Purushottam Agrawal - Lost in translation
Rama has been dragged
into yet another controversy. This time by American scholar Audrey Truschke,
who in a tweet claimed that in the Ramayana of Valmiki, Sita describes Rama as
a "misogynist pig". This refers to Sita's first meeting with Rama after
her rescue from Ravana's captivity; the context for her anguish is set by the
unimaginably harsh words spoken by Rama. Sita is dismayed and contrasts such
'prakrita' conduct and speech to what is expected of a 'veer' (noble hero) that
her husband is (Valmiki Ramayana, VI, 116.5).
Truschke, in an
inflammatory tweet, chose to translate 'prakrita' as 'misogynist pig';
reactions on Twitter were expectedly sharp. There were threats and abuses too,
which, it must be said, are unconscionable and totally out of line. But Truschke
found the attacks on her 'misogynistic' and 'anti-Semitic'. It's interesting
that while being at loggerheads, both she and her detractors claim victimhood,
invoking their respective social identities.
In this distracting
battle, larger issues have been sidelined. Truschke argues that scholars are
not meant to revere the texts they study, religious or otherwise. True. But
surely they can reasonably be expected to show integrity in adhering to
academic method? Scholars shouldn't have to pre-empt 'hurt sentiments', but are
they not expected to be sensitive to the intrinsic and extrinsic context of the
text? Is it right, even in purely scholarly terms, to reduce a rich and layered
(besides being revered by millions) character like Rama to a caricature in a
contemporary American comic strip?
Such questions are
crucially important in an environment where the space for samyak (balanced)
dialogue is shrinking rapidly. The samyak tradition, emphasised by the Buddha,
does not entail compromising your philosophical or moral position. It is quite
different from everyday pragmatism. It implies respect for your opponent and
commitment to shared norms of civilised dialogue. It implies holding fast to
your position, yet being open to changing it, if presented with tenable
reasoning and evidence. Scholars are supposed
to provoke society into rethinking its prevalent commonsense. It is precisely
this crucial-and fraught-role that makes it incumbent upon a scholar to be
meticulous in method, sensitive to nuances of language and context in which the
argument is made and aware (not 'reverent') of the work of those who came
before him/ her. In translation, the onus is possibly even greater.
'Prakrita', the word
in question, is not even a rare word that is being translated for the first
time. It's a common word, which essentially means 'ordinary' or 'uncivilised',
or 'raw' as opposed to refined. In a particular context, it could even mean
'vulgar', though in rendering that meaning, it would lose some of the intrinsic
refinement of the original Sanskrit. Tulsidas makes Saraswati regret the fact
that most poets are using their talent to praise 'ordinary' characters instead
of focusing on someone like Rama (Kinhe prakrita jan gun gana, sir dhuni gira
lagat pachhitana).
AK Ramanujan, a widely
respected scholar and translator, described the translator as an "artist
on oath". The idea is to maintain dual fidelity: to the nature of the
target language and (even more importantly) to the specific characteristics of
the source language and its culture. Sanskrit has no dearth of words of insult,
and had Valmiki so desired, he could have made his Sita use one of them. But,
to him, the integrity of the character and the personal and socio-cultural
dynamics of Sita's relationship with her 'veer' (noble) husband were of supreme
importance. He makes Rama utter many harsh words, but then, a few verses later,
we see Rama 'adhomukha' (crestfallen), 'vashpavyakul lochanah' (eyes full of
tears)... But, then, Valmiki was a great poet with patience, not a Twitter-age
translator in a hurry. To translate
'prakrita' as 'misogynist pig' is to totally ignore context. It violates the
scholar's unwritten code, the translator's 'oath' and makes vulnerable the
already fragile space of academic autonomy and civilised dialogue-the samyak.
Purushottam Agrawal
is a scholar of early vernacular modernity in India, Hinduism and Bhakti
poetry. His latest book Padmavat: An Epic Love Story has been published by Rupa
