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Library (c) 2003 J.B. Hare Sacred Books of the East Index

Table of Contents
Index of Translators
Transcription Conventions
Available reprints

The Sacred Books of the East (SBE) series, comprising fifty volumes, was issued by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910. It has translations of key sacred texts of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Islam. The series was edited by the famous linguist Max Müller, who also produced many of the translations. The SBE has been designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works.

This series was the one of the inspirations for the sacred-texts website. As most of the SBE texts are in the public domain worldwide (and all of them in are public domain in the US), we have a long term project of converting the entire series to etexts. This page is a progress report on this project, and a way of centralizing known bibliographic information on the SBE.

A few of the texts in this series were already available on the Internet, albeit without any bibliographic information, footnotes or introductions. Others have been scanned at sacred-texts for the first time, notably the Upanishads.

At this point, 36 of these volumes have been converted into electronic versions; 32 of these etexts have been posted initially at the Internet Sacred Text Archive and prepared by volunteers for this site.

The difficulties of turning these books into etexts are enormous, and requires great care and diligence. The typography is, in a word, substandard; not to diminish the fact that it must have been a substantial accomplishment for its time. The system of transliteration of non-western alphabets uses specialized italics and diacritics. The result is that every one of the SBE volumes gives optical character recognition (OCR) software the fits. It is not unusual to have to spend up to 100 hours proofing each volume. One volume (vol. 5.) took over six months of work, primarily due to the thousands of italicized words and letters.

More recently, improvements in OCR technology and the development of our Sacred Texts markup language (STML) have reduced the amount of time required to prepare an SBE etext to days, rather than months. In particular, OCR programs--with some tweaking--can now recognize circumflex vowels with high accuracy. However these volumes still represent some of the most difficult work in the field of etext preparation, and exacting care is still necessary in the editing phase. Each page requires up to four passes: one to correct gross formatting and spelling errors, one to insert STML markup and mark 'dotted' consonants, a third pass where it is read for comprehension (in parallel with the printed page) to eliminate additional errors such as 'specks' and missing quotes, and a final pass in the case where the text has individual words and phrases italicized, to mark these using macros.

The SBE texts suffer from the usual disease of Victorian scholarly texts; they are replete with extensive (and often superfluous) introductory matter and footnotes. The footnotes in a typical SBE volume can comprise from one-half to two-thirds of the bulk of the text. As the scholarly apparatus is set in a smaller typeface it is very difficult to OCR and proofread. For this reason, only more recent SBE etexts originated at sacred-texts include the footnotes and introductions.

In some cases these are the only available translations of a particular text, or the principal reference version. The source material which was used over a century ago to compile the SBE volumes is for the most part extremely rare and highly inaccessible.

The original Oxford University Press printing was very small, and is today very rare. A very few of the more important volumes have been reproduced by Dover publications. The Dover versions are inexpensive but very high quality trade paperbacks. Unfortunately, some of the SBE reprints in the Dover line are now out of print; they turn up often in used bookstores, though.

A list of available SBE reprints (mostly from Dover) is available here.

The Indian publishing firm of Motilal Banarsidass has reprinted the entire set in hardcover (ISBN 8120801016). This is the version available at most large public and academic libraries. The Banarsidass SBE lists for 9000 Rs or approximately US$ 200, with separate volumes priced at 200 Rs, or about US$ 4.50. These are the prices listed on their website, and presumably reflect the retail price in India.

Be prepared to pay a lot more if you order the Motilal Banarsidass SBE set through a bookstore in the US. The books are not available through normal channels and must be shipped from India; the size of the set (as well as its specialized nature) makes it unreasonable for American or European distributors or bookstores to keep it in stock. For this reason, the US list price of the Banarsidass reprint set is $2,250! Used sets have been listed from $600 to $1,250. Individual used volumes are typically between $20 to $40.

NOTE: I was quoted $495.95 (in February 2003) for the set if you order it direct from Motilal Banarsidass and have it shipped to the US. So that might be your best bet if you want the whole set. No word on how long it might take to get from India to the US, though.

