One project that the Other of the modern West needs to take up is
that of translatability of the Western canon, from Homer to Hofstadter,
into its native tongue. Although there have been efforts to translate,
say, Shakespeare into Sanskrit (wherein
Krishnamacharya is the pioneer), it is striking how there is little effort to translate Sanskrit literature itself to modern English.
There
is of course the issue of limited diction: not only Ganguly’s
Mahabharata but also various later translations, be they of erotic
poetry or of tracts on logic, succeed in giving the impression that
Sanskrit, rich though it may be in its potential, is a language of an
awfully limited vocabulary and style (compared parochially, of course,
to English), so that to explain our theories from even the social
sciences to a Brahmin pandit learned only in his traditional lore it
would take a special effort of explaining using simple similes and
losing a good deal of the sophistication that Western literature today
possesses.
There is also the need to comparatively analyse the
‘progress’ in language in the West itself from Ovid to Bacon, since this
period is co-incident with that of almost all Sanskrit composition. Now
a cursory glance reveals that etymology alone cannot go too far in
understanding the historical development of vocabulary. Much academese
of today is based on using Latin-rooted diction instead of that of
Germanic/Anglo-Saxon provenance (see, for instance, if you can
understand
Uncleftish Beholdings). Besides, not unlike many a śāstrakāra inventing etymologies pretending Vedic sanction for his ideas (Bronkhorst
calls it
semantic etymologising, linking it to magic), many popular phrases and acronyms in English today (which the
Urban Dictionary mercifully clears up) are of less spectacular origin.
It
also seems to be the case that much in modern English prose is simply
alluring verbiage, Orwell's nightmare come true, mere chaff the removal
of which should delight many readers and many more trees. Of course, in
novels this very chaff is treasured for its taste, but in the humanities
it is often uncalled for. For instance, Allen Carlson’s verbose
Aesthetic Appreciation of the Natural Environment in the
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, chosen merely because I happened to be reading it just now, may be compressed thus:
Santayana:
appreciation of natural landscape dependent on selecting, emphasizing
and (re)grouping; no parallel problem for art objects; Ziff’s acts of
aspection; our knowledge of art is grounded in recognition of them as
artifacts; question here is of modes, methods and limits of appreciation
of nature. Object of Art Model (dwelling on sensuous and expressive
qualities of a singled out object) appropriate only for self-contained
aesthetic objects; the Landscape or Scenery Model speaks of viewing a
prospect from specific standpoint, but it thereby limits and misleads
appreciation; others include the Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic and the
Aesthetics of Engagement (needlessly dissolves subject/object
dichotomy). Necessity of limit, classification and meaning; the Natural
Environmental Model: the role of naturalists in appreciating nature
analogous to art critics for art objects;
Since not all these
ideas may be translatable into Sanskrit without coining new words that
at first blush will seem awkwardly formed to the native speaker,
limitations in language may plausibly be speculated upon to imply a lack
of imagination and critical thinking and, therefore, an overall
relative paucity of intellect. Insistence on brevity of expression (à
la sūtra) does not help either as it can easily give the impression of
not having developed a particular thesis maturely. To complicate matters
further, Sanskrit grammarians have repeatedly tried to portray their
language as divine and eternal, and thereby discourage innovation or at
least disguise it as commentarial elaboration of what turned out to not
have been explicitly said.
But what I mean by translation to modern English is not mere adaptation to diction that is current (
Rasala,
Paranjape and some works in the
Clay series
are examples I'm aware of), but meaningful translation that
definitively gives an idea of what it is that the ancients were thinking
of when they wrote all their literature.
Except Aurobindo and a
few other later Western-educated scholars (Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya and
Ramkrishna Bhattacharya come to mind), many translations by
Hindu/Indian scholars of texts in even the upaniṣad genre (which is
explicitly philosophical), such as those by Radhakrishnan or more
recently those by
AG Krishna Warrier,
fail to enunciate or clearly bring out the variety of ideas within the
genre. Contemporary Brahminical scholarship has failed to highlight the
glories of its own heritage, let alone productively analyse that of
others. Add to that the insistence on emic secrecy (in ritualism and
education) and the typical Hindu dislike of writing, it is not very
encouraging for an outsider to approach the tradition when correctly
educated adepts are not available.
As if that were not enough,
(post)colonial Brahmin scholars have imitated Western 'investigations'
of covert meanings (related usually to postwar physics) in sacred
literature -- Raja Ram Mohan Roy's
Vedic Physics
being a case in point. While there seems to be a way to flesh out an
early theory of cybernetics in sociological commentary like
yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir... tadātmānaḿ sṛjāmy aham,
it is highly unlikely that the ṛk authors had Clifford algebra in mind
when composing verses in the gāyatrī metre, to say nothing of
the vaimānika śāstra and similar concoctions.
Even if yāska,
the brāhmaṇa texts and patañjalī may themselves have not had much of a
clue as to what the old bards were talking about, it is no reason to go
look for subatomic particles in the veda. In all this fuss, what
is in
fact valuable remains unexplored, so that its very followers become
enemies of the tradition. Ironically however, it is something etic
Indology is slowly accomplishing.
