Theos-Talk Archives (July 2006 Message tt00372)

Very interesting information, thanks
I use the TUP edition of the SD is that edition free of editing?

The online edition says the following :

"This edition was corrected against the facsimile edition of 1888. 
Obvious errors, such as missing letters, have been corrected; 
otherwise it follows the facsimile edition -- material not appearing 
there appears in double brackets [[ ]]. Hebrew characters are 
inserted as illustrations, but Greek text has been transliterated 
into italic Latin characters in double brackets. For further 
explanation of the conventions used, go to the Notes file."

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd-hp.htm

Cheers

Perry


--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "danielhcaldwell" 
<danielhcaldwell@...> wrote:
>
> Carlos on "the authentic edition of the 'Secret Doctrine' 
> prepared by Boris de Zirkoff"....!!!!!!
> 
> Carlos writes:
> 
> =================================================
> It was the Theosophy Co. which first re-published 
> the original Secret Doctrine in 1925, thus starting 
> the tendency to keep to original editions and to abandon
> the "silently edited" and "adapted" editions promoted 
> by Adyar.  Later on, by FINALLY adopting the AUTHENTIC
> edition of the "Secret Doctrine" prepared by Boris de 
> Zirkoff, the very Adyar TS abandoned the fancy and
> illegitimate edition of the SD published by GRS Mead 
> and Annie Besant in 1897. 
> ================================================
> 
> caps added.
> 
> I really wonder why Carlos praises "the authentic edition of 
> the 'Secret Doctrine' prepared by Boris de Zirkoff".
> 
> He gives the impression that Adyar abandoned "silent
> editing" by adopting the BdeZ "authentic" edition.
> 
> I have no idea what Carlos means by "authentic".
> 
> I suppose he has some definition in his mind.
> 
> But consider the following:
> 
> Boris de Zirkoff in fact "silently edited" the Collected
> Writings edition of the Secret Doctrine first published by
> Adyar TPH and later reprinted by Wheaton TPH.
> 
> In other words, Boris EDITED H.P.B.'s text changing spellings of
> words, actually substituted "one word" for another one in many 
> instances, etc. etc.  
> 
> Many examples have been given of these "editings" by Tony Maddock
> of the Mahatma Letters Trust and also by the late Walter 
> Carrithers.  Both Maddock and Carrithers have SEVERELY criticized 
> Boris' editing.
> 
> This in fact constitutes SILENT EDITING.  That is, by looking
> at the BdeZ edition of the SD, it is NOT possible to determine what
> changes, etc. have actually been made in the text by Boris de 
> Zirkoff.
> 
> In fact, one could aptly borrow a sentence from the Theosophy 
> Company to describe Mr. de Zirkoff's edition of the SD:
> 
> "Its exact authenticity, however, cannot be determined without 
> laborious comparison with the original."
> 
> And Carlos is apparently more than willing to approve of 
> THIS "silent editing" with these significant words:
> 
> "the authentic edition of the 'Secret Doctrine' prepared by Boris 
de 
> Zirkoff".  !!!!!
> 
> Now it is true that Boris warns the reader in the prefactory 
> material to the new edition that this kind of silent editing has 
> been done.
> 
> At least, this is a decided improvement over NO note in the 
> Theosophy Company's edition of the VOICE to warn readers 
> that "silent editing" has been done!!!
> 
> Daniel
> http://hpb.cc
>