This month I enjoyed reading a book by a very Western writer, about the most important Hindu texts, the Upanishads. The authors is William Butler Yeats, and the book is "The Ten Principle Upanishads." It was written in collaboration with Shree Purohit Swami, and was intended to be "a translation that would read as though the original had been written in common English." I believe it accomplished this.
Yeats ad Purohit traveled to the island of Majorca to write this book after health issues prevented them from writing in India. The swami was an Indian scholar and sage known for his teachings both in his homeland and the West. Yeats, although an Irish poet, had spent a lifetime interested in Eastern philosophies and his interest in this book and its history is obvious in the introduction to the book.
The book is not approached lightly, and it is not a quick read. Though the translation is easy to read and is in plain English as they had hoped for, the ideas are monumental in size. The authors chose the ten major Upanishads, although there are many. The texts they convey are only translations of many centuries of oral traditions that have been passed on. The Upanishads themselves were sung by many long before they were ever written down. It takes time and concentration to read each Upanishad. However, it is worth it. "The Ten Principle Upanishads," is a beautifully translated work, cared for by one of our most treasured poets. It was released in 1937, fifteen years after Yeats received the Nobel Prize in Literature and two years before his death.
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