Sacred Books of the East (50vol)

[KCh]

I am considering purchasing the complete Sacred Books of the East.

If you don't know what I'm talking about go here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/sbe/index.htm


Its a set of 50 volumes that has yet, in my opinion, to be outdone. Much of the source material for these volumes, if not the whole thing, is very rare and hard to come by even today.

I was wanting to know if anyone on these forums possibly own the set or have experience with them. Are there better translations of these essential texts on the East?

[Kain]

That's certainly quite the list KCh...

I do not own this set nor have I read most of the material that is present there. I have however, on a limited basis, found sacretexts' choice of transaltors of certain texts within that list to have been not very satisfactory for my tastes, and proceeded to find better translations elsewhere. I'm talking about 3-4 titles though, certainly a very small part of the overall set, although I thought you might find this a helpful scrap of information regarding your inquiry about the contents of the set.

Kain

[m1thr0s]

I'm a little confused. Is sacred-texts.com associated to sacred-magick.com? If it is, I would be very hesitant to trust anything they are claiming. That cat is pretty much all about making money at any cost from everything I have seen so far.

m1thr0s

[KCh]

The Books were compiled in the victorian era. They have no connection to sacred texts other than that site is putting the material up for public use. Its currently not copyrighted.

[Kuroyagi]

How much does that cost now? (the one you want to purchase.)

The translations are all hopelessly dated but the thing seems to be very comprehensive indeed; for some works you can even find much better translations online...

[KCh]

Well, could you link me some?

I have looked at quite a number of translations and they all fall very short in my opinion. The translators of recent times have been too involved in the system of what they translate, too partial of it and not skeptical enough. They all read like bad poetry.

I will have to get a quote on pricing to ship the volumes from India. It seems to be the cheapest way instead of ordering it through a bookstore. The guy from sacred texts said his quote was around $500, while bookstores would probably charge in the thousands. The only other problem is shipping price.

[Kuroyagi]

Im quite of different opinion. I think that if you look at the Chinese texts -I know more about them than the Indian-, the old translations and especially the added interpretations of them that are given in the links on sacred texts are at times highly culturally biased and faulty (I remember this from a text Paulo once posted on OF). This has many reasons- e.g. in the case of the Daodejing new discorveries of older versions of the texts have been made in the 1970s and 1990s (e.g. Mawangdui); and also the modern translators are more familiar with the languages and their background cultures cause they are either natives of those region or have at least a greater indepth familiarity of it, whereas the Victorian scholars are more classical philologists.

I personally probably wouldnt get this for that price but you're right that those volumes probably contain some stuff thats hard to come by elsewhere...yet if you pay so much you could as well go for newer and better texts and interpretations (again in case of Taoism I could point you to authors like: Livia Kohn, Isabelle Robinet, Schipper, Cleary, Saso to some extent...)

I dont know much about the Indian texts but have some links on Chinese classics:
Daodejing: http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html (http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html)
(have posted this a 100 times, good ones that you can compare to the Legge one are Henricks, Yutang, Cleary, maybe Waley but its older IIRC)

Zhuangzi:
http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/cz-text2.html (http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/cz-text2.html)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi)


Sunzi: http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/suntzu.html (http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/suntzu.html)

Various Chinese Classics (also Legge translation) : http://www.100jia.net/texte/ (http://www.100jia.net/texte/)

Also search fort he Yi Jing transl. by Richard Wilhelm, too.

For the Indian texts do searches on: Upanishads, Pali-canon, Patanjali (Yoga Sutras), Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Tripura Rahasya, Shiva Sutras, Saundaryalahari- all very good texts that I know to be available online in various translations etc etc, its some work…but I would do it like that: combine online research with modern more scientific texts, but its also a question of tatse cause I myself prefer very exact and non-poetic translations. (poetic I am myself :p) cause this is better for grasping their meaning, at first...then you can play around with them or even interpret them in new or artistic ways. (first learn to walk and then to dance-stuff..)

conclusio: If I were rich I'd get it. ;)

[rivetrenuck]

i agree with Kain, Sacred Texts often times has really bad translations. and its best to look around for good translations.