The Upanishads (Translated and edited by Valerie Roebuck)

'The Upanisads' is the Hindu equivalent of the Christian New Testament. It is a collection of spiritual treatises written in Sanskrit between 800 and 400 BCE. Typically an Upanisad recounts one or more sessions of teaching, often setting each within the story of how it came to be taught. These thirteen texts, the principal Upanisads, are devoted to understanding the inner meaning of the religion: they explicate its crucial doctrines - rebirth, the law of karma, the means of conquering death, and of achieving detachment, equilibrium and spiritual bliss. They emphasise the perennial search for true knowledge.

VALERIE J. ROEBUCK was born in Hertfordshire in 1950. She studied at the University of Cambridge, where she was awarded a BA (Hons.) in Oriental Studies, specializing in Sanskrit and other Indian languages, and a Ph.D. for a thesis on South Indian Bronzes. A freelance scholar and lecturer, she is an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Manchester. Dr Roebuck has a broad interest in Indian language, culture and religion. She is a Buddhist, practising and teaching meditation in the Samatha tradition, and is involved in interfaith work in Manchester. Her previous publications include The Circle of Stars: An Introduction to Indian Astrology (Element Books, 1992).