Sachin Ketkar
IS THERE AN ‘INDIAN
SCHOOL' OF TRANSLATION STUDIES?
New Quest No.156, Mumbai, Apr-June
2004, ISSN 0258-0381, 29-39,
Rebirth of a text in
another language is the birth in a different yoni- in a different
vagina, a different species. The
translated text is a different animal altogether. But the way of looking at this different
animal in relation to earlier one in addition to its place and function in the
territory it inhabits in the present birth depends greatly on frames through it
is perceived. This framework is usually
specific to culture, metaphysics, history, politics, and social institutions of
the linguistic community that produces or receives translation. One wonders then, whether there are certain
themes and concerns which recur in writings on translation in India, or more
fashionably, whether there is some sort of ‘Indian School' of Translation
Studies. As there seems to be a sudden upsurge of interest in translation in
English Studies in India, I have attempted in this paper a brief critical
survey of major theoretical positions of Indian scholars regarding translation
and tried to understand them in the context of Indian cultural history. I have
sought to discover shared areas of emphasis and differences in order to find
out whether any such school exists. I
have also compared major theorists writing in English and those writing in the
modern Indian languages in order to highlight the difference rather than
similarity between them.
The increased interest
seems to be symptomatic of a certain dramatic shift in academic values,
concerns, and mindset associated with English Studies in India. This shift has been from uncritical
acceptance of literatures in dominant Western languages, their canons, as well
as their critical vocabulary, to historical and political contexts in which
they are produced, circulated and consumed.
There is a distinct attempt to de-colonize its outlook. The emphasis on
translation, I feel is one of the cultural strategies for the agenda of
decolonialization.
Closely allied with
English Studies establishment in India are the Indian writers writing in
English, many of them have traditionally been accomplished translators. English
Studies has been one of the chief patrons of this species of writing in India.
In the case of the earlier generation of writers like Sri Aurobindo or P.Lal,
the source language was chiefly Sanskrit and later on, in the case of modernist
bilingual poets like Dilip Chitre, A.K.Ramanujan, R. Parthashastry, and Arun
Kolatkar, the source language is primarily their first language. The focus of
these translators has been largely on medieval bhakti literature. Rabindranath Tagore's translation of Kabir
and Sri Aurobindo's translation of Vidyapati are the antecedents of these type
of translations. The bilingual poet translators deploy translation as a
strategy to de-colonize their souls by translating what is considered as ‘truly
Indian'. A noted poet and translator P.
Lal has made a very significant comment about this strategic function of
translation:
‘I soon realized
that an excessive absorption in the milieu and tradition of English was
divorcing me from the values that I found all round me as an experiencing
Indian, so I undertook the translation of Indian-in practice, mostly
Hindu-sacred texts, in the hope that the intimacy that only translation can
give would enable me to know better what the Indian "myth" was, how
it invigorated Indian literature, and what values one would pick up from it
that would be of use to me as an " Indian" human being and as an
Indian using a so called foreign language, English, for the purposes of writing
poetry. (Cited by St.Pierre, 1997:143-144)'.
In this light one can
understand Dilip Chitre's remark, ‘ Why I felt compelled to translate his
(Tukaram’s) poetry: as a bilingual poet, I had little choice, if any. There
were two parts of me, like two linguistic and cultural hemispheres, and, as per
theory, they were not destined to cohere..(2003:307)’ and ‘ I have been working
in a haunted workshop rattled and shaken by the spirits of other literatures
unknown to my ancestors….I have to build a bridge within myself between India
or Europe or else I become a fragmented person (2003:311-312).’
