To honor the intention of one of the greatest translators of darśana texts in modern times, Gangānātha Jhā, in a world where digital books have now come to be expected, I make the following inquiry. I am wondering if the “Second Edition—Thoroughly Revised” of Gangānātha Jhā’s translation, The Yoga-Darshana, Comprising the Sūtras of Patañjali—with the Bhāṣya of Vyāsa, published in 1934, is available digitally. The 1907 first edition is widely available, both digitally and in various reprints, but this does a disservice to Gangānātha Jhā. He regarded the first edition, translated by him in 1895, as the work of a mere neophyte, while his second thoroughly revised edition is the fruit if his mature scholarship.

 

He wrote in his 1907 Preface: “The translation now placed before the public was prepared so long ago as 1895; and the vicissitudes through which the manuscript has passed has made it absolutely impossible for it to undergo any revision. So what is presented here is the work of a mere neophyte in the mysteries of Sanskrit Philosophical translation; and the translator would therefore, at the very outset, offer his apologies to the reader, for his providing for him what he himself considers a rather poor fare.”

 

He wrote in his 1934 Preface: “This revised and entirely re-written translation is presented before the world of scholars, in liquidation of the fourth, and I hope, the last debt due from me. This is the last of my works which I myself regarded as imperfect; and it was therefore due to the scholarly world that it should be revised. . . . In this revised edition, I have made the work as good as it lay in my power to make it.”

 

I have already provided the second edition to Asian Humanities Press/Jain Publishing Company for a photographic reprint in 2002, still available, but am making this query for the sake of those who require digital books.

Best regards,

David Reigle

Colorado, U.S.A.