Note 2 — Chapter II

The genuineness of the Oupnek'hat has been disputed on the ground of certain marginal glosses which were added by Mohammedan copyists, and then interpolated in the text, it has, however, been fully established by the Sanskrit scholar, F.H.H. Windischmann (junior) in his Sancara, sive de Theologumenis Vedanticorum, 1833, p. xix; and also by Bochinger in his book De la Vie Contemplative chez les Indous, 1831, p. 12. The reader though ignorant of Sanskrit, may yet convince himself that Anquetil Duperron's word for word Latin translation of the Persian version of the Upanishads made by the martyr of this creed, the Sultan Dârâ-Shukoh, is based on a thorough and exact knowledge of the language. He has only to compare it with recent translations of some of the Upanishads by Rammohun Boy, by Poley, and especially with that of Colebrooke, as also with Röer's, (the latest). These writers are obviously groping in obscurity, and driven to make shift with hazy conjectures, so that without doubt their work is much less accurate. More will be found on this subject in Vol. II. of the Parerga, chap. 16, § 184. [V. The Upanishads, translated by Max Müller, in The Sacred Books of the East, Vols. I. and XV. Cf. also Max Müller, The Science of Language, Vol. I., p. 171. Now that an adequate translation of the original exists, the Oupnek'hat has only an historical interest. The value which Schopenhauer attached to the Upanishads is very clearly expressed also in the Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Preface to the first Edition; and in the Parerga, II., chap, xvi., § 184.—(Translator.)]