The clear introduction gives a comprehensive background of the Vedas. The history of Indian social structure when the Upanisads were written, their authorship, chronology, geography, etc. give the reader a comfortable feel as they go forth with their reading. The reader is also provided with a table dividing the Upanisads into the four Vedas.

I find the paragraph (and the divisions of chapters the author has used) format used in this edition much easier than the verse format. Each chapter is accompanied by extensive notes in the back to the book.

The Upanisads are difficult and sometimes tedious read but this translation makes it much easier for people who have no prior knowledge.


Great Version   October 22, 2001
 5 out of 13 found this review helpful

Olivelle takes special precautions to create accurate translations that are still easy to read. It's that simple. Also he is a very nice man, I attend the University Of Texas and he is the head of my department.


Best English translation I've seen   May 30, 2000
 8 out of 11 found this review helpful

This is a superb translation of the Upanishads -- the best I've seen by a long shot. Graceful, readable prose informed by modern scholarship, and the price is dirt-cheap. What more could you ask for? This is the edition to buy.


helps make the Upanishads a little clearer   April 12, 2000
 25 out of 27 found this review helpful

Some caveats have to apply here. For one, the challenge of rating a book like this with stars is obvious; who am I to pass judgment on such ancient literature? Or the translation, since I don't read the original language? With that in mind, I confine my review to the style in which it is rendered for the novice.

The Upanishads are not an easy read, and I have seen them done in verse format and in paragraph format; the latter is used here. I find it more readable, but others prefer verse. Whether you will like this translation depends largely on your preference in this area.

It does have (parenthesizations) after many words showing the original word, which helps a lot when learning to define terms like 'prana' and 'upanishad'... e.g., "... show me the hidden teaching (upanisad)...". This not only helps the reader to learn the meanings of these difficult-to-render terms, but points up the challenges involved in translation.

I found the foreword helpful in setting up a historical and cultural backdrop for the Upanishads. A good half of the work is taken up by a single Upanishad (the Brhadarayanka), but that was probably inevitable.

What I would have liked to have seen was a little more interpretation. As a novice reader of the Upanishads, it was really a struggle to understand what they meant in context, and I never did make head or tail out of much of it. A section at the end of each chapter (or some well-placed footnotes) would have gone far to make the work accessible to those for whom the cultural reach was a bit lengthy.