Sometime back I had an opportunity to do a
research-based essay titled ‘Nation-Building and the Dynamics of Translation’
for a university course material. The essay is under publication; and I just
thought of sharing an excerpt out of the same, especially because I find the
connection between two different persona operating in two different periods of
Indian history, both transitional in their own manner—connecting two periods,
and interpreting the same through a process of translation of an ancient text ‘Upanishad’.-
Moreover, how translation of a text and its reading by foreign scholars, in the
present case by Anquetil
Duperron and
Schopenhauer, may become a completely romantic and academic exercise,
when removed from the socio-political churnings in which its indigenous
scholars, in the present case, Dara Shikoh and Raja Ram Mohun Roy, translated
and read it for their generation and the generations to come, prove to be so
very insightful, ennobling and make us think about how translation can have different
intentions for different audiences. -KV
...Before we discuss this aspect of the
translation works of the 19th century onwards, a word would be in
order about the role played by the unfortunate Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh (1615-1659), the Persian and Sanskrit scholar and poet
and son of Mughal emperor Shahjahan in, first, providing the source book of the
German Orientalism of the 18th century, albeit by default, and
secondly underlining a tradition of the discovery of India through translations
which would anticipate the contribution of Raja Ram Mohun Roy. Dara Shikoh
translated 50
Upanishads from its
original Sanskrit
into Persian in 1657 under the title Oupnek’hat with the help of
Sanskrit scholars whom he called to Delhi from Benaras.
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| Dara Shikoh tried to bring together the best of Hindu and Islamic philosophies Brooklyn Museum – The Nuptials of Dara Shikoh photo courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Shikoh |
This was translated by
the French scholar Anquetil Duperron (1731-1805) from Persian into Latin in
1801-02 (Jaikishandas
Sadani, India and the World
Literature, ‘Indian Images in English Poetry’, Indian Council for
Cultural Relations, 1990, New Delhi, p. 447). Though the quality of the Latin
translation was not very good still it was this translation on the basis of
which the German Orientalist
Schopenhauer (1788– 1860) declared the Upanishad
as ‘the product of highest human wisdom’ setting forth further explorations in
Indic studies as discussed above (Maurice Wintermitz, History of Indian Literature (Viol. I), first
published 1904, (A new authoritative translation from original German by V.
Srinivasa Sarma), Motilal Banarsidas, 1981, Delhi).
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| Schopenhauer romanticised 'Upanishad' photo courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schopenhauer |
Dara Shikoh, as a contemporary of John
Dryden and also of the Christian missionaries who first set foot in India and
established their connection with this country through translations as
discussed above, utilized the unique position of translator as an interpreter
of texts and contexts to explore a common mystical language between Islam and Hinduism. His translation
endeavour was not motivated from the perpspective of romanticising India’s
past, but as someone having stakes in the composite fabric of India, he
addressed through his translations to the audience of his own country—a role
that Raja Ram Mohun Roy (1772–1833) would perform in the changed scenario,
though he also had added task of counter-communicating the same to the colonial
rulers and Christian missionaries.
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| Anquetil
Duperron, a French Persian-Latin scholar translated Dara Shikoh's Persian translation of 'Upanishad' into Latin. photo courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anquetil_Duperron |
A learned scholar who
knew over a dozen languages including Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, English,
French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew with knowledge of Sanskrit Literature, Hindu
and Jain philosophy, Koran and the Bible, among others, Raja Ram Mohun Roy
appeared on Indian horizon at the dawn of the 19th century like a
foil to the cultural hegemony being constructed by the British. However, the
approach of Roy was not sentimental or romantic, but rational. Hence, even
though he defended the traditional Hindu tenets, he also proved to be quite
critical of the evil practices and superstitions that had take the vitality out
of them and championed social and religious reforms. Wintermitz makes a very perceptive comparative study of the
intentions of the two contemporaries, Schopenhauer and Roy, in translating and
interpretating the Upanishad:
…at
about the same time when Schopenhauer in Germany was fancying to see his own
ideas in the Upanishads of the Hindus rather than deduce them from them…in
India…Ram Mohan Roy…found the purest divine faith in the same Upanishads and
from the same Upanishads tried to prove to his countrymen that idolatory of the
present day Indian religions was to be condemned, yet there was no reason for
Indians to accept Christianity; and that they could, if only they understood
them, find a pure religion in them.With the intention…that the best of what
they (christian theologians and missionaries) taught was already found in the
Upanishads, he translated into English a large number of the Upanishads and
edited some of them in original text.
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| Rajaramohun Roy 'de-roamticised' 'Upanishad for the contemporary Indians photo courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Mohan_Roy |
How a particular text, Upanishads
in the present discussion, can become a site of intellectual, cultural,
religious and also political debate across time and space through translations
in changing contexts is best exemplified here. In 1815, Roy also translated the
Vedanta Grantha into Bengali from Sanskrit thus anticipating an
altogether new trend of Sanskrit, Persian and later English texts getting
translated into modern Indian lanaguges which further resulted in these
languages becoming a vehicle of intellectual and social discourse.Through his
translations, pamphlets and journals he helped evolve a modern and elegant
prose style for Bengali, of which he also compiled a grammar.
