Translating Vaidya's Harivaṃśa
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Asian Literature and Translation ISSN 2051-5863 https://doi.org/10.18573/issn.2051-5863 Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 Translating Vaidya’s Harivaṃśa Simon Brodbeck DOI: https://doi.org/10.18573/alt.45 Date Accepted: 21/04/2019 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ©Simon Brodbeck Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 Translating Vaidya’s Harivaṃśa Simon Brodbeck Abstract This paper is a philological and textological complement to a new translation, produced in Cardiff, of the Sanskrit Harivaṃśa, the final part of the Mahābhārata. The paper is a project report, providing a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the translation project. It discusses the specific 118-chapter published text that was chosen for translation, and the reasons for that choice; it discusses the emendations that were made to that text, and the reasons for making them; it discusses the method, process, and conventions of the translation, with particular reference to the intended audience, the accompanying apparatus, the format of the translation, its literary and linguistic register, and the treatment of specific words; and it discusses a selection of problematic passages in relation to previous translations. The paper’s discussion of the Sanskrit Harivaṃśa is wide-ranging, rigorous, unprecedentedly in-depth, and makes significant original contributions in the fields of Sanskrit philology, translation studies, and world literature. The appendix to the paper is a searchable electronic version of the Sanskrit Harivaṃśa text that was translated. 1 Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 Contents List of Figures p. 4 Preface: The Cardiff Harivaṃśa Project p. 5 Part 1. The Edition: Stemmata Quid Faciunt? pp. 8–72 Overview of the Poona Critical Edition p. 8 Methodology of the Mahābhārata Edition p. 11 Methodology of the Harivaṃśa Edition p. 17 Criticisms of the Stemmatic Method p. 20 The Text-Restorative Project – Bédier – Circularity – Contamination – Scribal Passivity Criticisms of the Mahābhārata Edition p. 28 Status of the Reconstituted Text – Biardeau and Bedekar – Non-Application of Higher Criticism – Circularity – Classification of Manuscripts – Selection of Manuscripts – Accuracy of Stemma – The Principle of Non-Omission Criticisms of the Harivaṃśa Edition p. 55 Extent of the Reconstituted Text – Conclusion of the Reconstituted Text – The Marginal Wavy Line – Quibbles about Individual Verses Why Translate Vaidya’s Reconstituted Harivaṃśa? p. 65 Part 2. Emendation Conundrums pp. 73–104 Peculiarities of the Harivaṃśa’s Sanskrit p. 73 Gender – Sandhi – Nominal System – Stem Transfer – Pronouns – Verbal System – Syntax List of Emendations p. 78 Typographical Emendations p. 80 Non-Typographical Emendations p. 83 Śuka and Śukra (13.52d) – The Moved Verse (15.44) – Devamīḍhuṣa (24.14b) – Ariṣṭanemi and Aśva (28.44a) – Nārāyaṇī Indrasenā (89.7c) Some Emendations Not Made p. 95 Extra Syllables Metri Causa – Strong-Armed Vaiśaṃpāyana – The Stealing of the Pārijāta Tree – Madhu and Pṛśni (28.36a) – The Vṛṣṇi Divisions (81.96–104) Vaidya’s Asterisks and Parvans p. 102 2 Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 Part 3. Translating for the General Public pp. 105–63 Choice of Audience p. 105 Review of Existing Translations p. 110 Apparatus p. 112 Introduction – Footnotes – List of Untranslated Words – Family Trees – Index of Names Formatting p. 115 Poetry and Prose – Diacritics – Quotation Marks – Verse Numbers – Square Brackets Register p. 122 Vocatives – Exclamations – Repetitions – Roots Svan, Han, etc. – Excellence Fatigue Difficult Sanskrit Words p. 128 Dharma etc. – Species of Creature – Plant and Tree Names – Bird Names – Other Difficult Words – Kṛtānta – Untranslated Words Names p. 135 Some Specific Translation Decisions p. 144 The Rebirth of Nārada (3.7–13) – Vivasvat’s Sons (8.44, 47) – The Removal of the Foetus (48.3–4) – The Speech of the Yādavas about Wrestling (75.11–13) – The Gambling Scene (89.35–41) Appendix: Electronic Text of the (Corrected) Reconstituted Harivaṃśa p. 164 Version 1: Plain Sanskrit Text Version 2: Sanskrit Text with Paragraph Breaks to Match Translation Version 3: Plain Sanskrit Text (Harvard-Kyoto encoding) References p. 165 3 Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1. Sample Page of the Harivaṃśa Critical Edition p. 10 Figure 2. Sukthankar’s Stemma of Ādiparvan Versions p. 12 Figure 3. Vaidya’s Harivaṃśa Stemma p. 19 Figure 4. Mehta’s Tripartite Mahābhārata Stemma p. 54 Figure 5. Belvalkar’s Bhīṣmaparvan Stemma p. 63 Figure 6. Two Genealogical Options from Mādrī p. 98 Table 1. Emendations Made to Vaidya’s Text p. 79 Table 2. Tampered Names pp. 140–44 4 Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 Preface: The Cardiff Harivaṃśa Project The idea of translating the Sanskrit Harivaṃśa was suggested to me by James Hegarty. In 2008, in connection with our project on genealogy in India, I