In spite of all these difficulties, the translations are uniformly of high quality and are essential for scholars of religion. For this reason, we feel that it is important that this material be published on the Internet.


Transcription Conventions

The original transliteration used in the Sacred Books of the East can be viewed by clicking on the links below. Each of these files is a large jpg image:

Page 1 63,496 bytes
Page 2 70,357 bytes
Page 3 77,234 bytes
Page 4 76,127 bytes

We have evolved the following conventions in our etexts of the SBE series. Many of these conventions have been used for other texts scanned at sacred-texts. Refer to the Sacred-texts transcription standards document. Because these conventions have been developed gradually, not all SBE etexts presented here will adhere to all of these guidelines. We are actively engaged in updating the older texts to more recent standards.

  • Unicode and extended HTML have been used to display the closest available representation of accented characters, including circumflex, macrons, and the 'yodh' character used to transcribe Chinese.
  • British spelling has been preserved.
  • The SBE transliteration scheme has been preserved.
  • Only 'obvious' typographical errors have been corrected (these are very rare in the SBE series).
  • Em dashes are transcribed as two ASCII hyphens.
  • Blocks of italicized or bolded text in the original book are italicized or bolded in the etext.
  • Page references have been hyperlinked where possible.
  • Hyperlinked footnotes have been moved to the end of each file.
  • Most apparatus including tables of contents, introductions, footnotes, and appendices have been included in the etext.
  • Indexes (including volume 50, which is the series index) have, for the large part, been omitted. These will be added in the future.


    Table of Contents of the Sacred Books of the East

    An asterisk indicates the text was scanned at sacred-texts.com. Dover editions (that we know of) are noted.

