Clik here to view.
On Translation: Exhibit 1
Translating Sanskrit poetry into English presents unique difficulties. To be sure, translation is always tricky. Passing to a different language invariably loses some nuances and overtones. What can be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poems
But to remember her my heart is sad, To see her is to know Bewildered thoughts, and touching driveth mad — How is she dear that worketh only woe? (P.E. More, 1899) The thought of her is saddening, The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Snip
Some random cute or frivolous verses, dumped here so I can close those tabs. (Though inevitably I ended up opening more tabs…) एकवस्तु द्विधा कर्तुम् बहवः सन्ति धन्विनः । धन्वी स मार एवैको द्वयोः ऐक्यः...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Identify
What’s this? Seeing more should help: If that’s too easy, how about this? Both are from Rekhāgaṇita, which is a c. 1720s translation by Jagannatha of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s 13th-century Arabic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How not to translate: an example
In David Shulman’s beautiful article The Arrow and the Poem (reminded via), he gives an example of the “sheer awfulness” of most Sanskrit translation into English: Sanskrit may always have attracted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The invitation
Translated from the शार्ङ्गधर-पद्धति by Octavio Paz: The invitation Traveler, hurry your steps, be on your way: the woods are full of wild animals, snakes, elephants, tigers, and boars, the sun’s going...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Avadhana
How many things can you do simultaneously in your head? Yesterday A couple of weeks ago Nearly three months ago, I attended an avadhana, by Shatavadhani Dr. R. Ganesh. Already (the very next day) my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Translating metaphor into English: Time and Motion?
In a book called A History of Kanarese Literature, by Edward Rice (1921), he makes the following comment (p. 106): The other is that a Kanarese poem defies anything like literal translation into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sanskrit and German
[Originally posted to linguistics.stackexchange.com as an answer to a question by user Manishearth, who asked: "I've heard many times that learning German is easier for those who speak Sanskrit, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Danda-padyam
Viṣṇu, appearing before Bali as Vāmana, transformed into Trivikrama, filling the universe, covering all the earth and the heavens in two steps. In the verse that opens the Pūrva-pīṭhikā of Daṇḍin’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bhavabhuti on finding a reader
Bhavabhūti, the 8th-century author of the very moving play Uttara-rāma-carita, has in one of his other works these lines, any author’s consolation that even if your work receives not enough praise...
View Article
