Customer Reviews

Hymns to the Goddess and Hymn to Kali

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Sir John Woodroffe was certainly a pioneering translator at the time. This volume (as well as his other translated editions) include copious usage of the original Sanskrit terminology. To a reader who has no familiarity with Sanskrit, this can be cumbersome. However, those readers who persevere and are able to navigate through the Sanskrit terminology will be richly rewarded. I think Sir Woodroffe's texts are geared more for the serious pupil of Tantric yoga. Neophytes should start with a basic primer. I personally enjoyed his reliance on the Sanskrit language because of the following considerations: 1) it's a tough process to translate old texts and having the original Sanskrit transliteration at hand allows the reader to become acquainted with the original language since exact translations cannot always be attained; 2) the Sanskrit terms can be keys to more in-depth investigation into other related concepts and textual material. Overall, I enjoyed the heavy usage of Sanskrit terminology and annotations. I highly recommend Sir John Woodroffe's translated editions for the erudite pupil/scholar of the esoteric aspect of Indian thought. Those who begin the long journey into reading and meditating upon these books will reap great rewards as well as the sheer joy of achievement.

I wouldn't suggest reading this unless you are either Hindu or very familiar with Hindu religion and terminology--and someone familiar with those will no doubt find better works in Hindi, Tamil, etc. Although it was no doubt a welcome ground-breaker in its own time, this group of translations uses dated English and has little to offer, unless one is interested in the history of Hindu studies in the English language. Native terms (in transliteration) are used very often, sometimes in every sentence, and are attributed but not translated in footnotes. Although of course the authors are to be praised for their audacity in doing work on Hindu religious studies at a time when Western culture had little appreciation for them, the modern reader will find this very heavy going.