translated the genealogical chapters 8–10 and 20–29, and we had hoped to do more together. A few years later, a project for a full translation was proposed to the British Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and generously funded by them from 2011 to 2014, led by Will Johnson, with me as the main translator. The proposal to the AHRC emphasised that the audience for the translation would be the general public. After the end of the funded period and the retirement of Will Johnson, I have had the great honour of completing the project, and this document is its valedictory report. The principal output of the Cardiff Harivaṃśa project is the translation, packaged with apparatus appropriate to facilitate its appreciation by its intended audience, and published in New York by Oxford University Press (Brodbeck in press). A subsidiary output is this report, which serves as a technical complement to that published book. Additional outputs so far have been a 5000-word encyclopedia entry on the Harivaṃśa for Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Brodbeck in press b), an annotated bibiography on the Harivaṃśa for Oxford Bibliographies Online (Brodbeck 2013), an article on the Mahābhārata critical edition with particular reference to the Harivaṃśa (Brodbeck 2011), an article on the Harivaṃśa’s substories (Brodbeck 2016), and an article about some characters in the Harivaṃśa’s solar lineage (Brodbeck 2018). Other articles may follow. This report contains some of the kinds of material that might have been appropriate in the luxuriant introduction and apparatus of the translation were that translation aimed at a more narrow scholarly audience. But it is also intended as an operational record of what needed to be done, in what order, and what the considerations were, to make the translation. To that degree I hope that some parts of it might be of interest to translators or would-be translators from any language. The report has three parts. The first part discusses which Sanskrit edition of the text was to be translated, and explains the choice of P. L. Vaidya’s critical edition, published in Poona in 1969. The second part discusses the problems that were found with the text as printed in that edition, and the emending remedies that were made in 32 instances to deal with those problems and establish a sensible text to translate. The third part of the report discusses the rendering of the text into English, the fitting of the product to its audience. It discusses considerations for the translation and its presentation and the decisions made, beginning with general principles and ending with a short sequence of specific cases, discussed in detail and arranged in textual order. Tytler wrote that ‘it is the duty of a translator to attend only to the sense and spirit of his original, to make himself perfectly master of his author’s ideas, and to communicate them in those expressions which he judges to be best suited to convey them’ (Tytler 1907 [1813]: 7). In a similar vein, E. V. Rieu, translator of the Odyssey and founder editor of the Penguin Classics series, is credited with advising translators to ‘make up your mind as to 5 Asian Literature and Translation Vol. 6, No. 1 (2019) 1–187 what it means and say that as clearly as you can’ (quoted in Sandars 1987: 149; cf. Doniger O’Flaherty 1987: 122). In general I have sought to follow this advice, and the division between the second and third parts of this report is intended to mark the approximate distinction between the process of understanding the Sanskrit version and the process of formulating the English version. The report’s appendix is an electronic version of the Sanskrit text translated, in the form of several searchable Microsoft Word documents. Prototype versions of parts of this report have been presented at several conferences and seminars. A version of the first part was presented at the annual Seminar on the Sanskrit Tradition in the Modern World in Manchester on 23 May 2014. A version of the second part was presented at the Seventh Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas on 12 August 2014. Versions of the third part were presented at a Cardiff University Department of Religious and Theological Studies Seminar on 7 December 2011 (with Will Johnson), and at the Sixteenth World Sanskrit Conference in Bangkok on 30 June 2015. Summary overviews of the project, or discussions of specific aspects, were also presented to the new Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor during his visit to the School of History, Archaeology and Religion on 8 May 2014; at a Cardiff University Open Day on 28 January 2015; at a ‘Public University’ event at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, on 6 August 2015; at a University of Bristol Department of Religion and Theology Seminar on 6 December 2016; at a Cardiff University Department of Religious and Theological Studies Research Day on 12 July 2017; and at the Eighth Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas on 14 September 2017.