Current Issue  Volume 3  No 1&2  Mar & Oct 2006

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Translations from Marathi and Urdu novels included Bharatendu’s Poornaprakash Chandraprabha from Marathi and Ramkrishna Verma’s Sansardarpan (1885), Amala Vratantamala (1884), Thag Vratantamala (1889) and Police Vratantamata (1890) from Urdu. Some of these translations were discussed and commented upon, with Badrinarayan Chaudhri’s ‘Premaghan’ criticizing Gadadhar Singh’s translation of Bangvijeta in detail in Anandakadambini and Balmukund Gupta critiquing the translation of Goldsmith’s Hermit as Ekantayoga.

          Apart from writing about fifty original works, Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi (1864-1938), after whom the period is named the “Dwivedi Yug [era]” (1893-1918), translated thirty texts.⁶ Rai Devi Prasad ‘Poorna’ (1868-1915) translated Kalidasa’s Meghdoot as Dharadhar-dhawan in 1902.

In the Dwivedi era, Sanskrit, English and Bangla dramatic texts translated were Savananda Avasthi’s translation Naginenda (1956), Mrichohhakatika by Lala Sitaram in 1913, and Uttararamacharita by Kaviratna Satyanarayana. Also, the plays of French dramatist Moliere were translated from their English versions by Lalluprasad Pandey and Gangaprasad Pandey.

          Gopaldas Gahamari had introduced detective themes through his detective novels, and he strengthened this with his translation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet as Govindram in 1905. The fascination with detective themes and novels continued in the twentieth century. G.W.M. Reynolds’ novel, Mysteries of the Court of London was translated as London Rahasya and his Loves of the Hair as Rangmahal by Gangaprasad Gupta in 1904. The fascination with detective stories and the supernatural and miraculous disallowed the use of translation as a mode of introducing new and rich models of novel from non–English traditions such as Russian, French, German, and Spanish, among others. That is how colonization impacts and limits the choices of the subject. However, there were some exceptions as well. For instance, fictional works of literary merit like Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (under the same title by Janardhan Prasad Jha “Dwij”), and Sir Walter Scott’s The Abbott (as Rani Mary in 1916 by Lala Chandralal). Also, there were some non-English novels like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (by Durga Prasad Khatri as Abhage Ka Bhagya in 1914-15), and Harriet Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (as Tom Kaka Ki Kutiya in 1916 by Mahavir Prasad Poddar). From Bangla, the novels of established novelists like Damodar Mukhopadhyaya, Bankimchandra, Panchakauri De, Rabindranath Tagore and Rameshchandra Dutt were translated respectively by Ishwari Prasad Sharma, Kishorilal Goswami, Gopalram Gahamari and Jonardhan Jha ‘Dwij’. All these source texts barring a few exceptions dealt with miracle, mystery or detective incidents in their thematic concerns. The absence of translations of serious socially oriented novels speaks of the taste of the then readership in Hindi.

Translation played a role in developing and establishing a critical sense in Hindi. In the Bharatendu period Jagannath Ratnedar had attempted a verse translation of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism as Samalochandarsha in 1897. Later Acharya Ram Chandra Shukla translated Joseph Addison’s “Essay on Imagination” as Kalpana ke Ananda, and he also translated Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia as Buddha Charita in 1922. Interestingly, this is not in Khari boli Hindi but in Brijbhasha, and Shukla did not take recourse to literal translation. Rather he added to the translation at will. He had previously translated Megasthenese’s India as Megasthenesekalina Bharata in 1897, John Henry Newman’s Literature as Sahitya in 1904, and Sir T. Madhava Rao’s Minor Hints as Rajprabandha Siksha in 1913. Others, such as Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, made profuse use of English critics without translating or at times even acknowledging them.

            Munshi Premchand was a unique case. He used to write his novels in Urdu and then translate them into Hindi – e.g., wrote Bazare Hunsa, Gosh-e-Afimat and Gogane Havti and then translated them as Sevasadan, Premashram and Rangbhoomi. In fact the task was easier, for linguistic code switching between Urdu and Hindi was not difficult for Premchand like northern Indians who operate between the common vocabulary of Hindi and Urdu and their common Gangajamuni culture. Ironically, they were first published in Hindi. In between he translated two of his existing Urdu novels – Jalva-e-Isar as Vardan in 1921, and Hamkhurma va Hamsawab as Prem Arthat Do Sakhiyon Ka Vivah. He rewrote the Hindi variance of Prema in Hindi and published it as Pratigya in 1929. He was not happy with the state of the pre-Premchand Hindi novel in comparison with the Urdu and Bengali novel. He saw translation as a means of enriching Hindi literature, but not simply through translation. He was highly critical of the indiscriminate translations from Bengali, particularly in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the early part of the first quarter of the twentieth century. Premchand wanted the treasure of Hindi to be enriched by its own jewels, as well as by the best from other world literatures such as Russian and French. So in his essay “Upanyasa” (Premchand 1962: 33-38) he called upon young people to learn these languages and then translate their good literary works into Hindi.

            Acharya Vishweshar translated Abhinavgupta’s Abhinav Bharati, Kuntaka’s Vakrotijivit, Anandavardhana’s Dhwanyaloka, Ramchandra Gunachandra’s Natyadarpan and Mammata’s Kavyaprakasha. Under the editorship of Dr. Nagendra, Aristotle’s Poetics, Longinus’s The Sublime and Horacles’ Arts Poetica were translated as Arastu Ka Kavyashastra, Kavya Mein Udatta Tattva and Kavyakala respectively.

