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The Principal Upanishads: Edited with Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes

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S. Radhakrishnan is a towering figure in the history of commentary on the religious literature, and his translation of the Upanishads (and the Gita and the Dhammapada) are among my bedside bibles. I am only writing this review in the hopes that it will be read by someone at Harper that will be able to see that a better-quality editing is printed. I certainly have not abused mine, and it is falling apart (pages coming out). This is the second one I have bought. The first one also fell apart and the pages became yellow way before their time. I am sure that this has to do with the quality of the Indian printing and the effort to use inexpensive materials. This great book deserves to stay in print; the introduction by Mr. Radhakrishnan are truly inspired and extremely informative, not only on the content of the Upanishads but also for the references to other literature--Mr. Radhakrishnan was a brilliant, extremely well-read person. PLEASE. Print this book in a better-quality editing. I'll by a dozen to give to my friends.

The book is one of the best English translations of the Upanishads I have read. It thoroughly captures and beautifully preserves the mystical content and meaning of the Upanishad verses. I highly recommend the title to serious students of Hindu mysticism for reading and study. ...Marc

THE PRINCIPAL UPANISHADS. Edited with Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes by S. Radhakrishnan. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1968 (1953). Paperback, 958 pages. SBN 042940478

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), Indian philosopher and statesman, was the first Vice-President of India (1952-1962) and its second President (1962-1967). Coming as he did from a country wise enough to choose highly intelligent and accomplished men for its leaders, it's no surprise to find him treating the traditional wisdom of his country with artistry, insight, and an impressive and scholarly thoroughness, and giving us a book that still remains the best edition of the Upanishads ever published for English readers.

After a 130-page Introduction, we are then given the complete texts of eighteen Upanishads, verse-by-verse, in Romanized Sanskrit and an English translation that reads very well indeed and in which one detects the author's desire to capture something of the poetic beauty of these texts.

Many of the verses are followed by further explanations of the Sanskrit terms along with an abundance of extremely interesting and useful notes which throw light on the text from various angles and which are based mainly upon, and often quote passages in Sanskrit from, the commentarial literature (especially Shankara). The book is rounded out with a Bibliography and a General Index.

Perhaps enough has been said to indicate that Radhakrishnan's 'The Principal Upanishads' is an edition for the serious student. Newcomers to the Upanishads who have no previous exposure to Sanskrit would probably be better off starting with a simpler treatment such as Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal. This too, in its own way, is an excellent edition and I think they would find it much more approachable. Another excellent edition that would require less of a commitment is Swami Nikhilananda's abridged translation The Principal Upanishads. For other translations see my Listmania list on the Upanishads.

Sadly, although Radhakrishnan's is the finest English edition of the Upanishads ever to appear, and the only one, so far as I know, that also gives us the Romanized Sanskrit of these extremely important texts, recent Indian reprints have generally been of very inferior quality. Apart from their obscenely inflated price, they are poorly printed on cheap paper with wretched glued spines that crack when opened and seem almost to have been deliberately designed to self-destruct after minimal use.

The only solution to this problem is, of course, not to buy them but to search instead for a used copy of an earlier UK printing, perhaps at Amazon UK. These were well-printed on good quality paper, had stitched bindings that opened flat, and even as mere paperbacks were in sturdy enough paper covers to last, as mine has, for over forty years.

I wish you luck in your search.

The actual text is completely in understandable English and lacks a lot of the more technical terms of sanskrit that put off new comers to Hindu philosophy. There are abundant allusions to classical philosophy including Plato, that make the work of interest to students of philosophy

This book provides you a short cut to most of the Upanishads. There are sweeping statements which some day in future people will use as inspiration to research at Nano level in various fields of deterministic philosophies. In one book you are practically reading 103 books and in turn reading those books require quite serious research in ancient texts. This book didn't solve my problem but gave many dimensions and views of looking at my quest and thereby giving me more choices of solutions. In computer science or anywhere the hardest problem is the one where there is no one good solution and this book teaches you how to understand and sometimes how inferior solutions can be refined in future to be perfect solutions. Dr. Radhakrishanan gave us something which will enlighten generations to come.

Reason why I read this book and some background how I reached up to this book.
My mind has been hovering mostly around questions like:
1. How to spot Googles, Ebays and Amazons of the world.
I read E.D. Beinhocker's book on how evolution works in individual businesses and I was still not clear to the upper bound of wealth and thought spiritualism books in ancient times must have been about prosperity, Bhagwan/Lord Budh/Buddha essentially quite clearly wrote that. I read lot of scriptures of various religions (e.g. Old Testament, Bible, Vedas, Sukhmani Sahib, Japuji Sahib, Quran, Shiv Puran, Ramayan and several other Hindu Texts I any way know due to Sanatan Dharma being religion from my birth) and could not understand much related to my topic of creation and distribution of wealth. I heard that if you read Upanishads then they explain Vedas. Now Upanishads are too many and I don't have so much time with full time crazy IT decently paying job and thought of short cut.

The Upanishads are the principal Hindu scripture dealing with the struggle for liberation from continued rebirths. Klostermeier in A Survey of Hinduism calls this edition "a good English translation".