    Volume Title Translator year published
    1 * The Upanishads, Part 1 of 2
    Chandogya Upanishad. Talavakara (Kena) Upanishad. Aitareya Upanishad. Kausitaki Upanishad. Vajasaneyi (Isa) Upanishad. Dover edition in print.
    Max Müller 1879
    2 * The Sacred Laws of the Aryas, vol. 1 of 2
    The sacred laws of the Aryas as taught in the school of Apastamba, Gautama, Vâsishtha, and Baudhâyana. pt. I. Apastamba and Gautama. (The Dharma Sutras)
    Georg Bühler 1879
    3 * The Sacred Books of China, vol. 1 of 6.
    Part I of The Texts of Confucianism.
    The Shû king. The religions portions of the Shih king. The Hsiâo king.
    James Legge 1879
    4 * The Zend-Avesta, vol. 1 of 3
    The Vendîdâd.
    James Darmesteter 1880
    5 * Pahlavi Texts, vol. 1 of 5
    The Bundahis, Bahman Yast, and Shayast La-Shayast.
    E. W. West 1880
    6 * The Qur'an, Part 1 of 2: Chapters I-XVI E. H. Palmer 1880
    7 * The Institutes of Visnu Julius Jolly 1880
    8 * The Bhagavadgita With the Sanatsugâtiya and the Anugitâ Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang 1882
    9 * The Qur'an, part. 2 of 2: Chapters XVII-CXIV E. H. Palmer 1880
    10 * The Dhammapada and The Sutta-Nipâta,.
    a collection of discourses; being one of the canonical books of the Buddhists, translated from Pâli; and The Dhammapada, a collection of verses, translated from Pâli
    F. Max Müller (Dhammapada) V. Fausböll (Sutta-Nipata) 1881
    11 * Buddhist Suttas
    The Mahâ-parinibbâna Suttanta, The Dhamma-kakka-ppavattana Sutta, The Tevigga Suttanta, The Âkankheyya Sutta, The Ketokhila Sutta, The Mahâ-Sudassana Suttanta, The Sabbâsava Sutta. Out of print Dover edition [1969].
    T. W. Rhys Davids 1881
    12 The Satapatha-Brahmana
    according to the text of the Mâdhyandina school, vol. 1 of 5
    Julius Eggeling 1882
    13 * Vinaya Texts, vol. 1 of 3
    The Patimokkha. The Mahavagga, I-IV.
    T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg 1881
    14 * The Sacred Laws of the Aryas, vol. 2 of 2.
    The sacred laws of the Aryas as taught in the school of Apastamba, Gautama, Vâsishtha, and Baudhâyana. pt. II. Vâsishtha and Baudhâyana.
    Georg Bühler 1882
    15 * The Upanishads, part 2 of 2
    Katha Upanishad. Mundaka Upanishad. Taittiriya Upanishad. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. Svetasvatara Upanishad. Prasña Upanishad. Maitrayani Upanishad. Dover edition in print.
    Max Müller 1884
    16 * The Sacred Books of China, vol. 2 of 6
    Part II of The Texts of Confucianism.
    The Yi King: (I Ching). Dover edition in print.
    James Legge 1882
    17 * Vinaya Texts, vol. 2 of 3
    The Mahavagga, V-X, the Kullavagga I-II.
    T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg 1882
    18 * Pahlavi Texts, vol. 2 of 5
    The Dâdistân-î Dinik and the Epistles of Mânûskîhar.
    E. W. West 1882
    19 * The Fo-sho-hing-tsan-king,
    a life of Buddha, by Asvaghosha Bodhisattva; translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by Dharmaraksha, A. D. 420
    Samuel Beal 1883
    20 * Vinaya Texts, vol. 3 of 3
    The Kullavagga, IV-XII.
    T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg 1885
    21 * The Saddharma-Pundarika or The Lotus of the True Law
    Out of print Dover edition [1963].
    H. Kern 1884
    22 * Gaina Sûtras, vol. 1 of 2
    translated from the Prâkrit. The Âkârânga sûtra. The Kalpa sûtra. Out of print Dover edition.
    Hermann Jacobi 1884
    23 The Zend-Avesta, vol. 2 of 3
    The Sîrôzahs, Yasts, and Nyâyis.
    James Darmesteter 1883
    24 Pahlavi Texts, vol. 3 of 5
    Dinai Mainög-i khirad, Sikand-Gümanik Vigar, Sad Dar.
    E. W. West 1884
    25 The Laws of Manu
    Translated, with extracts from seven commentaries. Out of print Dover edition.
    Georg Bühler 1886
    26 The Satapatha-Brahmana
    according to the text of the Mâdhyandina school, vol. 2 of 5, Books III-IV
