The historian's task is to be accurate, not to pass judgment.