Re: translating Nannaya's Mahabharatam

Ramarao Kanneganti (rama@sowpadu.guntur.com)
Thu, 12 Sep 1996 22:05:36 -0400 

ap191 writes:
 > 
 > thanks to those who have replied to my earlier query.  If Nannaya has
 > added features not to be found in Valmiki's Mahabharatam, then would we
 > not say that this is a fault in the translation?

Forgive for this sexist analogy: (I completely disown this one) which
says --

Translations are like women. When they are beautiful they are not
faithful and when they are faithful they are not beautiful.

 > ...............  Nanayya himself claims
 > to be giving s a faithful translation of Vyasa.  

Actually, I don't recall the faithful part. He indeed say something
about impressing the literati, though. Nevertheless, he was operating
in an environment that looked down upon telugu as "gaasaTa beesaTa
baasa". He was trying to sell a new concept.

 > therefore, any additions
 > would be deviations from the original text.  If the reason we read
 > Nanayya's rendition is the beauty of the telugu verse, then this would be
 > lost in translation anyway.  So what interest would there be either for a
 > translator or for a reader to consider an English translation of Nanayya's
 > Mahabharatam?  THink of it this way:  if there were a telugu translation
 > of Wittgenstein, and I wanted to read Wittgenstein in English, would I
 > prefer a translation made directly from the German, or via telugu?

Interesting question. Especially since you chose Wittgenstein. Since
language is part of the expression, then translation can never be
equivalent to the original. Still, your question is not a good analogy
due to the closeness of English and German. How about this question:

Would you prefer a translation of Wittgenstein into Telugu from German
or from English?

It doesn't really matter, as far as I can see. Subtle differences
apart, they will have their own interesting facets.

 > please send/copy responses to me:  ap191@columbia.edu
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--rama