The two papers in this session consider issues in translation and retelling in the tradition of the _Mahābhārata_. Shankar Ramaswami’s paper compares the account in the _Mahābhārata_ of the snake sacrifice by Janamejaya with the retelling of it in Arun Kolatkar’s English poem “Sarpa Satra.” He argues that while Kolatkar’s poem suggests the contours of a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma (as that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth), this ideal is actually more fully developed in the critical edition of the _Mahābhārata_. Fred Smith’s paper approaches the ongoing project of translating the critical edition of the _Mahābhārata_ as an effort of retranslation, and describes the current publication plan. He compares examples from earlier efforts at translating segments of the text. Advances in translation methodology and cultural understanding can give greater focus to the meaning, intent, and comprehensibility of a received text.
What is Arun Kolatkar’s reading of Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice and the burning of the Khandava forest, as depicted in the poem, Sarpa Satra (2004)? If the poem describes the snake sacrifice as “cynical,” a “mockery”, and a “grotesque parody” of a yajna, what would constitute a true, proper yajna? Why does Jaratkaru advise Astika to stop the sacrifice, not for the sake of the Nagas, but to save “the last vestige of humanity”? In addressing these questions, I will argue that although Sarpa Satra seems to present an anthropocentric understanding of dharma (in which human beings should live and let other species live), there are materials in the poem that suggest the contours of a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma (as that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth), an ideal that is more fully developed in the critical edition of the Mahabharata.
Translation and retranslation: thoughts on methodology, with respect to the Mahābhārata
This is a report on the present state of the Mahābhārata translation by Primus Books, Delhi, which is the completion of the translation of the Pune critical edition undertaken by the University of Chicago Press more than half a century ago, but now permanently suspended. At this point, more than half a century after van Buitenen commenced that translation and 140 years after Ganguli began the first translation of the complete Mahābhārata in Calcutta, we are best served by viewing the present project as a retranslation. This paper will examine some of the methodologies or retranslation, a subfield of translation studies, in order to appraise how advances in this field will help us to better understand the Indian national epic.