To the followers of #SanskritAppreciationHour and
the readers of my blog, this piece will come as no surprise. It's something
I've expressed myself very often about on Twitter. Yet, speaking to Advaita
Kala made me realise the need to bring all my stray references together. The
perils of translation across cultures are a matter of record. The title of
Umberto Eco's scholarly and highly engaging book 'Mouse or Rat'1 says
it all. A man called मूषक in a Sanskrit text (for whatever reason, maybe it's a Hitopadeśa like story!), would come across to the reader of the English translation very differently depending on whether he’s called Mr. Mouse
or Mr. Rat. So the Italian saying 'traduttore, tradittore' (translator,
traitor) is not without cause. Yet we’ve translated probably from the day
language began to communicate with people outside our speech community. There
have always been good/ bad/ reliable/ offensive/ terrible/ obnoxious/ excellent/ mediocre
translations, and that description depends as much on the translator as it does on the reader who receives the translation.
I'm inclined to agree with Patrick Olivelle, who
says every act of translation is an act of interpretation. And in my experience
that interpretation depends on one’s world view (Weltanschauung) and the narrative
one is comfortable with. Even on #SanskritAppreciationHour, not a session
passes without some participant tweeting - 'I prefer this translation (of say,
dharma) to the one you've chosen'. Now if you're reading a play or a poem, it
doesn't matter that much if you translate काषाय as red or saffron or ochre. But when it comes to
religious texts the story is completely different. If you don't learn Sanskrit,
professors at my college will tell you that you have to read at least four
English translation to get even close to the meaning of the Sanskrit. So if you’re
interested in reading religious texts, the case for learning Sanskrit is a
no-brainer really!
Sanskrit words have wide semantic fields, and can
consequently be translated in many ways into English. Let's look at some
examples. Last week I translated kālabhairavāṣṭakam on #SanskritAppreciationHour,
and the word bhīma I took as formidable, because of my personal bhakti
to Śiva. I could not conceive of him as being dreadful, terrible, and
frightening, which were other options available to me. It took a participant
sending me this picture to make me reconsider my translation.
Everyone does this whether they admit it to
themselves or not. Let’s look at some other examples that have been in the news
recently. Doniger translates kāmasakta (to describe Daśaratha in the Rāmāyaṇa)
as ‘hopelessly attached to lust’ (verily, a sex addict). Were I to do so, I might have said something
like ‘attached to sensual pleasures.’2 Sakta from √सञ्ज् meaning to cling, to adhere,
to stick. From the same root we get सक्तु so called because of its stickiness. And kāma hardly
needs translation, but still, for the record can be interpreted as desire,
love, longing, sensuality, erotic or sexual love, wish, affection, pleasure and
much more. So Doniger with her world view interprets it as lust, whereas
another person with a different worldview would not.
Let’s come to
another example. During their interview, Dinanath Batra told Advaita that गो means इन्द्रिय rather than cow3.
He’s absolutely right. It does mean इन्द्रिय (organ). But it also means cow, which is why we
understand Gopāla to mean
protector of cows, and Govinda to mean the one who finds the cows, but also the
one who pleases the senses. Clearly गो doesn’t just mean इन्द्रिय.4 A classic polyvalent Sanskrit word, गो can mean cow, light, a region of the sky, number
nine, mother, water, earth, speech, organ and much more. A lot depends also on
context. If I saw गो in a yoga text talking about karmendriyāṇi I would know
that it means an organ of action. But if I saw it in a śrauta or gṛhya text, it would
mean cow.
Translation is
tricky business. Translators are often regarded with scepticism and distrust. And
their antecedents alone are often cause to reject their work outright. I’m not
here to preach, but seing as it's my blog, I will share my personal view! So long as I know where the
translator is coming from, and what filters he/she is likely to apply to the text,
I factor that in, and read accordingly. For instance, D.N Jha and Jaidayal
Dalmia (Gita Press Gorakhpur)5 stand at opposite poles on the issue
of animal sacrifice in Vedic texts. In this case it is not just translation of individual words like go-ghna, but also selective quoting from ancient scriptures to build their respective and mutually exclusive narratives. I would reject neither, read both, and make
my way to the original texts to check out the veracity of the references, and assess their translations based on my knowledge of Sanskrit. But
to empower yourself this way, it is essential that you learn Sanskrit. Otherwise you'll always be at the mercy of a translator/traitor!
3http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/meeting-the-book-ban-man-advaita-kala-wendy-doniger/1/346242.html
4 Meanings of Sanskrit words have been taken from the
following dictionaries:
