I thought an explanatory note would be helpful.
Over the first six months we read the Brihadaranyaka, the oldest one. We didn't read every page, because the philosophical content is mixed in with some earlier ritualistic stuff, and also some later additions that are not so sophisticated. We finished it in October and we're now on to the Chandogya Upanishad, thought to be the next oldest because it quotes the Brihad, although a lot of it is of similar vintage.
The blog postings so far have offered rough, mainly literal translations of the text. I've got a basic knowledge of Sanskrit which, combined with a lot of enthusiasm and the Advaita Ashrama edition which translates each word individually, more or less gets me through. Often I get glimpses of a beauty that is almost, though not completely, obscured by the Indian translations. This is why I've wanted to translate the text as we go.
Apart from that I've added some comments to help clarify certain points.
I would like to do more - for example talk about what was said in our conversations - but it would take too long. I'm hoping that some of the gang might fill in gaps there, but if not it doesn't matter much. What we have so far is like a set of lecture notes, and if it develops in some unforeseeen way, that's all to the good.
Anyone is welcome to participate on this blog, and if you have any questions, please comment.
2 comments:
Please could you say something about the ordering of the text – especially concerning the Sections within Chapters. Although sometimes ‘repetition indicates the end of the meditation’ at the end of a Section seems to indicate a natural division, sometimes stories run over Sections suggesting they are sequential but at other times new Sections start different stories. Then again, sometimes it seems as if commentators/translators are disregarding Section breaks and originally separate pieces of text are being used to make a single story...
I'm not sure whether I can at the moment. The Upanishads themselves are not, so far as I understand, originally distinct from the Vedas to which they are attached. The division between Veda and Vedanta is therefore somewhat arbitrary, especially in these early ones.
I'm not even sure whether the section numbers in the text were originally in there?
I think the commentators are often doing links a bit like radio announcers, when in fact there is no connection between two sections at all.
In the Brihad the central "Yajnyawalkya" section is clearly logically consistent and each part follows on from what went before, but the rest of it is a bit of a grab-bag. I can't comment on the Chandogya yet.
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