Translated Books 1800 – 1809

After the controversy that followed the publication of his translation of the Zend-Avesta, Anquetil-Duperron continued his work by focusing on India and began to translate a Persian manuscript consisting of around fifty Upanishads brought back from India by Colonel Gentil. His first translation took him about a year from 1786 and extracts were published in his Recherches historiques et géographiques sur l’Inde. However, dissatisfied with the result, he revisited the translation, opting for Latin which seemed to him more faithful to Persian word order, as stated in his introduction (Monitum ad Lectorem, p. ii). This Latin translation, Oupnek’hat, id est, Secretum tegendum (2 vol., Strasbourg, 1801-1802), was published only in 1801, thirty years after the Le Zend-Avesta France’s revolutionary turmoil. Although Anquetil-Duperron’s work is the retranslation of the Persian translation made by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh in the seventeenth century, following Brahmin precepts; this copiously annotated text, full of digressions, is the first translation by a European of a set of Vedic texts from the earliest beginnings of Hinduism. The translation was disseminated widely, notably by Schopenhauer for whom it was bedside reading.

Après la polémique qui suivit la publication de sa traduction du Zend-Avesta, Anquetil-Duperron poursuivit ses travaux en se concentrant sur l’Inde et se lança dans la traduction d’un manuscrit persan comportant une cinquantaine d’Upanishad rapporté d’Inde par le colonel Gentil. Il le traduisit en français en 1786-1787 (et le publia partiellement dans ses Recherches historiques et géographiques sur l’Inde), mais, insatisfait du résultat, reprit son ouvrage en optant pour le latin qui lui semblait plus proche de l’ordre des mots persan, comme il le rapporte dans son avertissement au lecteur (Monitum ad Lectorem, p. ii). Ce ne fut qu’en 1801, trente ans après Le Zend-Avesta et après la tourmente révolutionnaire, que parut la traduction latine, intitulée Oupnek’hat, id est, Secretum tegendum (2 vol., Strasbourg, 1801-1802). Bien qu’il s’agisse de la retraduction de la traduction persane réalisée par le prince moghol Dara Shikoh au XVIIe siècle d’après l’enseignement des brahmanes, l’ouvrage, abondamment annoté et fortement digressif, constitue la première traduction européenne d’un ensemble de textes védiques au fondement de l’hindouisme, et connut un grand rayonnement, par l’intermédiaire de Schopenhauer en particulier qui en fit son livre de chevet.
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This volume of Les Hindous has illustrations, each with an accompanying text in French followed by an English translation of the text by Mary A. G. Solvyns. Another edition, from 1808 to 1814, consists solely of the illustrations with no text – see main 1808 FBI page. In addition, there is also an earlier edition of illustrations with English titles printed in Calcutta in 1796 (see Translated Books 1796).
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