Many of these writer and
translators grapple with the issue of identity and Indianness in their works
and these themes very naturally emerge in their translation theory and
practice. AK Ramanujan, who holds a unique place as a poet, translator, and a
theorist, had announced the great ambition to translate non-native reader into
a native one as one of the main motivation behind translation. Yet he too
acknowledged that ‘ Every one's own tradition is not one' birthright; it has to
be earned, repossessed. The old bards earned it by apprenticing themselves to
the masters. One chooses and translates a part of one's past to make it present
to oneself and may be to others.'(Cited by Dharwadkar, 1999:122-123) Translation
becomes a strategy to give oneself one's roots. St. Pierre aptly observes that
such an attitude ‘ arises out of a desire to ground oneself more fully into the
Indian source culture.' (1997:143-144) Comparable to what is happening in
English Studies, its alienated by products also have desire to de-colonize
themselves. However, a significant point
is that of shifting notion of what is meant by ‘truly Indian'. In case of the older generations, Indianness
meant pan-Indian Sanskritic heritage and in case of modernists, Indianness
means pre-colonial heritage in modern Indian languages. Translation becomes one of the inevitable and
creative contrivances of giving oneself the sense of belonging and a
nationality.
The main theorists from
the English Studies establishment are the reputed scholars like Harish Trivedi,
G.N.Devy, Dilip Chitre, Tejaswini Niranjana, and Sujit Mukherjee. They are
concerned with colonial history and its impact on practice and reflection on
translation in India. They are chiefly
concerned about what is called Indian Literature in English Translation, or
Indo-English Literature. The English Studies connection of these scholars is
reflected in the theorizing and the sorts of concerns typical to this church
emerge everywhere in their thinking.
Harish Trivedi (1996) has
provided a fourfold division of Indian literature translated into English: i)
Indic and Indological works, mainly translations of the ancient and medieval
Sanskrit or Pali texts into English, ii) the translations of late ancient and
medieval works, largely to do with bhakti, for instance, A K Ramanujan's
translations or Rabindranath Tagore's translation of Kabir. Trivedi calls these two trends as neo-Orientalist
or post Orientalist trends, iii) fictional works depicting various aspects of
modern India realistically like the work of Tagore or Premchand. Trivedi remarks that this category broadly
conforms to Fredric Jameson's inadequate description of the Third World
national allegory and iv) Modernist or High modernist writers translated into
English, a category which Trivedi believes is contrary to Jameson's thesis as
it shows that internationalism/universalism cosmopolitanism can flourish in the
Third World as well (52)
In Trivedi’s first
category can be put works of brilliant Indologists and Sanskrit scholars like
Wendy Donniger O Flatthery, Barbara Stoller-Miller, or Lee Siegel who have
produced excellent translations of Sanskrit classical texts with erudite and
insightful commentaries, forewords, and appendices. Indian scholars like Sri Aurobindo, CC Mehta,
and P Lal who have translated from Sanskrit classics into English also can be
put under this heading. The list is
quite long, but shadow of Orientalism looms large over these translations and
so does desire to indulge in the ‘glories of past'.
AK Ramanujan's
translations from South Indian saint-singers and of ancient Sangam classics,
and many other works more or less well received belong to the second category
described by Trivedi. It is unfair to label these translations as neo- or post-
Orientalist as these are by the translators who belong to the colonized
cultures and they translate into language of colonizers rather than the
colonial translator translating into their first language. Besides, Orientalism worked in tandem with
the colonizing project. Nevertheless,
the colonial history does play a crucial role in production and reception of
these types of translations as mentioned earlier. The desire to relate the East
and the West in ‘positive' manner springs from English educated Indian's
conscious or unconscious fear of alienation and of not belonging to the very
country he or she is born in. This
crisis may be due to historical, or (to use a more fashionable word) ‘post-colonial'
condition, but then this should definitely separate it from translations of
orientalists.
The third category as
pointed out by Trivedi, and is very well documented by Sujit Mukherjee (1994)
who gives an excellent list of various Indo-English realistic fictional works
translated into English in his appendix which depict various aspects of modern
Indian life. Mukherjee makes a strong
case for inclusion of these works in academic study of what is called ‘Eng.Lit.'
