Why PM Narendra Modi gifted ‘Ten Principal Upanishads’ book to Joe Biden

Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented a number of special gifts to United States president Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden during a private dinner at the White House on Tuesday (21 July). These gifts included a lab-grown 7.5-carat green diamond, a handcrafted sandalwood box and a first edition print of the book, ‘The Ten Principal Upanishads’, an English translation of the Hindu religious text by Irish poet William Butler Yeats and Shri Purohit Swami. The book was published in 1937 and is among the final works of Yeats. “A copy of the first edition print of this book, The Ten Principal Upanishads published by M/s Faber and Faber Ltd of London and printed at the University Press Glasgow has been gifted to President Biden,” the government said in a press statement. “Yeats’ admiration for Indian spirituality was much deeper and he was deeply influenced by the Upanishads and other ancient knowledge streams of India”, ThePrint cited officials as saying. The gift assumes significance as the US president often cites great Irish poets, including Yeats and Seamus Heaney, who he has called the “best poets in the world”.

PM - Biden dinner .. PM presents copy of upanishad, lab made green diamond and paper mache box - pic.twitter.com/D6BHNNMBNz

— pallavi ghosh (@_pallavighosh) June 22, 2023

What are Upanishads and why are they significant? What is WB Yeats’ connection to Hinduism? We explain. What are Upanishads? Upanishads are one of the four texts that together compile each of the Vedas – a collection of poems or hymns written in Sanskrit. There are four Vedas – Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, and Atharvaveda. As per The Hindu report, Upanishads are referred to as Vedanta as they form the concluding parts of the Vedas. This ancient Hindu sacred text teaches how the “individual self (atman) finds the ultimate reality (brahman)” through an “inner spiritual journey”, author Janet Zimmerman Marsh noted in the Yeats Eliot Review, posted on Gale Academic Onefile. From the middle of the 5th century to the 2nd century BCE, 13 well-known Upanishads were composed, including Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Kaushitaki, Kena, Katha, Isa, Svetasvatara, Mundaka, Prasna, Mandukya, and Maitri, according to Britannica. Besides these, there are hundreds of other Upanishads.

In 1937, WB Yeats published an English translation of the Indian Upanishads, co-authored with Shri Purohit Swami.  The translation and collaboration between the two authors occurred throughout 1930s and it was one of the final works of Yeats.  
 
A copy of the first edition print… pic.twitter.com/yIi9QW290r

— ANI (@ANI) June 22, 2023

More from Explainers

Why Mossad was not on board with Israel’s strike on Hamas in Qatar Giorgio Armani will: Who will get the inheritance? What happens to his fashion empire?

Significance of Upanishads As per the Britannica article, “Upanishads present a vision of an interconnected universe with a single, unifying principle behind the apparent diversity in the cosmos, any articulation of which is called brahman.” The Upanishads say this brahman dwells in the atman, the eternal core of a human, the article added. ALSO READ: PM Modi gifts Bidens a sandalwood box and green diamond. But can they keep it? How Upanishads reached the West Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, had a keen interest in the religions of the world. According to ThePrint report, Dara, who lived from 1615 to 1659, translated the Bhagavad Gita and 52 Upanishads from Sanskrit to Persian. In 1775, Dara’s translation was discovered by a French resident at the court of Shuja-ud-daula, Nawab of Awadh, who sent the copy to Anquetil Duperron, a popular French traveller and translator, as per The New Indian Express (TNIE) report. Duperron translated the book from Persian into Latin and named it Oupnekhat.  German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who came across the book, became greatly impressed by the Upanishads, who – as per TNIE – called them “the production of the highest human wisdom”. “From every sentence of the Upanishads deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy, and earnest spirit. In the whole world, there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads,” he said, as per the report. Famous American poets Ralph W Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau have been credited for popularising this Hindu religious text in the US. ALSO READ: How PM Modi's visit to the US is sparking a wave of investments WB Yeats and Hinduism Several works by Irish poet and dramatist Yeats promote ideas from Hindu spiritual texts. Bailey Betik wrote in the paper ‘Yeats, WB, India, and Rabindranath Tagore’ that it was his friend and fellow poet AE, pseudonym of George William Russell, who introduced Yeats to the Upanishads. Yeats was also heavily inspired by the teachings of Mohini Mohan Chatterjee, who came to Dublin in 1885 as a representative of the Theosophical Society. [caption id=“attachment_12775202” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Several works of William Butler Yeats were inspired by Hindu spiritual ideas. Wikimedia Commons File Photo[/caption] In three poems in the 1889 collection Crossways, Yeats has used India as the setting– The Indian to His Love, Anushaya and Vijaya, and The Indian Upon God, noted Betik. “Indian philosophy and spirituality was indeed something that Yeats pursued throughout his entire life, not just a passing phase,” the paper said. According to Marsh, Yeat’s interest in philosophy increased after he met poet and Hindu monk Shri Purohit Swami in 1931. He also wrote the Introduction to Swami’s The Holy Mountain. Citing Joseph Hone, Marsh wrote that Yeats acknowledged he “fed on the Upanishads” all his life just two years before he died in 1939. With inputs from Reuters Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.