Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

Truthful Traitors

Dr. D. Anjaaneyulu

TRUTHFUL “TRAITORS”

D. Anjaneyulu

“Bless thee, Bottom! Bless thee; thou are translated”

–A Midsummer Night’s Dream

It is an Italian proverb which says that “translators are traitors” (“Traduttori traditori”). Does it mean that those who translate are doing injustice to the original because of their inadequacy, inexperience or other kinds of incompetence? Not dishonesty, I hope.

Sometimes, it might be due to cultural variations between one language and another, e.g. English and Chinese; German and Japanese; French and Tamil or Telugu. Or between European languages and Oriental languages; between Arabic and Persian on the one side and Sanskrit and Prakrit on the other; and between declensional languages and non­-declensional languages.

A serious and holy book, like the Bible, might become a victim of funny transformation in the interaction between European ideas through separate words and Chinese ideographs. The biblical saying “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” was reportedly taught to the Chinese novices, who were asked to re-translate it into English. Their enthusiastic reply was: “The wine is not bad; but the meat is below the standard”.

Translations nearer home, and in simple prose, are not always readily intelligible either. From English to any of the Indian languages, or from one Indian language to another, Hindi not excluded. With my limited knowledge of the official language, I wanted to know the meaning of the expression with which I become familiar in Delhi.

“Sangh Lok Seva Ayog”. I tried to test it on quite a few of the Hindi-knowing friends in Madras, of different mother-tongues. All of them were stumped. Finally, I had to give the meaning, which was! “Union Public Service Commission”.

I was intrigued by some other official Hindi expressions too, though not to the same extent. “Mudrika Seva” reminded me of “Mudra Rakshasa” and Hanuman’s showing Rama’s ‘Mudrika ‘ (signet ring) as a sign of identity to Sita in the forest of Lanka. In Delhi it only meant “ring service” in bus transport. There are even more absurd expressions. That was probably why Pandit Nehru couldn’t treat Dr. Raghuvira’s Dictionary lightly. He had to throw it out of the window with great force.

The popular assumption that English expressions may be necessary only in the fields of science, medicine and technology, but can easily be translated in the Humanities and Social Sciences is not based on reason. For, concepts are equally or even more important in the Humanities with a high degree of accuracy. ‘Governor’, for instance, who is a constitutional head of the State, doesn’t govern, except in certain abnormal and extraordinary situations. In Hindi, he is called ‘Rajyapal’ (literally ‘Ruler of the Kingdom’), which he is not. We know that there is a ‘head of the government’, who is very different. Problems of this kind arise mainly because of our attempt to express modern, secular democratic concepts in a terminology evolved in a monarchical, hierarchical, socio-cultural milieu.

‘Sampradayakata’ is another expression in modern official Hindi, which presumably has a pejorative connotation, broadly meaning ‘Obscurantism’ or ‘reaction’. As a student of Sanskrit, I am not quite reconciled to it, for ‘Sampradaya’ is used for tradition’, which is not wholly to be discarded. There is a living part of the tradition, as well as the dead. That part of it is to be examined from age to age and retained for its contemporary relevance as also its intrinsic value.

Not that translations in other languages are very much better-Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and so on. I sometimes wonder whether ‘Kaval Karan’ is a watchman in a bank or other office or a policeman.        There are many simple, familiar, popular words in English, like Radio, T.V., road, bus, car, college, university, collector, Governor, etc., which can easily be retained, without being replaced by farfetched, bookish, learned and unfamiliar expressions. That anything odd and obscure can be popularised by official fiat and constant use, (as in Hitler’s Germany for instance) is a different matter altogether.

Once, I had the amusing experience of being given by a non-Telugu knowing friend, a brief typed written communication from the Director of Public Libraries in Hyderabad in reply to his enquiry about the latter’s willingness to purchase some copies of his erudite work on a Telugu – Sanskrit composer. After studying it more than once, with the Telugu typing being what it was, I couldn’t make head or tail of what it meant. Finally I did succeed in deciphering it somehow and informed the friend. It was obviously a form of officialese in Telugu for a Proforma in English simple and straight.

When it comes to the world of poetry, the task of rendering could be even more complex and sensitive (but by no means impossible). That was probably why Robert Frost defined poetry as “What is lost in translation”. George Barrow’s remark is perhaps fairer-”Translation is at best en echo”. An echo could be pleasing, though fainter, depending on the original. Some hold translations to be not unlike the wrong side of a Turkish tapestry. Shelley was needlessly more severe when he described the process of translating poetry as “throwing a violet in a crucible”.

But his younger contemporary, John Keats, who was essentially a poet, was spontaneous in his response to Chapman’ s translation of Homer, when he first looked into it. His excitement was obvious in his lines;

“Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken; or like stout Cortez” when with eagle eyes, started at the Pacific-and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise silent, upon a peak of Darien”.

But for the great work of some of the talented translators, trained for the job, the classics of verse and prose in one language might well have remained a closed book to the readers in other languages all over the world. What could we have made of the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam, had it not been for Fitzgerald’s inspired rendering (the nitpicking by recent Persian and other scholars, like Robert Graves, notwithstanding)? “Awake! For morning in the Bowl of Night has flung the Stone that puts the Stars in Flight and Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light”.

And how could we have read the novels of Tolstoy (War and Peace, Anna Karinia etc), Dostoevsky and other Russian classics, but for the dedicated efforts of Constance Garnett, Aylmer and Louisie Maude and a whole lot of English translators? Likewise, from French to English and vice versa, Legouis and Cazamian and host of others.

In India, most of the earliest Telugu classics (including the Mahabharata by the poetic Trinity - Nannaya, Tikkana and Erra Pragada) were translations or adaptations. From Valmiki, Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti to Bharavi, Bhartruhari, Sri Harhsa, Sudraka and others. It is the same pattern. Similar must be the story of most of the other Indian languages, except possibly Tamil (but what about Kamba Ramayanam?)

In modern times, we have Tagore, Bharati, Premchand and other great poets and prose writers well translated into English and other languages. Tagore was partly his own translator with others, like Edward Thompson and Krishna Kripalani.

We need more gifted and committed ‘traitors’ for meaningful communication from one language to another. Otherwise, we will be virtual strangers living in culturally watertight compartments.

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