The fourth category, that of the Modernist and high modernist poets and writers
translated into English features in Mukherjee’s list too. He also provides a list of Indian dramas
translated into English. Mukherjee's
list is not complete, but it reveals what a great help this kind of effort
provides to scholars. Trivedi's schema is useful but the last two categories of
his four-fold framework seem to have only polemical relevance in the context of
his argument against Jameson's view. The division between the works that deal
realistically with India and the more modernist and experimental fiction is
controversial. He seems to imply that the latter type of fiction is more ‘international'
and having ‘universal/global' appeal while the former has only local, regional
or national appeal.
Like Trivedi, Devy (1993)
is interested in the historical context of translation activity in India. He
divides the history of translating Indian literature into English into four
phases, namely: the colonial phase (1776-1910), the revivalist phase (1876-1950),
the nationalist phase (1902-1929), and the formalist phase (1912- ) (120).
Commenting on contribution of emergence and growth of Indian-English literature
in growth of Indian literature in English Translation, he remarks that the
creative writers writing in English have created ‘a ready language for the
translators' as they have invented modes of ‘ representing Indian turns of
speech, shades of sentiments, ways of feeling and social manners.' Besides, many Indian creative writers in
English, who are bilinguals, are translators.
This fact also contributes to development of this category (124).
However, one wonders whether growth and development of something like German
Writing in English (if there is any such thing) is necessary and important for
development of German literature in English Translation!
Tejaswini Niranjana's
excellent book, apart from a rather unjust attack on Ramanujan, Siting
Translation, History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (1995)
is concerned with complex interrelationship between colonialism,
post-structuralist philosophy, and translation. This concern for colonial past
and Western theories also characterize most of the contemporary theoretical
writing on translation in English in India.
One wonders why only the scholars associated with English Studies are so
seriously concerned with colonial history and Western critical theory.
" In a post-colonial
context the problematic of translation becomes a significant site for
raising questions of representation, power, and historicity," she
maintains," the context is one of contesting and contested stories
attempting to account for, to recount, the asymmetry and inequality of
relations between peoples, races, languages". In translation, the relationship between the
two languages is hardly on equal terms.
Niranjana draws attention to a rather overlooked fact that translation
is between languages that are hierarchically related, and that it is a mode of
representation in another culture. When
the relationship between the cultures and languages is that of colonizer and
colonized, "translation...produces strategies of containment. By employing certain modes of representing
the other-which it thereby also brings into being--translation reinforces
hegemonic versions of the colonized, helping them acquire the status of what
Edward Said calls representations or objects without history '(p.3). She points out in the introduction that her
concern is to probe ‘the absence, lack, or repression of an awareness of
asymmetry and historicity in several kinds of writing on translation'
(p.9). Her theoretical position seems to
be more relevant to translations into English and orientalist translations, but
the point she has raised about asymmetry and hierarchy very well applies to
translations between Indian languages.
The lack of systematic theorization about the problems raised by
translation between bhashas or modern Indian languages will be dealt
later in the paper.
Harish Trivedi (1997) demonstrates how
translation of Anatole France's Thais by Premchand was distinctly a
political act in the sense that the very selection of a text was that of a one
which was not part of literature of colonial power and that it attempted a sort
of liberation of Indian literature from the tutelage of the imperially-inducted
master literature, English (407).
The postcolonial theory
has, indeed, provided a powerful analytical framework for translation studies.
Bassnett and Trivedi (1999) believe that the hierarchic opposition between the
original work and translation reflects the hierarchic opposition between the
European colonizer culture and the colonized culture. This hierarchy, they observe, is Eurocentric,
and its spread is associated with the history of colonialization, imperialism,
and proselytization (1-4). Because of these historical reasons, many radical
theories of translation have come up in the former colonies.