    Julius Eggeling 1885
    27 * The Sacred Books of China, vol. 3 of 6
    Part III of the texts of Confucianism.
    The Lî Kî, part 1 of 2.
    James Legge 1885
    28 * The Sacred Books of China, vol. 4 of 6
    Part IV of the texts of Confucianism.
    The Lî Kî, part 2 of 2.
    James Legge 1885
    29 The Grihya-sutras; rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies. vol. 1 of 2
    Sankhyayana-Grihya-sutra. Asvalayana-Grihya-sutra. Paraskara-Grihya-sutra. Khadia-Grihya-sutra.
    Hermann Oldenberg 1886
    30 The Grihya-sutras; rules of Vedic domestic ceremonies. vol. 2 of 2
    Gobhila, Hiranyakesin, Apastamba (Olderberg); Yajña Paribhashasutras (Müller).
    Hermann Oldenberg, Max Müller 1892
    31 The Zend-Avesta, vol. 3 of 3
    The Yasna, Visparad, Afrînagân, Gâhs, and miscellaneous fragments
    L. H. Mills 1887
    32 Vedic Hymns, vol. 1 of 2
    Hymns to the Maruts, Rudra, Vâyu, and Vâta., with a bibliographical list of the more important publications on the Rig-veda.
    Max Müller 1891
    33 The Minor Law-Books: Brihaspati. (Part 1 of 1). Julius Jolly 1889
    34 * The Vedanta-Sutras, vol. 1 of 3.
    commentary by Sankaracharya, part 1 of 2. Adhyâya I-II (Pâda I-II).
    G. Thibaut 1890
    35 * The Questions of King Milinda, vol. 1 of 2
    Milindapañha. Out of print Dover edition [1963].
    T. W. Rhys Davids 1890
    36 * The Questions of King Milinda, vol. 2 of 2
    Milindapañha. Out of print Dover edition [1963].
    T. W. Rhys Davids 1894
    37 Pahlavi Texts, vol. 4 of 5
    Contents of the Nasks.
    E. W. West 1892
    38 * The Vedanta-Sutras, vol. 2 of 3.
    commentary by Sankaracharya, part 1 of 2. Adhyâya II (Pâda III-IV)-IV.
    G. Thibaut 1896
    39 * The Texts of Taoism, Part 1 of 2.
    The Sacred Books of China, vol. 5 of 6
    Also: The Tâo teh king (Tao te Ching): The writings of Kwang-tze, books I-XVII. Dover edition in print.
    James Legge 1891
    40 * The Texts of Taoism, Part 2 of 2.
    The Texts of Taoism, Part 2 of 2.
    Includes The Writings of Kwang Tse, books XVII-XXXIII, The Thâi-shang tractate of actions and their retributions, other Taoist texts, and the Index to vols. 39 and 40. Dover edition in print.
    James Legge 1891
    41 The Satapatha-Brahmana
    according to the text of the Mâdhyandina school, vol. 3 of 5. Books V, VI, VII.
    Julius Eggeling 1894
    42 * Hymns of the Atharva-Veda
    Togther With Extracts From the Ritual Books and the Commentaries.
    M. Bloomfield 1897
    43 The Satapatha-Brahmana
    according to the text of the Mâdhyandina school, vol. 4 of 5, Books VII, IX, X.
    Julius Eggeling 1897
    44 The Satapatha-Brahmana according to the text of the Mâdhyandina school, vol. 5 of 5, Books XI, XII, XIII, XIV. Julius Eggeling 1900
    45 Gaina Sûtras, vol. 2 of 2
    translated from Prâkrit. The Uttarâdhyayana Sûtra, The Sûtrakritânga Sûtra. Out of print Dover edition.
    Hermann Jacobi 1895
    46 Vedic Hymns, vol. 2 of 2
    Hymns to Agni (Mandalas I-V).
    Hermann Oldenberg 1897
    47 Pahlavi Texts, vol. 5 of 5
    Marvels of Zoroastrianism.
    E. W. West 1897
    48 * The Vedanta-Sutras, vol 3 of 3.
    with the commentary of Râmânuja.
    G. Thibaut 1904
    49 * Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts
    pt. 1. The Buddha-karita of Asvaghosha, translated from the Sanskrit by E. B. Cowell.
    pt. 2. The larger Sukhâvatî-vyûha, the smaller Sukhâvatî-vyûha, the Vagrakkedikâ, the larger Pragñâ-pâramitâ-hridaya-sûtra, the smaller Pragñâ-pâramitâ-hridaya-sûtra, translated by F. Max Müller. The Amitâyur dhyâna-sûtra, translated by J. Takakusu. Dover edition in print.
    E. B. Cowell, F. Max Müller and J. Takakusu. 1894
    50 General index
    to the names and subject-matter of the sacred books of the East.
    J.M. Winternitz, with a preface by A. A. Macdonell 1910


