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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Here to know was to be, to know the Atman was to be the Atman, and the reward of that highest knowledge after death was freedom from new births, or immortality. That Highest Self which had become to the ancient Brahmans the goal of all their mental efforts, was looked upon at the same time as the starting-point of all phenomenal existence, the root of the world, the only thing that could truly be said to be, to be real and true. As the root of all that exists, the Atman was identified with the Brah man, which in Sanskrit is both masculine and neuter, and with the Sat, which is neuter only, that which is, SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXX or Satya, the true, the real. It alone exists in the. beginning and for ever; it has no second. Whatever else is said to exist, derives its real being from the Sat. How the one Sat became many, how what we call the creation, what they call emanation (xpéodos), constantly proceeds and returns to it, has been explained in various more or less fanciful ways by ancient prophets and poets. But what they all agree in is this, that the whole creation, the visible and invisible world, all plants, all animals, all men are due to the one Sat, are upheld by it, and will return to it. If we translate Atman by soul, mind, or spirit, we commit, first of all, that fundamental mistake of using words which may be predicated, in place of a word which is a subject only, and can never become a predicate. We may say in English that man possesses a soul, that a man is out of his mind, that man has or even that man is a spirit, but we could never predicate 4tman, or self, of anything else. Spirit, if it means breath or life; mind, if it means the organ of perception and conception ; soul, if, like faitanya, it means intelligence in general, all these may be predicated of the Atman, as manifested in the phenomenal world. But they are never subjects in the sense in which the Atman is; they have no independent being, apart from Atman. Thus to translate the beginning of the Aitareya-upanishad, Atma v4 idam eka ev4gra Asit, by ‘ This (world) verily was before (the creation of the world) soul alone’ (Réer); or, ‘ Originally this (universe) was indeed soul only’ (Colebrooke), would give us a totally false idea. M. Regnaud in his ‘ Matériaux pour servir 4 l'histoire de la philo- Xxxil PREFACE TO THE sophie de I’Inde’ (vol. ii, p. 24) has evidently felt this, and has kept the word 4tman untranslated, ‘Au commencement cet univers n’était que ]’Atman.’ But while in French it would seem impossible to find any equivalent for 4tman, I have ventured to translate in English, as I should have done in German, ‘Verily, in the beginning all this was Self, one only.’
2Thus again when we read in Sanskrit, ‘ Know the Self by the self 4tm4nam 4tman4 pasya, tempting as it may seem, it would be entirely wrong to render it by the Greek ya ceavrév. The Brahman called upon his young pupil to know not himself, but his Self, that is, to know his individual self as a merely temporary reflex of the Eternal Self. Were we to translate this so-called 4tmavidyé, this self-knowledge, by knowledge of the soul, we should not be altogether wrong, but we should nevertheless lose all that distinguishes Indian from Greek thought. It may not be good English to say to know his self, still’ less to know our selfs, but it would be bad Sanskrit to say to know himself, to know ourselves; or, at all events, such a rendering would deprive us of the greatest advantage in the study of Indian philosophy, the opportunity of seeing in how many different ways man has tried to solve the riddles of the world and of his soul. I have thought it best therefore to keep as close as possible to the Sanskrit original, and where I could not find an adequate term in English, I have often retained the Sanskrit word rather than use a misleading substitute in English. It is impossible, for instance, to find an English equivalent for so simple a word as Sat, 7o 6y. We cannot render the Greek 70 SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXXili év and ro wy dv by Being or Not-being, for both are abstract nouns; nor by ‘the Being,’ for this would almost always convey a wrong impression. In German it is easy to distinguish between das Sein, i.e. being, in the abstract, and das Seiende, ro dv. | In the same way the Sanskrit sat can easily be rendered in Greek by ro v, in German by das Seiende, but in English, unless we say ‘that which is,’ we are driven to retain the original Sat. From this Sat was derived in Sanskrit Sat-ya, meaning originally ‘endowed with being,’ then ‘true.’ This is an adjective ; but the same word, as a neuter, is also used in the sense of truth, as an abstract; and in translating it is very necessary always to distinguish between Satyam, the true, frequently the same as Sat, ro év, and Satyam, truth, veracity, One example will suffice to show how much the clearness of a translation depends on the right rendering of such words as 4tman, sat, and satyam._ In a dialogue between Udd4laka and his son Svetaketu, in which the father tries to open his son’s mind, and to make him see man’s. true relation to the Highest Self (AZ4ndogya-upanishad VI), the father first explains how the Sat produced what we should call the three elements}, viz. fire, water, and earth, which he calls heat, water, and food. Having produced them (VI, 2, 4), the Sat entered into them, but not with its real nature, but only with its ‘living self’ (VI, 3, 3), which is a reflection (A4bh4samatram) _of the real Sat, as the sun in the water is a reflection
