![]() Sattar, on the other hand, chooses to omit the term altogether. It means separate or different, but, following VS Apte’s widely cited Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary, when attached to a noun such as jana, meaning a man or a person, it can mean “a low man, an unenlightened, vulgar man, the mob, low people … a fool, a blockhead, an ignorant man … a wicked man, sinner.” In the context of this verse, where it applies to women as a group, Griffith chooses “faithless,” while Dutt and Goldman continue with “ordinary” and “vulgar,” respectively. If you really knew me, you would abandon your suspicion. You harbor suspicion against all women because of the conduct of the vulgar ones. You should know better than to reject me like this! (Sattar) You judge all women by the conduct of a few. Do thou renounce this suspicion since thou hast tried me. Seeing the ordinary women thou art distrusting the whole sex. Of common women / on account of conduct / group / you / suspectĪbandon / this doubt / but / if / to you / I / tested Dutt, the most accurate of the four in my opinion, chooses “common” and “ordinary,” while Sattar adds the qualifier “low,” along with the colloquially resonant “his woman.” Goldman chooses “vulgar,” which has its roots in the Latin word vulgus, meaning common people, although in modern English its adjectival form has come to mean unrefined, unsophisticated, coarse, rude and even offensive. Griffith chooses the archaic word “hind,” meaning a peasant, to contrast it with Rama’s royal lineage. The plethora of meanings that any one Sanskrit word can convey makes for a wide array of technically permissible interpretations, and thus demands a judicious translator to be both scholarly and sensitive. The term is related to the adjective prakrta, meaning anything from natural and ordinary to unrefined and vulgar. The critical word here is the noun prakrta, meaning a common man. How can you, heroic prince, speak to me with such cutting and improper words, painful to the ears, as some vulgar man might speak to his vulgar wife? (Goldman) How could you say such things to me, the kind of things a low, common man would say to his woman? (Sattar) Why dost thou, O hero, like a common man addressing an ordinary woman, make me hear those harsh and unbecoming words painful unto ears? (Dutt) ![]() How / to me / unfit / speech / such / ears / harshĬruel / you cause to hear / hero / common / to common / like ![]() We begin with verse five, in which Sita reacts to Rama’s hurtful reproach. These are taken from Ralph TH Griffith’s colonial-era retelling in rhymed verse, published in the 1870s, Manmatha Nath Dutt’s prose version of 1893, Arshia Sattar’s widely read Penguin edition, from 1996, and a recent annotated translation, completed in 2017, by a team led by Robert Goldman. Further, I have collated four English translations spanning more than a century’s range of translation styles and idioms, so that readers may clearly see the variations in translation-sometimes subtle, sometimes gross-from a comparative perspective. The verses- shloka numbers 5, 7 and 14 from the Yuddha Kanda (Book Four), sarga (section) 104-capture Sita’s response to Rama’s characterisation of her chastity during her imprisonment in Lanka. In that spirit, I present below the three relevant verses from Valmiki’s Ramayana in Sanskrit, along with literal, word-for-word English glosses. The irony of the situation seemed to have been lost in translation, so to speak.Īs a translator and student of classical Indian literature, I believe it is critical to return to original sources. Sadly, many of her detractors exhibited a poor understanding of the material in question, and, even worse, a deplorable tone that, as Truschke pointed out in a piece in this magazine, reinforced the very misogyny they could not tolerate to see Rama accused of. The tweet elicited serious backlash from the Hindu right. As such, to translate in today’s polarised political climate is delicate work, especially when translating the Indian epics.Īudrey Truschke, a professor of South Asian history, tweeted in April that in Valmiki’s Ramayana, “(I’m loosely translating here): During the agnipariksha, Sita basically tells Rama he’s a misogynist pig and uncouth.” Later, writing for The Wire, she described this characterisation as a “colloquial summary of Sita’s admonishment of Rama” during her trial by fire. Every act of translation encodes something political, and, regardless of whether we like it or are even aware of it, all translators are political commentators.
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