A PERSIAN COMMENTARY TO THE UPANIṣADS: DāRā ŠIKōH’S « SIRR-I AKBAR » SvevoD’Onofrio Abstract:TheclassicistapproachtoPersiantranslationsfromSanskrittexts – which considered them faulty and biased, an obstacle to the true understanding of Hindu religiousandphilosophicalthought – mightbeprovenpartlywronginthecaseofoneof the most celebrated cultural endeavours of the Mughal Era: Prince Dārā Šikōh’s translation of fifty Upaniṣads under the name of Sirr-i akbar. A reconstruction of the context in which the work was produced, together with a comparative analysis of its contents(intheSanskritoriginalandintranslation),revealsittobemorethanjust«A mixtureofglossandtextwithaflimsyparaphraseofboth»,asSirWilliamJonesonce said on the Persian translations from Sanskrit in general. Instead, as a stratigraphic analysis of some specimen texts seems to indicate, the Sirr-i akbar might be profitably thought of as a consistent Advaita bhāṣya (commentary) on a collection of Upaniṣads, glossedinturnbyasporadic ṭīkā (sub-commentary)ofSufictendencies – inaccordance withtheIndiantraditionalcommentarygenre. INTRODUCTION The well known mystical leanings and syncretistic tendencies of Prince Muḥammad Dārā Šikōh (d. 1069-1659) have rightly attracted much interest, andhavealreadyinspiredafairlyrichbibliography. 1 Inthesepages,however, wewillnotsomuchconsidertheseaspectsofhisuniqueintellectualexperience butfocusinsteadontheIndianphilosophicalsourcesofhistwomajorworkson Hinduism, notably the Sirr-i akbar (or Sirr al-asrār), 2 the celebrated Persian translation of fifty Upaniṣads madeathisinstancein1067/1657byanumber of paṇḍits 3 from Benares, and the Majma‘ al-baḥrayn (1065/1655), 4 his own 1.See,forinstance,Massignon-Kassim1926;Qanungo1934;Gode1943;Chand1943;Hasrat 1954;Göbel-Groß1962;Shayegan1979;Piantelli1986;RoestCrollius1988;Shayegan1990. 2.CriticaleditionbyM.R.JalālīNā’īnīandT.Chand,cf.DārāŠikōh1340š./1961(hereafter SA). 3.AHinduscholar,alearnedman. 4.CriticaleditionbyM.Mahfuz-ul-Haq,cf.DārāŠikōh1929(hereafter MB).