reasons to read Nanayya's Mahabharatam
Ramana R. Juvvadi (juvvadi@horizoncomp.com)
Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:43:22 -0400
Aravinda Pillalamarri writes:
>
> Here is a question: Would anyone who could read Sanskrit be interested in
> reading Nannaya's _Andhra Mahabharatamu_? Is this work valuable only for
> people who cannot read the Mahabharatam in Sanskrit and must therefore get
> it in Telugu? Question 2: Since there are many translations of Vyasa's
Nannaya is one of my favourite classical poets so let me answer this.
To borrow a phrase from Bapa Rao, once Mahabharata has been translated
to telugu it becomes a telugu story. While I don't profess to
understand Sanskrit, once a meaning is given, I am capable of
retrofitting the meaning with Sanskrit sloka and deduce how that
meaning came about:-) While that is not helpful in reading
the original Mahabharata, it was useful for me to compare
telugu and Sanskrit Mahabharatas. Actually I have done that only with
Virata Parva as that is the only copy of Sanskrit Mahabharata I have
along with Telugu interpretations. Unfortunately, I don't have
any of 'adi, sabha' or 'aranya' to compare nannaya and vyasa.
Sanskrit Mahabharata is very long and there is quite a bit of
repitition there. For example, there is a parva (actually it is
more like an ashvasa than a parva) in Sanskrit
called 'sanatsujata parva' which tikkana completely skipped.
The most glaring omission of tikkana is Bhagavadgita. In translating
from Sanskrit Nannaya decided to stick to the story and cut short
the descriptions/philosophy making it more readable.
> Mahabharata, would there be any interest in translating from Telugu into
> English as well? Would this be considered further from the original,
> being a translation of a translation, or have any literary value in its
> own right?
Call me biased, but I think it is impossible to translate an Indian
epic into English and do some justice to the translation. Whenever
I heard an English translation of an Indian epic it sounded completely
pale to me.
Ramana
- --QAA09232.842560650/cygnus.horizoncomp.com--
------- end -------