The Hero with a Thousand Faces

[Campbell could not translate Sanskrit well, but he had worked closely with three scholars who did. At the time he was writing The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he was editing the unpublished works and lecture notes of the recently deceased Sanskrit scholar Heinrich Zimmer (died 1943), and he was also corresponding with Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, Curator of Asian Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. He was also helping with a translation of the Upaniṣads (including the commentary of the great Vedantist scholar Śaṅkaracharya, fl. c. a.d. 800) by Swami Nikhilananda of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center in New York (New York: Harper, 1949–1959; reprinted by Dover Publications, 2003).

Other translations of the Upaniṣads include Robert Hume’s Thirteen Principal Upanishads (revised edition 1931; reprinted 1983) and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s The Principal Upanisads (New York, 1953, reprinted Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1992) — R.B.] Āranyakas

Aitareya Āranyaka (Aitareyāranyaka). The text quoted is found in a footnote attributed to Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy on page 48 of Heinrich Zimmer, The King and the Corpse. Brāhmaṇas

Jaiminīya Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa (Jaiminīyabrāhmana Upanisadbrāhmana). This Brāhmaṇa is related to the Jaiminīyabrāhmana. Quotation from an unknown source. [A text and translation with different wording by Hanns Örtel, “The Jāiminīya or Talavakāra Upaniṣad Brāhmaṇa” (Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 16, no. 1, 1894), is in Campbell’s book collection and was cited by Zimmer in a lecture delivered at the Eranos Conference of 1938. — R.B.] Mahābhārata

Bhagavad Gītā (Bhagavadgītā). Quotations are from The Bhagavad Gita. Translated by Swami Nikhilananda (New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1944). Purāṇa

Most quotations are from Heinrich Zimmer’s Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Upaniṣads

Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad (Brhadaranyakopanisad). Quotations are from The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Translated by Swami Madhavananda (Mayavati: Advaita Ashrama, [1934?]).

Chāndogya Upaniṣad (Chāndogyopanisad). Quotations are from Robert Ernest Hume (ed. and trans.), Thirteen Principal Upanishads (Oxford University Press, 1931).

Katha Upaniṣad (Kathopanisad). From Hume.

Kauṣītaki Upaniṣad (Kausītakibrāmanopanisad). From Hume. There are few other translations of this text.

Kena Upaniṣad (Kenopanisad). Quotations from Kena-Upanishad. Translated by Swami Sharvananda. Mylapore, Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1932.

Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad (Māndūkyopanisad), from Hume.

Mundaka Upaniṣad (Mundakopanisad), from Hume.

Taittirīya Upaniṣad (Taittirīyopanisad), from Hume. Buddhist Jātakas (Lives of the Buddha)

Quotations are from Henry Clarke Warren, ed., Buddhism in Translations; and Eugene Watson Burlingame, Buddhist Parables. Sutras

[The Mahāyāna sūtras are translated from Sanskrit. Many translations are available, although most of these are translations from the Chinese versions, which often vary somewhat from the Sanskrit originals. The Dhammapada was translated from the Pāli language. — R.B.]

Amitāyur-dhyāna Sūtra (Amitāyurdhyānasūtra). In Max Müller, ed., Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts.

Dhammapada. In Max Müller, ed. and trans., The Dhammapada. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881. Reprinted with revisions, Woodstock, VT, 2002.

Larger Sukhāvatī-vyūha (Sukhāvatīvyūha [Larger]). In Max Müller, ed., Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts.

Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya Sūtra (Hrdaya, or Heart Sutra). In Max Müller, ed., Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts.

Smaller Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya Sūtra (Hrdaya). In Max Müller, ed., Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts.

Vajracchedikā (“The Diamond Cutter”) (Vajracchedikā, also called the “Diamond Sūtra”). In Max Müller, ed., Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts. A more recent translation by Edward Conze was published in Buddhist Wisdom: Containing the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra (New York, 2001). Tantras

Cakrasamvāra Tantra (Cakrasamvāratantra). Quotations are from Shricha-krasambhara Tantra: A Buddhist Tantra, Edited Kazi Dawa-Samdup (London, 1919; reprinted New Delhi, 1987). Taoist

Tao Teh Ching (Tao Te Ching, sometimes known as the Lao Tzu or [in the Pinyin Romanization] the Laozi, after its author). Quotations attributed to Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei. Translated by Dwight Goddard (New York, 1919). Jewish