G.N.Devy has formulated a
credible Indian perspective to translation theory by contrasting the ways in
which translation is perceived in India and in the West. Devy rightly notes that the metaphysical
status of translation determines how it is perceived in a culture. Contrasting Western metaphysics with that of
East, Devy states, ‘ in Western metaphysics, translation is an exile and an
exile is a metaphorical translation- a post-Babel crisis. The multilingual, eclectic Hindu spirit,
ensconced in the belief in the soul's perpetual transition from form to form,
may find it difficult to subscribe to the Western metaphysics of translation
(135). He points out that Western linguistics is essentially monolingual and
rules out the very possibility of interlingual synonymy. It also overlooks that fact that languages
are ‘open' to one another's influence in linguistic, social and historical
sense. Devy is of opinion that Indian
consciousness is ‘translating consciousness' and it exploits the ‘potential
openness of language systems'. He
believes ‘ if we take lead from Phenomenology and conceptualize a whole
community of ‘translating consciousness', it should be possible to develop a
theory of inter-lingual synonymy '(139-141). Devy is optimistic that an
acceptable theoretical perspective on translation can emerge from India because
it has ‘ a culture that accepts metamorphosis as the basic principle of
existence' and its metaphysics is not haunted by the fear of exile. He notes that the whole bhakti movement of
poetry in India had the ‘desire of translating the language of spirituality
from Sanskrit to the languages of people.'
Devy's call for indigenous
and native theory of translation based on local context and local social,
literary and cultural traditions is also found in Ayyapaa K Paniker's ‘The
Anxiety of Authenticity: Reflection on Literary Translation' (1996:36-45). He
points out that the fear of being unfaithful and the anxiety of being true to
the original in letter in spirit did not haunt the medieval Indian
translators. He notes, ‘ All through the
Middle Ages, throughout the length and breadth of India, Sanskrit classics like
the epics and puranas continued to be retold, adapted, subverted and ‘translated'
without worrying about the exactness and accuracy of formal equivalence.'(37).
He speculates that it was with beginning of attempts to translate the Bible
into Indian languages that this question of authenticity became a bugbear. He points out that the politics of medieval
Indian translations could perhaps be understood and interpreted in terms of the
visible absence of the anxiety of authenticity on the part of these ‘translators'.
He also notes that the absence of an exact equivalent for the modern sense of’
translation ' in medieval Indian languages probably suggests that the Indian
practice tolerated a great deal of creative deviance in retelling or adaptation
of a literary text and that the prestige of the source text did not haunt or
frighten the reader (1998). Paniker is
no doubt right in pointing out this fact but it should also be kept in mind
that translation is an inseparable part of any proselytizing
movement. Spread of Buddhism in the
first millenium across Asia also utilized practice of systematic and very
accurate translations which have contributed not only to spread of variety of
secular and religious Indian texts but also development of Asian languages. Sunitikumar Pathak (1978) furnishes an
interesting account of spread of Buddhist religion in Tibet, Mangolia, and
Siberia. He notes that thousands of
highly accurate renderings of Buddhist and Brahminical texts were produced
under royal patronage in Tibet and that in the ninth century AD there was a
conference to standardize techniques of translation in accordance with Tibetan
language and prosody. Several secular
texts like the plays of Kalidasa or famous Amarkosha were
translated. The stress was on high fidelity
to source texts and translations had to get approval from council of
editors. They were so accurate, says
Pathak, that scholars could reconstruct many Mahayana Buddhist texts missing in
their original languages by translating the Tibetan translation back into
Sanskrit and Prakrit. These translated
texts also later served the role of source texts for many other languages of
Asia. Fidelity, it seems, is not an invention of Bible translators, but seems
to be associated with the project of proselytization.
What is interesting to
note is that search for ‘authentic' or truly native India seems to take modern
Indian English translators as well as theorists to pre-colonial, medieval
India. Colonial history is something of
a nightmare that one should try to forget. One notes that like the Indian
writers writing in English, the increasing interest in translation reflects the
increased awareness in English Literary Studies in India about its own
alienation from the Indian social context.
This sense of alienation will play a decisive role in the new directions
in English studies in India will take.
While all this
theorization is no doubt very important, the obsession with colonial history,
western theories, and the problematic of the place of English in India is
typical of the scholars associated with English Studies. This obsession with
post-colonial theorization is often taken to dogmatic extremities in India
these days. These concerns reflect
certain self-awareness, which, one wonders, may be a form of repressed guilt
among the erudite scholars in English Studies regarding its political
underpinnings and history of its role in colonial times. This has led to the neglect of problems of
translating from one Indian language to another as mentioned earlier and
theoretical writings in Indian languages.
