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NOVEMBER, 1928)
KATHAKA UPANISAD
201
KATHAKA UPANIŞAD. TRANSLATED WITI AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES.
BY PROY. JARL CHARPENTIER, UPSALA, Kathaka (or Katha) Upanisad is one of the best known amongst those often sublime and sometimes rambling texts known as Upanişads. Together with the Chándogya it has perhaps a claim to the foremost rank among them all. It has already been many times translated into various European languages.
It apparently belonged to that famous collection of fifty Upanişads which the unhappy Prince Muhammad Dårå Shikoh caused to be translated into Persian. For, we find it in Anquetil Duperron's well-known collection as No. XXXVII, with the bewildering name Kiouni'. Otherwise, the oldest translation into a European language, as far as I can find, is the German one by Poley, l.c. p. 113 sqq. (1847)3. Other German translations are those by Böhtlingk4 and by Professor Geldner, as well as one of the three first vallis by the late lamented Professor Hillebrandte. There are English translations by Max Müller, by Whitney, by Hume9 and perhaps still otherg10. Further, our text has been translated into Italianil. and twice into Swedish13. There may be translations into other languages, too, but in that case they have, unfortunately, escaped me.
Of all these translations that by Anquetil Duperron can scarcely claim more than historical interest, though we know, thanks to the researches of Dr. F. 0. Schrader13, that his work is still not without importance for the constitution of the text of certain minor Upani. şads. Poley's translation, on the contrary, still seems to be quite good. Certain emendations of the text were suggested by Böhtlingk and Whitney. Some of them, of course, are quite useful, but the majority seem to the present writer far too violent to bo acceptable; and it may be said, with all due respect to Whitney, that his endeavours in the line of textemendation were not always very happy. Hume's translation makes easy reading, but it is simply an imitation and modification of that by Whitney. However, amongst all the translations known to me there is one which stands out far above the others in penetration and clearness, viz., that by Professor Geldner, the foremost living interpreter of the Vedas. I gratefully confess that I owe very much to this excellent piece of work, and it is only with great diffidence that I have ventured, upon various points, to differ from him. Several excellent suggestions are also found in the translation of Hillebrandt which, however, is unfortunately incomplete.
Of literature on this Upanişad, outside the works already quoted, there is little enough to be mentioned here. A few years ago Madhva's commentary on it was edited by Dr. B.
1 Oupnek'at (id est, Secretum Tegendum), Tom. ii. (Strassbourg 1802), pp. 299-327.
2 Anquotil himself explains this by the words : 'Satakretice, Khmihi, magnus, magni momenti : vel, Kansand, animi motius, aliquid intendere 'which is, of course, impossible. Weber, Ind. Stud., ii, 195, gives no explanation, I can, unfortunately, find no probable explanation. No. XXXVI in Anquetil Duperron's collection is the Kena, which is there called Kin. However, Colebrooke (of. Poley, Abhandlung ueber die heiligen Schriften der Indier, p. 70) mentions the Kend as the 37th of the Atharvan Upanipade. Is it possible that Kiouni is simply a misunderstood rendering of Kena?
3 On L. Poley cf. Windisch, Geschichte der Sanskritphilologie, i, p. 94 sq.
* Berichte der sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (furthor on quoted-SB.) 1890, p. 127 sq.; cf. ibid. 1891, p. 85 sq.
6 In Bertholet, Religionsgeschichtliches Lesebuch (1908), p. 202 sq. 6 Aus Brahmanas und Upanisaden (1921), p. 116 sq.
SBE., vol. XV, p. 1 sq. & Transactions of the American Philological Association, XXI (1890), p. 88 sq. 9 The Thirteen Principal Upanishads (1921), p. 341 sq. 10 There is at least a translation by Roer which, however, I have not been able to see. 11 F. Belloni-Filippi, La Kaphaka Upanipad tradotta in Italiano, Pisa 1904.
12 A. Butenschoon, Kathaka Upanishad, Stockholm, 1902, and the late Professor K. F. Johansson in Främmande Religion surkunder, ii, 153 sq.
18 Cf. Minor Upanişads, vol. i, p. xv sq.
(1890). D. 88 sq.