    Index of Translators of the Sacred Books of the East

    Notes on public domain status of the SBE

    All volumes of the SBE were originally published in the UK prior to the 1923 cutoff for the public domain in the US (by the 1998 US copyright law). This means that the SBE is in the public domain in the US in its entirety. Since sacred-texts is hosted in the United States by a US citizen, this site follows US copyright law, and all of the SBE texts are candiates for conversion to etext. If you are a US citizen, you can use any of the works in the SBE freely, for any purpose, without asking anyone's permission or paying anyone a fee.

    The situation is a bit different in the UK and EU. UK and EU copyrights last 70 years after the death of the author. This means that as of 2005, works of authors who died prior to 1935 are now in the public domain. As can be seen from the table below, this means that the vast majority of the SBE texts are in the public domain (or will enter it in the next few years) according to the stringent UK and EU copyright laws. The remaining volumes not in the public domain in the UK and EU are those authored by Herman Jacobi, deceased 1937 (22 and 45), Junjiro Takakusu, deceased 1945 (co-author of 49) and Moriz Winternitz, deceaseed 1937 (vol. 50, the index).

    Another point is that the Motilal Banarsidass reprints have always had a formal copyright notice. Whether this is enforceable is dubious. The Indian copyright term is 60 years, which means all of these texts will be the public domain in India as of the end of 2005 (since the last SBE author died in 1945).

    Other countries typically use 50 to 100 years after the decease of the author, Canada, Australia and others use a 50 year rule. Mexico gets the award for the worst public-domain-unfriendly copyright laws worldwide. Mexico recently extended its term to 100 years, which means over two-thirds of the SBE have a restored and enforcable copyright in Mexico! Most countries use a 70 year term. So depending on what country you reside in, your rights to view some of these etexts may vary.

    Name born/died Volumes
    Beal, Samuel 1825-1889 19
    Bloomfield, Maurice 1855-1928 42
    Bühler, Georg 1837-1898 2, 14, 25
    Cowell, Edward B. (Edward Byles) 1826-1903 49
    Darmesteter, James 1849-1894 4, 23
    Davids, T. W. Rhys (Thomas William Rhys) 1843-1922 11, 13, 17, 20, 35, 36
    Eggeling, Julius 1842-1918 12, 26, 41, 43, 44
    Fausböll, V. (Viggo) 1821-1908 10
    Jacobi, Hermann 1850-1937 22, 45
    Jolly, Julius 1849-1932 7, 33
    Kern, Hendrik 1836-1917 21
    Legge, James 1815-1897 3, 16, 27, 28, 39, 40
    Mills, Lawrence Heyworth 1837-1918 31
    Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max) 1823-1900 1, 10, 15, 30, 32, 49
    Oldenberg, Hermann 1854-1920 13, 17, 20, 29, 46
    Palmer, Edward Henry 1840-1882 6, 9
    Telang, Kashinath Trimbak 1850-1893 8
    Takakusu, Junjiro 1866-1945 49
    Thibaut, G. (George) 1848-1914 34, 38, 48
    West, Edward William 1824-1905 5, 18, 24, 37, 47
    Winternitz, M. (Moriz) 1863-1937 50

    List of SBE reprints

    Click here to search for 'Sacred Books of the East' at Amazon.com
    Note that this may or may not produce relevant results, nor the best available deal on used copies.

    This is a list of editions of SBE texts currently in print and available through Amazon.com. By purchasing a book through these links you can help sacred-texts continue its work. Note that some of the Legge books are reprints of a series of Chinese Classics which significantly overlap the work he did for the SBE. Also, we have not actually seen some of the versions below; they may be edited or abridged versions of the SBE texts. All of the Dover versions, however, are exact reproductions of the originals. Reprints of some other SBE volumes are available in out of print Dover versions; they can often be found at used bookstores.

    Volume Title Author Price Publisher
    49 Buddhist Mahayana Texts (Sacred Books of the East) E. B. Cowell $12.95 Dover
    4, 23, 31 The Zend Avesta of Zarathustra James Darmesteter $7.95 Holmes Pub Group
    11 Buddhist Suttas: Major Scriptural Writings from Early Buddhism T. W. Rhys-Davids $27.95 Book Tree
    39 Texts of Taoism, vol 1.
    James Legge $10.95 Dover
    40 Texts of Taoism, vol 2.
    James Legge $10.95 Dover
    (n/a) Confucian Analects, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean. James Legge $14.95 Dover
    16 I Ching: The Sacred Books of China: The Book of Changes James Legge $7.95 Dover
    39 Tao Te Ching (Dover Thrift Editions) by Lao-Tzu James Legge $1.00 Dover
    (n/a) The Works of Mencius James Legge $14.95 Dover
    1 The Upanishads, volume 1 F. Max Müller $11.95 Dover
    15 The Upanishads, volume 2 F. Max Müller $11.95 Dover
    10 Wisdom of the Buddha: The Unabridged Dhammapada (Dover Thrift Editions) F. Max Müller $1.00 Dover
    8 The Anugita K.T. Telang $16.00 Wizards Bookshelf


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