In contrast to the
perspectives mentioned, some of the well-known critics of the earlier
generation like RB Patankar (1969:61-72) had some profound things to say about
translation. He speculates on the possibility of translation from an aesthetic
and philosophical point of view. He says that translations of literary works
are said to be logically impossible but not empirically so. He points out the
contradiction in the arguments of the critics who deny the possibility of
translation. He says that the most fundamental assumption, which underlies in
the activity of translation, is that meaning can be separated from its verbal
expression and the critics who deny the possibility of translation are those
who believe that in a literary work the verbal expression and the meanings are
unique and cannot be separated from one another. However, Patankar says that
this later thesis will also have to deny the existence of literary criticism
and aesthetics since these disciplines are based on the assumption that meaning
of work of art can be abstracted in order to be understood and analyzed. Therefore, if criticism is possible,
translation too, to an extent must be possible.
He maintains, ‘there is no reason why the translator should feel uneasy
about this procedure (of abstraction).
He is in good company; for the process of abstraction which underlies
his activity also underlies the activity of all practical criticism which is
engaged in classifying, grading and rationally judging works of art' (71). This
refreshing perspective anticipates Andre Lefevere' s position by at least a
decade or two by affiliating translation to all other forms of ‘rewriting' and ‘refraction'
like criticism.
One more domain of study
that is rather neglected by the scholars in English Studies is the theoretical
writings on translation in Indian languages. One of the oldest examples of such
writing is by a noted essayist, scholar, and translator Vishnushashtri
Chiploonkar (1850-1882) in Marathi. His
essay’ Bhashantar' appeared in Nibandhmala, book 1, and twelfth
issue in December 1874. His essay would
be of great interest to the scholars of English Studies as he too is writing
about translation from the point of view of colonialism and place of English.
In present times, writers
such as Umashankar Joshi, Harivallabh Bhayani in Gujarati, Bhalchandra Nemade
in Marathi and Bholanath Tiwari in Hindi have produced many scholarly writings,
which can be of great use to anyone studying translation theory in the Indian
context. Translation theory is being
gradually recognized as a significant area of study in regional languages and
greater numbers of writings on translation are appearing in these languages.
The noted Gujarati poet
and critic Umashankar Joshi has perceptively commented on use of terms like bhashantar
and anuvad for translation.
Contrasting the use of bhashantar with anuvad, he says
that bhashantar implies change of language and hence is only change of
formal properties of expression, while anuvad implies an attempt to
recapture the content and the voice once again.
He has also discussed problems of samshloki or verse translations
in identical stanza form.
In a very dense and
comprehensive essay, the noted Marathi novelist and critic Bhalchandra Nemade
(1987) has lamented the lack of significant development in translation studies.
(78-85). He laments the fact that even if original work is bad, it gets more
importance than an excellent translation.
He also indicates that while in the West, the great writers-translators
like Ezra Pound, and Dryden have theoretically discussed various aspects of
translation, great Marathi translators have stayed away from theorizing. He
comments on interdisciplinary nature of translation studies. His view on the notion of ‘equivalence' is
rather interesting. He believes that
that it is easier to find approximate equivalence in genealogically and
geographically closer languages like Marathi and Gujarati or Marathi and Kannada.
This is a commonly held view by the translators working between Indian
languages. Being a trained linguist, Nemade goes on to discuss what is termed
as ‘ problems of translation' from linguistics approach. Elaborating on often repeated statement that
the foundation of the modern age was laid by translators, he stresses the need
for analysis of linguistic impact of English on Marathi syntax, lexis, and
phonology along with stylistic aspects of literary Marathi using methodology of
comparative linguistics. He has
extensively discussed cultural and sub-cultural aspects of translation and
problems of evaluation of translation.
