If you have done any translation beyond high school compositions, you would have noticed ; it doesn’t need any profound word to confound you.
A simple usage of ‘dei’ in Tamil to address one is virtually untranslatable into English. Can’t be dude, hai, or hey..
A ‘dei’ in Tamil may indicates closeness, age of the addressee and the addresser, the mood, place , context and other things. Can any one English word convey all this ? Even a paragraph in English would not do justice.
If that be so, how have we accepted existing English words to translate Indic words like Dharma, devata, paramatma, Pooja, sampradaya, shastra and so on?
Bad translation in fiction is okay. These horrifying translations are used in our law books and constitution to interpret how I as a ‘hindoo’ live and how I may be ‘reformed’ to suit the global culture (meaning White Christian perception). Sadly , it is done by the mentally colonized ‘hindoos’.
Let’s take the word Dharma.
Indic civilization never believed in one right way to live.
Swami Vivekananda said
The proof of one religion depends on the proof of all the rest. It would be most unnatural to have only one way to Truth.
So we have the word Dharma broadly meaning duty, to manifest as Swadharma, rajdharma or varnashrama Dharma where varna can mean social divisions or stage of life. Whatever be , it differs from person to person and for the same person it changes with the stage of life and position in the society. What is an absolutely necessary ritual for a householder is meaningless if and when he reaches the stage of sanyasi.
(To get a perspective, compare this with a Religious practice of a muslim. Can he ever outgrow the stage of doing namaz five times a day? )
The Europeans have something they term as religion and denomination. Indic Civilization has no equivalent ideas.
Once you force Dharma to mean a religion, the entire understanding changes.
It become rigid with a need for a book, a place of worship and some inviolable rituals that would be termed as Essential Religious Practices (ERP).
Call it by any name ,What difference does it make ?
Unfortunately, it makes a world of a difference.
As per Articles 25 and 26, a citizen has rights to practice and propagate his region, but he has no right to pursue a way of life. Recently we have seen that the hizab protests have erupted to assert their right to practice their religion.
A practicing Muslim can demand his rights under these articles to wear hizab, take out a procession, occupy a public place for namaz, running a school the way he wants, demand for halal food ; and the list is endless.
Hindus can exercise any of their basic rights , not as hindus but as common citizens, only if they organize themselves into a religious group. For example if a small group of 20-30 people want to gather at a riverside for performing pind daan , they need to prove in the Court that the practice is essential for them.
Denomination is a word that basically relates to a christian sect, to indicate one of the 45000 sects globally; yes , people, there is no typo or any extra zero.
Followers of Jesus span the globe. But the global body of more than 2 billion Christians is separated into thousands of denominations. Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Apostolic, Methodist — the list goes on. Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.
When two Christians talk about their faith the question that invariably pops up is “which church do you go to ?”
So to exercise a right to perform a ritual one needs to prove he follows a religion and then belongs to a denomination as understood by White Christians. Then you have to prove that all people who belong to a certain denomination need to practice such a ritual.
This could not be done in the case of Sabarimalai issue as Ayyappa followers are not a denomination and even if they are, not all temples of ‘Deity Ayyappa’ are same .
Hare Krishna !
Just bad translation of words resulting in gross miscarriage of justice. Today we ourselves are thinking in a language that misrepresents our identity and our way of life.
That’s how an entire civilization has been lost in Translation.
True. This itself seems like the subject for a whole book. But I have often seen reference to this in many books ..that many of our words like Dharma are always mistranslated and misunderstood….
You make a valid point Murali, if the Constitution of India needs to define everything for it to be embodied in it, how best would it be done?
Something that Advocate Jai Sai Deepak could best attempt at – he has the understanding of our “way of life” & culture; and the sharpness of a legal mind to make sure.
Definition in English or any Alien language is okay as long as it is accepted that it can never be translated exactly. The essence of a desi word should be internalized. .
When I translate Vrat or Viratham into ‘fast’ I am aware that they are different. But someone who thinks in English and detests anything ‘desi’ discards the word ‘vrat’ and sticks to ‘fast’. Then he goes on to explain the meaning as spelt out in Oxford Dictionary to the ignorant desis.
Better not to translate at all. Accept these words as untranslatable.
Agree with you in totality that translation, does kill, at least partially if not fully the real meaning or implication of any word. It is true for every language or even vernacular and dialects. That makes translation a skill full task.
Rest all inferences you have drawn are debatable. Most debates related to religious issues have two angles to it. One is reformists’ and other one is revisionists’ (driven staunchly by faith and most of the times, politics). Hindus, often being liberal and open, raise their voice as reformists, and without fear being in Hindu majoritarian state. But, we have equally strong revisionists, raising voices among Hindus, especially of late. Islam, ironically is closed to any reform (officially). Christianity, I don’t know. But it’s followers mostly are not hostage to their book in day to day life. Sikhs, are equally staunch and protective about their faith.
PS: [A small typo (region). Should be religion]
Raj,
If there is one community ( I will not use the word religion here) that is open to change it is the indic civilization …Contrary to what many people think, whether it is sati or bal vivah or untouchability , the movement for change started from the community itself , not from govt or judiciary. Once the community initiates a change , the legislature acts and laws are made. There is absolutely no role for judiciary.
Neither the govt nor the judiciary has a role in interfering in sampradaya followed by a community as it happened in Sabarimalai case.
As I said , bad translation is okay as long as it doesn’t affect my way of life. Here ,that’s exactly what’s happening.