Revival of Upani@sad studies in modern times.

How the Upani@sads came to be introduced into Europe is an interesting story Dara Shiko the eldest son of the Emperor Shah Jahan heard of the Upani@sads during his stay in Kashmir in 1640.  He invited several Pandits from Benares to Delhi, who undertook the work of translating them into Persian.  In 1775 Anquetil Duperron, the discoverer of the Zend Avesta, received a manuscript of it presented to him by his friend Le Gentil, the French resident in Faizabad at the court of Shuja-uddaulah.  Anquetil translated it into Latin which was published in 1801-1802.  This translation though largely unintelligible was read by Schopenhauer with great enthusiasm.  It had, as Schopenhauer himself admits, profoundly influenced his philosophy.  Thus he

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[Footnote 1:  Deussen supposes that Kausitaki is also one of the earliest.  Max Mueller and Schroeder think that Maitray@ani also belongs to the earliest group, whereas Deussen counts it as a comparatively later production.  Winternitz divides the Upani@sads into four periods.  In the first period he includes B@rhadara@nyaka, Chandogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Kausitaki and Kena.  In that second he includes Ka@thaka, Is’a, S’vetas’vatara, Mu@ndaka, Mahanarayana, and in the third period he includes Pras’na, Maitraya@ni and Man@dukya.  The rest of the Upani@sads he includes in the fourth period.]

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writes in the preface to his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [Footnote ref 1], “And if, indeed, in addition to this he is a partaker of the benefit conferred by the Vedas, the access to which, opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanskrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century:  if, I say, the reader has also already received and assimilated the sacred, primitive Indian wisdom, then is he best of all prepared to hear what I have to say to him....I might express the opinion that each one of the individual and disconnected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a consequence from the thought I am going to impart, though the converse, that my thought is to be found in the Upanishads is by no means the case.”  Again, “How does every line display its firm, definite, and throughout harmonious meaning!  From every sentence deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit....In the whole world there is no study, except that of the originals, so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Oupanikhat.  It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death! [Footnote ref 2]” Through Schopenhauer the study of the Upani@sads attracted much attention in Germany and with the growth of a general interest in the study of Sanskrit, they found their way into other parts of Europe as well.