Essays like these are of great value to the student of translation
studies in India. In comparison to the
scholars writing in English, these scholars seem to be less concerned about
post-colonial perspective on translation or producing an ‘Indian theory' of
translation and tend to focus more on pragmatic aspects of translation. These essays usually tend to summarize
theoretical position of well-known Western translation theorists, as if to
introduce them to the reader of regional languages, while their counterparts
writing in English many times seems to take such things for granted.
None of these theoretical
writings, whether in English or in regional Indian languages can be called
representative of a truly ‘Indian' school of translation studies as both these
type of theorizing mainly reflect their own specific problems and concerns. If
a truly ‘Indian' school of translation studies is to emerge, it should not
limit itself to translations into English or be merely introductory or language
specific like those in regional Indian languages. It should explore the relationships
between the multiplicities of Indian languages. Such relationships are
historical, political, social and literary. It should also focus on the issues
like the challenges of translating from regional language to another. Paul St. Pierre makes the best advancement in
the direction of a really Indian school of translation studies.
The essay, ‘Translation in
a Plurilingual Post-colonial context: India' by Paul St.Pierre (1997) is an
illuminating analysis into the problems of translating from one Indian language
to another and which offers some interesting insights into the complexities of
this area. He discusses various projects
like Aadan Pradan (lit. interexchange) run by National Book Trust, and
Sahitya Akademi projects for translating a major literary work from one
language into another. He points out
that these projects aim at ‘forging national integration through the exchange
of creative literature'. However, he is
more interested in the disparity and asymmetrical relation between various
languages due to political and social reasons.
He indicates that more translations are published in the northern and
central Indian languages than in the south Indian languages, when one considers
the ratio of the population of speakers and the number of books published by
the NBT.
These, he believes,
‘ Do not simply represent what one might suspect to be an underlying
north south bias....' but this requires interpretation, if one takes into
account local contexts- availability of translators, for example, and cultural
traditions-as well as historical relations between languages and communities in
India. Such relations and contexts
continue to exist in Modern India and they influence cultural productions, such
as translations. They are as much a
result of colonial policy-the formation of a unitary states out of a plurality
of princedoms, feudatory states, etc., - as of decisions to maintain the
divisions in modern India along linguistic lines. Thus India is not only a state in which
linguistic divisions are maintained, but it is also a nation in which such
divisions can lead to new rivalries or continue the old ones.'(142).
As an illustration, he
examines the case of Bengali texts translated into Orissa and evinces how far
greater number of Bengali texts in Oriya translations reflects near hegemonic
status of Bengali in Orissa. Indeed, the
unequal relations among Indian languages deeply affect traffic of translated
texts between the languages. One has
only to consider number of Gujarati books translated into Marathi or Bengali
and vice versa to realize that translation hardly takes between languages
having equal footing and there is a distinct imbalance between them. An interesting picture emerges when we
consider the number of books from Indian languages translated into other Indian
languages. Bengali and Marathi have the
least amount of translations from Indian languages (Anuvadaat Tarzanchi
Bhartiya Bhashat Hanuman Udi, Maharastra Times 5 April 1996). Does this
number reflect some sort of regionalist arrogance these languages have vis-a-vis
other literatures in Indian languages?
There is indeed such a thing as hierarchy among the literary languages
of India. Apart from this, one also
needs to ask that though there are better days coming for translations from
Indian languages into English, are there better days in store for translations
from one Indian language into another Indian language? Questions like these need to be examined more
thoroughly.
St. Pierre ends his essay
by underscoring the need to contextualize practice of translation in India and
says that, ‘ Translation... underscores
the connection of translation to power: relations between languages and between
communities are actualized and transformed through translation; translation
strategies reproduce more than mere meaning.
The close examination of such relations and strategies makes it possible
to elucidate the locations of powers within and between cultures in a concrete
fashion, and this should, it seems to be one the goals of translation
studies. ' (145). It seems that a sound
theoretical framework for studying a crucial, yet neglected area of translation
studies in India has come from someone who is not an Indian. It is interesting
to consider the fact that while Western orientalist and Indian scholars following
their example the nineteenth century were giving most of their attention to
pan-Indian and privileged languages like Sanskrit, Christian missionaries were
doing a great service to the bhashas.