Quite a few travelogues from Gujarati, Marathi and Bangla by Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi, Kaka Kalelker and Shanker were translated respectively as Badrinath Ki Yatra (1959) Sooryodaya Ka Desh (195), Himalaya Ki yatra (1948) and A Par Bangla O Par Bangla (1982). Other notable translations in the middle decades of the twentieth century include the translation of important short stories of the world as Sansar Ki Sarwashreshtha Kahaniya in 1940 and a translation by Shamsher Bahadur Singh, the Marxist poet, of Aijaz Ahmed’s history of Urdu literature as Urdu Sahitya ka Itihasa in 1956.

             Memoirs were translated from different languages in the post-Independence period. Ilachandra Joshi was one of the pioneers with his translation of Gorky’s Memoirs as Gorky Ke Sansmaran in 1942. Hazari Prasad Dwivedi translated Rabindranath Tagore’s memoirs as Mera Bachpan from Bangla. Manuben Gandhi’s memoirs were translated by Kurangiben Desai as Ba Meri Man and by Ram Narayan Chaudhary as Ba Aur Babu Ki Sheetal Chhaya Main in 1954. From Panjabi, Amrita Pritam’s memoirs were translated as Atit Ki Parchaiyan in 1962. Upendra Nath ‘Ashq’ edited and translated Urdu memoir as Urduke Bhatareen Sansmaran in Hindi in 1962. Mukundilal Shrivastava brought out Nayan Tara Sahgal’s Prison and Chocolate from English to Hindi as Mera Bachpan.

The Indian mind’s fascination with Shakespeare that had begun in the nineteenth century as a by-product of the colonial literary enterprise continued in the twentieth century. If in the first half of the century Harivanshrai Bachchan translated Shakespeare as part of his academic, creative and personal pursuits, Rangeya Raghav, one of the most prolific translators of Shakespeare, did so more out of his love for Hindi than for Shakespeare. “A language which does not possess translations of Shakespeare, cannot be counted among the more developed languages” (cited in Trivedi 1993, 33). Further, retranslation of Shakespeare’s plays speaks of his dissatisfaction with the preceding translations of Shakespeare, for Shakespeare was already there in Hindi but not in the kind of translations that Rangeya Raghava wanted.

             Another notable feature of translation into Hindi in the second half of the twentieth century was the participation in the translational enterprise of noted creative and critical writers, both established and emerging, against the backdrop of a realization of the significance of translation as the means of enriching their literature and their own creativity. Vishnu Khare’s translation of The Wasteland and Mohan Rakesh’s translation of The Portait of a Lady speak of their choice of Anglo-American-centric texts more out of their fascination for them and less out of their canonical status in the Hindi academic world. Incidentally, both of these translators were not directly concerned with the academic world. Others moved away from the Anglo-American space to a large extent, such as the translation of Albert Camus’ The Stranger by Rajendra Yadav and Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Kamleshwar. Kedarnath Singh translated Paul Eluard’s poems and discovered his own poetic talent in the process, and became one of the significant Hindi poets of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

In the 1960s and 1970s, translation into Hindi moved further away from England and America to central and eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and Russia. Through the choice of source texts this constituted indirect resistance to American hegemony. The case of Nirmal Verma stands out. The translations of Czech creative literature (particularly of Milan Kundera) by this eminent Hindi novelist and essayist introduced Czech creativity to the Hindi readership even before it reached English, and Verma made use of Czech locales in his maiden novel. Raghuvir Sahay, a distinguished poet, translated Hungarian poets, the Polish novelist Jerzi Andrezejewaski, and the Yugoslavic/Bosnian poet Ivo Andric. Sahay’s translation of Andric’s epic novel Na Drini Chupriya as Drina Nadi Ka Pul (1986) is significant because of his choice of the text for translation. He selected it after becoming fascinated with Andric’s delineation of characters and their conduct, the struggle for oppositional values within European history, and also in an attempt to make the sympathetic Indian reader conscious of the present state of India and its future. Commenting on Andric’s appeal to him, he said,

“In his work, while people accept the new, they do not barter away the old for it. This is the true meaning of knowing one’s tradition; and this is also the Indian philosophy of history.”

 In Sahay, translation thus becomes an instrument of knowing and reinstating one’s own cultural and philosophical traditions through similar literary works and traditions from hitherto unknown lands. Writings from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean came to be translated into Hindi. Virendra Kumar Barnwal translated Wole Soyinka’s poems as Wole Soyankaki Kavitayen in 1991 out of his love or affinity for the poet and his work, not out of any translational ideals. The shift of the centre of fictional creativity to the non-American and non-European world such as South America, Africa and Asia, discernible as it is, in awards like the Nobel Prize and the Commonwealth and Booker Prizes to non-European and non-American writers introduced the works of these writers to Hindi literature through translation. In addition to Teen Saal (Chekhov) Agneya Versha (Constantine Faydin), Surkh aur Syah (Stendhal), Dheere Bahe Don (Mikhail Sholokhov), Pahala Adami, Azanabi, Plague, Patan, Sukhi Mratyu (all by Albert Camus), Kisan (Balzac), Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude as Ekant Ke Sau Varsha were translated. Indian English writing such as Vikran Seth’s A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music were translated as Ek Achchha sa Ladka and Ek sa Sangeet respectively, Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories as Haroon aur Kahaniyon ka Samunder, Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan as Pakistan Mail, and Shobha De’s Starry Nights as Sitaron ki Raten.

 

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