Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad 1.1-16 / Translation from Sanskrit, Introductory Article and Commentaries by Yu. Zavhorodnii

The reader is offered a Ukrainian translation of the first chapter of the Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad. The Upaniṣads are a late Vedic genre of ancient Indian literature that completes the formation of the Vedic corpus of sacred texts. The first texts of the Upaniṣads appear around the 8th century BC. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Upaniṣads for the study of the origins of Indian religious and philosophical thought. Leading Indian philosophers developed the ideas of the Upaniṣads, quoted them in their own works, and, starting with Gauḍapāda, wrote their own commentaries on them. They are the first component of the triple canon (prasthānatrayī) of the Vedānta philosophical school. For more than a century, not only in world Indological circles, but also among much wider intellectual circles of various countries, primarily in Europe and North America, there has been a steady interest in the Upaniṣads. The Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad is one of the most authoritative and well-known Upaniṣads. It received its high recognition not only in Hindu, but also in scientific circles. And although its studies and translations have a long history, there are still many controversial and unresolved issues. Our publication is intended to renew the existing Ukrainian academic interest in the Upaniṣads, which was interrupted by the Soviet authorities in the 1920s and 1930s, and to draw attention to some still insufficiently researched aspects of the Śvetāśvatara-Upaniṣad. Thus, emphasis is placed on the features of the description of the Highest principle (reality), the soteriological component of the ancient Indian text, on the role played by sages in the Upaniṣad, on the features of text creation.