3fire, water, and earth, which he calls heat, water, and food. Having produced them (VI, 2, 4), the Sat entered into them, but not with its real nature, but only with its ‘living self’ (VI, 3, 3), which is a reflection (A4bh4samatram) _of the real Sat, as the sun in the water is a reflection 1 Devatés, literally deities, but frequently to be translated by powers or beings. Mahadeva Moreshvar Kunte, the learned editor of the Ved4nta-sfitras, ought not (p. 70) to have rendered devata, in KA. Up. I, 11, 5, by goddess. [3] Cc XXXIV PREFACE TO THE of the real sun. By this apparent union of the Sat with the three elements, every form (rfipa) and every name (ndman) in the world was produced ; and therefore he who knows the three elements is supposed to know everything in this world, nearly in the same manner in which the Greeks imagined that through a knowledge of the elements, everything else became known (VI, 4, 7). The same three elements are shown to be also the constituent elements of man (VI, 5). Food or the earthy element is supposed to produce not only flesh, but also mind; water, not only blood, but also breath ; heat, not only bone, but also speech. This is more or less fanciful; the important point, however, is this, that, from the Brahmanic point of view, breath, speech, and mind are purely elemental, or external instruments, and require the support of the living self, the givatman, before they can act. Having explained how the Sat produces progressively heat, how heat leads to water, water to earth, and how, by a peculiar mixture of the three, speech, breath, and mind are produced, the teacher afterwards shows how in death, speech returns to mind, mind to breath, breath to heat, and heat to the Sat (VI, 8, 6). This Sat, the root of everything, is called para devatd, the highest deity, not in the ordinary sense of the word deity, but as expressing the highest abstraction of the human mind. We must therefore translate it by the Highest Being, in the same manner as we translate devat4, when applied to heat, water, and earth, not by deity, but by substance or element. The same Sat, as the root or highest essence of all material existence, is called aziman, from SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXXV azu, small, subtile, infinitesimal, atom. It is an abstract word, and I have translated it by subtile essence. The father then goes on explaining in various ways that this Sat is underlying all existence, and that we must learn to recognise it as the root, not only of all the objective, but likewise of our own subjective existence. ‘Bring the fruit of a Nyagrodha tree,’ he says, ‘break it, and what do you find?’ ‘The seeds,’ the son replies, ‘almost infinitesimal.’ ‘Break one of them, and tell me what you see.’ ‘Nothing, the son replies. Then the father continues: ‘My son, that subtile essence which you do not see there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists.’
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Here to know was to be, to know the Atman was to be the Atman, and the reward of that highest knowledge after death was freedom from new births, or immortality. That Highest Self which had become to the ancient Brahmans the goal of all their mental efforts, was looked upon at the same time as the starting-point of all phenomenal existence, the root of the world, the only thing that could truly be said to be, to be real and true. As the root of all that exists, the Atman was identified with the Brah man, which in Sanskrit is both masculine and neuter, and with the Sat, which is neuter only, that which is, SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXX or Satya, the true, the real. It alone exists in the. beginning and for ever; it has no second. Whatever else is said to exist, derives its real being from the Sat. How the one Sat became many, how what we call the creation, what they call emanation (xpéodos), constantly proceeds and returns to it, has been explained in various more or less fanciful ways by ancient prophets and poets. But what they all agree in is this, that the whole creation, the visible and invisible world, all plants, all animals, all men are due to the one Sat, are upheld by it, and will return to it. If we translate Atman by soul, mind, or spirit, we commit, first of all, that fundamental mistake of using words which may be predicated, in place of a word which is a subject only, and can never become a predicate. We may say in English that man possesses a soul, that a man is out of his mind, that man has or even that man is a spirit, but we could never predicate 4tman, or self, of anything else. Spirit, if it means breath or life; mind, if it means the organ of perception and conception ; soul, if, like faitanya, it means intelligence in general, all these may be predicated of the Atman, as manifested in the phenomenal world. But they are never subjects in the sense in which the Atman is; they have no independent being, apart from Atman. Thus to translate the beginning of the Aitareya-upanishad, Atma v4 idam eka ev4gra Asit, by ‘ This (world) verily was before (the creation of the world) soul alone’ (Réer); or, ‘ Originally this (universe) was indeed soul only’ (Colebrooke), would give us a totally false idea. M. Regnaud in his ‘ Matériaux pour servir 4 l'histoire de la philo- Xxxil PREFACE TO THE sophie de I’Inde’ (vol. ii, p. 24) has evidently felt this, and has kept the word 4tman untranslated, ‘Au commencement cet univers n’était que ]’Atman.’ But while in French it would seem impossible to find any equivalent for 4tman, I have ventured to translate in English, as I should have done in German, ‘Verily, in the beginning all this was Self, one only.’
