Urgent need for direct literary translations in South Asia
Twelve years ago in my column in Artscope I wrote about the need for translations, and the problems created by translations from translations. The need for translation of all literature is continually growing, as the world shrinks into one vast global village. Literature, just like art, music and dance, through link languages and translations, offers one of the best ways to understand, accept and live in harmony. However, to achieve this harmony the literature written in different languages has to be shared with all the people, across all physical and man-made barriers. Before going out to embrace the whole world, we could make a start in South Asia with South Asian literature.
There are more than 7,000 languages used around the world, and 3866 written languages, which means there is literature published in all these 3866 languages. Most of us could read only books written in our own mother tongue, and perhaps one second language, which is often English. We do not have access to books written in any other language unless we read a translation from that language into English.
The unfortunate situation in our country is that we have access only to English translations of great books written in other languages, even languages used in other South Asian countries. One example is the highly venerated Gitanjali by Gurudev Rabindranath. It is true that we have access to the English translation done by Rabindranath himself, but edited by W. B. Yates. Though it received the Nobel, we do not know how far the edited version differed from the original translation by the author himself.
Unoriginal translation
The most unfortunate situation is that the English Gitanjali is not the original Gitanjali written by Rabindranath. Partha Pratim Ray, librarian, Institute of Education, Visva-Bharati, had done a study of the different editions of Gitanjali. The first publication of the Gitanjali in Bengali was in September 1910. There were 157 songs and poems, of which 20 had been previously published ‘Sharodutsav’ (1908) and ‘Gan’ (1909). The other 137 poems had been written between August 1909 and August 1910. The English translation had only 103 poems, “These translations of poems contained in three books, ‘Naivedya’, ‘Kheya’ and ‘Gitanjali’ , but the collection had really been from 10 other books. Only 53 of the 103 poems in the English Gitanjali was from the original Bengali Gitanjali. 16 were from Gita-malya, 15 were from Naivedya, 11 from Kheya, the other 8 from Chaitali, Kalpana, Smaran, Shishu, Utsarga and Achalayatan. The Bengali Gitanjali had been reprinted 40 times from 1910 to 2007.
The other unfortunate situation is that, however much we talk of the Gitanjali and Rabindranath in Sri Lanka, we do not yet have a real Sinhala translation of the original Bangla Gitanjali. The seven or eight Sinhala translations are all from the English translation. Fortunately several Rabindrasahitya works have been translated into Sinhala directly from the original Bangla writings by our great but unappreciated translators like Chintha Lakshmi Sinhaarachchi. We have Hindi novels and short stories translated directly into Sinhala by Prof. Upul Ranjith Hewawithanagamage, who has also translated several short stories from Bangla, and is in the process of translating the original Gitanjali.
A Sinhala translation of the Kural was done by Ms. Misihami Gorokgoda in 1964. Dr. M. H. Peter Silva translated Silapadikaram into Sinhala from Tamil as ‘Nuruvela teda’. Peter Silva had also translated ‘Vira Solium’ into Sinhala. Dayaratne Garusinghe translated Siddharthe by Herman Hesse, directly from German.
One-way traffic
We have to remember with respect Dedigama V. Rodrigo who translated several Russian novels directly into Sinhala. Today this is continued by Dr. Ranjan Wijesinghe, who has translated several Russian novels directly into Sinhala.
In Sri Lanka literary translations had always been a ‘one-way traffic’ to a great extent, not only from India, but from all over the world. Our contributions to Vishva Sahitya had been almost negligible, when we compare with the Sinhala translations of writers from around the world. Even though there have been great literary works produced in Sri Lanka over the past two millennia which really deserve recognition universally, it is yet to happen.
We really need more translations, at least from the major languages around the world. We have many opportunities for such direct translations by our own young people who travel overseas for higher education. The students who study in China become very fluent in Chinese, and with their exposure to the Chinese culture it would be easy for them to translate Chinese works into Sinhala. In the same manner those who study in Japan, European countries, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh could take an interest in translating books from these countries.
We also have Buddhist monks from Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam studying in Sinhala in our universities. Many of them could easily help in translating books written in their countries into Sinhala. There is one instance where a monk from Bangladesh, who had studied at the University of Kelaniya, Bikkhu Pragnapal, helping Pushkara Wanniarachchi to translate a Bangla novel on Gurudev Rabindranath into Sinhala as Nadee Gitaya. Even though Wanniarachchi did the translation from the English translation, Bhikkhu Pragnapal guided him using the original Bangla novel.
Source: Dailynews
