Svetasvatara Upanisad: Based on the Talks in Bangla (Original Text in Sanskrit with Transliteration, English Translation and Commentary by Gautam Dharmapal)

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The volume in hand is the upshot of Sri Anirvan's talks on the Śvetāśvatara Upanișad at a Dharmasabhā held in Kolkata during 1 September 1968 to 23 March 1969.

The Śvetāśvatara Upanișad contains 113 mantras or slokas (sacred verses) in six chapters (adhyāyas). The important distinction of this Upanisad lies in the fact that it is composed with respect to a particular cult - Rudra cult - prevalent during the pre- and post- Vedic period. Therefore, it is also called a Rudra Upaniṣad. The Rudra cult, of late, turned into the Yoga cult, as its main focus.

The Śvetāśvatara is not amongst the older Upaniṣads. It is definitely composed after Pāņini. In this Upaniṣad, we find the Vedāntic-Upaniṣadic Brahmavāda, Vedic and Purāņic Devavāda, and the Yogavāda of the Särmkhyas meeting in a confluence (triveņi sangama) of the three mainstream philosophical, religious traditions of India.

Shri Anirvan was born on 8 July 1896 in the town of Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh). At the age of eleven he learnt the Aşțādhyāyī of Panini by heart and daily recited a chapter from the Bhagavadgītā. He got college education in Dhaka and Calcutta. After completing his studies, Shri Anirvan took samnyāsa and became Nirvanananda Saraswati. A few years later, he dropped the ochre robes and changed his name to Anirvan, by which he became known to the literary world.

Between 1930 and 1942, he lived with friends at Allahabad, Lucknow, Delhi and Ranchi. Later on, he moved to Lohaghat in Almora where Madame Lizelle Reymond, a Swiss lady and spiritual seeker, joined him and literally took him to the West through her books. Shri Anirvan moved to Shillong in Assam and finally to Calcutta in 1965. He fell ill in July 1971 and passed away on 31 May 1978 at the age of 82.

His first book was a Bengali translation of Sri Aurobindo's The Life Divine which was published in 2 volumes during 1948- 51. But the centre of his studies was the Vedas on which he acquired a rare mastery over the years. His great work, Veda Mimämsä, in Bengali was published in 3 volumes in 1961, 1965 and 1970. Meanwhile, several other works on Upaniṣads, the Gitā, Vedānta and Yoga were written by him in Bengali and later on translated into English and Hindi.

THIS is indeed a matter of great satisfaction to present the translation of the talks delivered by Shri Anirvan on the Svetāśvatara Upanisad to the English-speaking community. These talks were originally delivered in Banglä from September 1968 to March 1969 and later these were translated into English by Shri Gautam Dharmapal. Now they are getting published in the present form.

SHRI Anirvan talked on the Svetaśvatara Upanisad at Dharmasabhä being held at our house, 6, Keyatala Road, Kolkata from 1 September 1968 to 23 March 1969. As usual, I wrote down his talks in Bangla in Gujarati script and I started making fair copy from the old notebooks from 14 July 2003 at the constant prodding of Gouri Dharmapal. Naturally, the revision needed some additions and alterations. Immediately, Bratati Mukherjee began to make its fair copy in Bangla script as she did with the Taittiriya Upanisad. I finished the revision on 16 February 2004. Bratati finished her writing of dictation on 1 November 2004. It took one year and nearly nine months to revise the whole book with the help of Gouri to get it published in the Arya Darpana Patrika of Saraswat Math, Halisahar from Caitra 1412 BS.

THE Svetasvatara Upanisad is appended to the Svetāśvatara Brahmaņa of Krsna Yajurveda. It is not known, whether it was there as an appendix (khila) or otherwise. The Upanisad that we get now is a later version. The Śvetāśvatara Brahmana was found to have existed till the middle ages. Its only mention is now found in the commentary of the Yājñavalkya Smrti by Acārya Viśvarūpa.