The Upanishads have been translated into various languages including Persian, Italian, Urdu, French, Latin, German, English, Dutch, Polish, Japanese, Spanish and Russian.[177] The Mughal Emperor Akbar's reign (1556–1586) saw the first translations of the Upanishads into Persian.[178][179] His great-grandson, Dara Shukoh, produced a collection called Sirr-i-Akbar in 1656, wherein 50 Upanishads were translated from Sanskrit into Persian.[180]
Anquetil-Duperron, a French Orientalist, received a manuscript of the Oupanekhat and translated the Persian version into French and Latin, publishing the Latin translation in two volumes in 1801–1802 as Oupneck'hat.[180][178] The French translation was never published.[181] More recently, several translations in French of some Upanishads or the whole of 108 have been published : by indianists Louis Renou , Kausitaki, Svetasvatra, Prasna, Taittiriya Upanisads, 1948;[182] Jean Varenne, Mahâ-Nârâyana Upanisad, 1960,[183] and Sept Upanishads, 1981;[184] Alyette Degrâces-Fadh, Samnyâsa-Upanisad (Upanisad du renoncement) , 1989;[185] Martine Buttex, Les 108 Upanishads (full translation), 2012.[186]
The Latin version was the initial introduction of the Upanishadic thought to Western scholars.[187] However, according to Deussen, the Persian translators took great liberties in translating the text and at times changed the meaning.[188]
The first Sanskrit-to-English translation of the Aitareya Upanishad was made by Colebrooke[189] in 1805, and the first English translation of the Kena Upanishad was made by Rammohun Roy in 1816.[190][191]
The first German translation appeared in 1832 and Roer's English version appeared in 1853. However, Max Mueller's 1879 and 1884 editions were the first systematic English treatment to include the 12 Principal Upanishads.[177] Other major translations of the Upanishads have been by Robert Ernest Hume (13 Principal Upanishads),[192] Paul Deussen (60 Upanishads),[193] Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (18 Upanishads),[194] Patrick Olivelle (32 Upanishads in two books)[195][196] and Bhānu Swami (13 Upanishads with commentaries of Vaiṣṇava ācāryas). Olivelle's translation won the 1998 A.K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation.[197]
Throughout the 1930s, Irish poet W. B. Yeats worked with the Indian-born mendicant-teacher Shri Purohit Swami on their own translation of the Upanishads, eventually titled The Ten Principal Upanishads and published in 1938. This translation was the final piece of work published by Yeats before his death less than a year later.[198]
