Post No. 14,511
Date uploaded in London – 13 May 2025
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A B Keith wrote in his preface to his History of Sanskrit Literature, “The Kavya literature includes some of the great poetry of the world, but it can never expect to attain wide popularity in the West, for it is essentially untranslatable”.
1
John Brough in his book Poems from the Sanskrit gives some examples. He says to take an extreme illustration,
Paanau padmadiyaa madhuukaumukulabhraantyaa tathaa kandayor
Niilendiivarasankayaa nayanayor bandhuu kabudhyaadhare ….
Not great poetry, admittedly; but still poetry, and quite gracefully expressed. Yet, let us translate with the most precise identification of the flowers mentioned:
“(The bees think that) your hands are Nelumbo nucifera,
That your cheeks are buds of Bassia latifolia,
That your eyes are blossoms of Nymphaea stellata,
That your lips are Pentapetus phoenica
(or Terminalia tomentosa )
And how can we consider the English reader that there is any poetry at all?”
John Brough continues , “Now Sanskrit verses are shapely. They have a very definite and strict metrical form, and often have extremely complex and subtle sound patterns of assonance and alliteration. The qualities of rhythm, of shapeliness, of the music of the words, cannot be directly transferred to another language and there is no perfect solution.
2
John Brough gives another example .
IN HAMBURG LEBTEN ZWEI AMEISEN
DIE WOLLTEN NACH AUSTRALIEN REISEN
BEI ALTONA AUF DER CHAUSSEE
DA TATEN IHNEN DIE BEINE WEH
UND DA VERZICTETEN SIE WEISE
DANNAUF DEN LETZTEN TEIL DER REISE (German)
MEANING
In Hamburg there lived two ants who made up their minds to travel to Australia. Then, on the pavement at Altona (just outside Hamburg) their feet hurt; and thereupon they sensibly gave up the last part of the journey.
But the English reader may perhaps get more of the bite of the original epigram from
Two ants who lived in London planned
To walk to Melbourne overland
, but footsore in Southampton Row
When there were still some miles to go,
They thought it wise not to extend
The journey to the bitter end. (English)
3
Only on the rarest of occasions , a lucky chance of language may make it possible to reflect a pun in the receiving language; and usually verbal play, if it is essential to the verse, makes the verse in question untranslatable. To take a rather trivial example,
Mukhena candrakaantena mahaaniilaih siroruhaih
Paanibhyaam padmaraagaabhyaam raje ratnamayiva saa
Bhartruhari ,131.
“Since her face has the beauty of the moon, and her hair was jet black, and her hands were the colour of lotuses , she seemed to be all made of jewels.
Nothing can be done to make this into an acceptable verse in another language, since it does not even make sense until the reader knows that candrakaanta, in addition to meaning ‘having the beauty of the moon’ , is also the name of a precious stone; that mahaaniila means very black and also sapphire; and the padmaraaga means lotus coloured and also ruby.”
POEMS FROM THE SANSKRIT; TRANSLATED WITH INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BROUGH; PENGUIN BOOKS
My comments
I have the English translation of Bharati’s poems. When I read it, I can’t see the beauty of Tamil language or the force with which it is done. It is true with all the language translations. Tirukkural is also translated in verses and in prose. But the verses, despite alliteration, do not bring out the meaning in depth. Only in the prose we get the poet’s original meaning.
–subham—
Tags – Poetry, Untranslatable, Bhartruhari , John Brough, A B Keith, gems, jewels,
Tamil and Vedas 