2Thus again when we read in Sanskrit, ‘ Know the Self by the self 4tm4nam 4tman4 pasya, tempting as it may seem, it would be entirely wrong to render it by the Greek ya ceavrév. The Brahman called upon his young pupil to know not himself, but his Self, that is, to know his individual self as a merely temporary reflex of the Eternal Self. Were we to translate this so-called 4tmavidyé, this self-knowledge, by knowledge of the soul, we should not be altogether wrong, but we should nevertheless lose all that distinguishes Indian from Greek thought. It may not be good English to say to know his self, still’ less to know our selfs, but it would be bad Sanskrit to say to know himself, to know ourselves; or, at all events, such a rendering would deprive us of the greatest advantage in the study of Indian philosophy, the opportunity of seeing in how many different ways man has tried to solve the riddles of the world and of his soul. I have thought it best therefore to keep as close as possible to the Sanskrit original, and where I could not find an adequate term in English, I have often retained the Sanskrit word rather than use a misleading substitute in English. It is impossible, for instance, to find an English equivalent for so simple a word as Sat, 7o 6y. We cannot render the Greek 70 SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXXili év and ro wy dv by Being or Not-being, for both are abstract nouns; nor by ‘the Being,’ for this would almost always convey a wrong impression. In German it is easy to distinguish between das Sein, i.e. being, in the abstract, and das Seiende, ro dv. | In the same way the Sanskrit sat can easily be rendered in Greek by ro v, in German by das Seiende, but in English, unless we say ‘that which is,’ we are driven to retain the original Sat. From this Sat was derived in Sanskrit Sat-ya, meaning originally ‘endowed with being,’ then ‘true.’ This is an adjective ; but the same word, as a neuter, is also used in the sense of truth, as an abstract; and in translating it is very necessary always to distinguish between Satyam, the true, frequently the same as Sat, ro év, and Satyam, truth, veracity, One example will suffice to show how much the clearness of a translation depends on the right rendering of such words as 4tman, sat, and satyam._ In a dialogue between Udd4laka and his son Svetaketu, in which the father tries to open his son’s mind, and to make him see man’s. true relation to the Highest Self (AZ4ndogya-upanishad VI), the father first explains how the Sat produced what we should call the three elements}, viz. fire, water, and earth, which he calls heat, water, and food. Having produced them (VI, 2, 4), the Sat entered into them, but not with its real nature, but only with its ‘living self’ (VI, 3, 3), which is a reflection (A4bh4samatram) _of the real Sat, as the sun in the water is a reflection
3fire, water, and earth, which he calls heat, water, and food. Having produced them (VI, 2, 4), the Sat entered into them, but not with its real nature, but only with its ‘living self’ (VI, 3, 3), which is a reflection (A4bh4samatram) _of the real Sat, as the sun in the water is a reflection 1 Devatés, literally deities, but frequently to be translated by powers or beings. Mahadeva Moreshvar Kunte, the learned editor of the Ved4nta-sfitras, ought not (p. 70) to have rendered devata, in KA. Up. I, 11, 5, by goddess. [3] Cc XXXIV PREFACE TO THE of the real sun. By this apparent union of the Sat with the three elements, every form (rfipa) and every name (ndman) in the world was produced ; and therefore he who knows the three elements is supposed to know everything in this world, nearly in the same manner in which the Greeks imagined that through a knowledge of the elements, everything else became known (VI, 4, 7). The same three elements are shown to be also the constituent elements of man (VI, 5). Food or the earthy element is supposed to produce not only flesh, but also mind; water, not only blood, but also breath ; heat, not only bone, but also speech. This is more or less fanciful; the important point, however, is this, that, from the Brahmanic point of view, breath, speech, and mind are purely elemental, or external instruments, and require the support of the living self, the givatman, before they can act. Having explained how the Sat produces progressively heat, how heat leads to water, water to earth, and how, by a peculiar mixture of the three, speech, breath, and mind are produced, the teacher afterwards shows how in death, speech returns to mind, mind to breath, breath to heat, and heat to the Sat (VI, 8, 6). This Sat, the root of everything, is called para devatd, the highest deity, not in the ordinary sense of the word deity, but as expressing the highest abstraction of the human mind. We must therefore translate it by the Highest Being, in the same manner as we translate devat4, when applied to heat, water, and earth, not by deity, but by substance or element. The same Sat, as the root or highest essence of all material existence, is called aziman, from SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. XXXV azu, small, subtile, infinitesimal, atom. It is an abstract word, and I have translated it by subtile essence. The father then goes on explaining in various ways that this Sat is underlying all existence, and that we must learn to recognise it as the root, not only of all the objective, but likewise of our own subjective existence. ‘Bring the fruit of a Nyagrodha tree,’ he says, ‘break it, and what do you find?’ ‘The seeds,’ the son replies, ‘almost infinitesimal.’ ‘Break one of them, and tell me what you see.’ ‘Nothing, the son replies. Then the father continues: ‘My son, that subtile essence which you do not see there, of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists.’
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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