So today, while most of the critics are focussing mainly on translation
into or from English, people like St-Pierre has produced a major statement on
problems of translation between Indian languages. An extensive and intensive study on basis
of such a theoretical framework can yield excellent results.
The study of translation
practice and theory in the context of globalization is crucial significance for
a multilingual, post-colonial nation like India. Paul St.-Pierre (2002) and Lawrence Venuti
(1998) have made some insightful reflections on the relationship between translation
practices and the processes of globalization. St.-Pierre points out the
problems of making generalized observations regarding the relationship between
globalization and translation. As against
Venuti’s generalized observation that globalization results in more
capital being spent on translation into the regional languages, Paul St.-Pierre
calls attention to the fact of
increasing emphasis on translations from
Indian languages like Oriya into English. This is says is due to the
place of English in a multilingual, post-colonial society like India. He notes
the important contradiction in the situation like this where the processes of
globalization are threatening the local languages and cultures on the one hand
and at the same time it also valorizes
the regional and the local by considering it worthy of translation and
publication by important publishers.
One can sum up the characteristic
concerns of existing ‘Indian School ' of translation studies: colonial history,
the ambivalent place of English in multilingual Indian society, translation as
quest for identity and a quest for ‘true' ‘authentic' India, Indian literature
in English translation, search for indigenous or native theory of translation,
contrast between Western culture and metaphysics and Indian culture and
metaphysics, all these seem to be recurring concerns of the theorists
associated with English studies. These concerns as well as the growing
attention to translation are an attempt to decolonize itself. Their neglect of
theoretical writings in regional languages is typical of certain vanity and
snobbishness associated with departments of English. In general, historical study of translation
as a process, product and as a notion in India is hardly undertaken. Dr. Bholanath Tiwari (1972) has discussed the
notion and practice of translation in ancient India in some detail. I have in my own humble way, attempted to piece
together several writings that analyze diachronically the notion and practice
of translation and have tried to narrate briefly the story of translation in
India. (Sachin Ketkar, 2002). The translators who are practicing writers in
English also translate in order to overcome their own feeling of alienation.
The question of identity and ‘roots' lie at the base of intention behind
translations, especially English. Though what is meant by ‘truly' Indian has
changed over a period for these translators, the purpose behind the translation
activity remains the same. The writings in English as well as those in regional
languages have a limited relevance, if some sort of strong Indian school of
translation studies is to emerge. They are usually narcissistic and self-obsessed
as they deal only with the problems and issues specific to their domains. It
can emerge only after intensive and extensive study of historical, political,
social cultural and literary relationships between the plurality of Indian
languages. The essay of St. Pierre can be considered as a step in right
direction.
WORKS CITED
AK Singh ed. Translation: Its theory and Practice, New Delhi:
Creative Books 1996
Anuvadaat Tarzanchi Bhartiya Bhashat Hanumanudi! Maharastra Times, 5 April 1996.
Ayyapaa K Paniker, ‘The Anxiety of Authenticity: Reflections on
Literary translations ' in A.K.Singh (ed.) Translation Its Theory and Practice,
1996,
Ayyappa Paniker, Towards an Indian Theory of Literary Translation,
in Tutun Mukherjee ed. Translation: From Periphery to Centrestage, 1998
Bassnett and Trivedi eds. Post Colonial Translation: Theory and
Practice. Post-Colonial, London and NY: Routledge 1999
Bhalchandra Nemade, Sahityachi Bhasha, Aurangabad: Saket
Prakashan, 1987 78-85
Bholanath Tiwari, Anuwad Vigyan, Delhi: Shabdakar, 1972
Dilip Chitre, ‘Life on the Bridge’ Text of the Third Ajneya Memorial
Lecture delivered by Dilip Chitre under the auspicies of the South Asia
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