Translation

He says: “Doniger translates “dharma” as “religion”. Apparently, Indians should not criticize that because we know neither what the English word “religion” means nor do we know what “dharma” means because neither English nor Sanskrit is our mother tongue.” First of all I do not say or imply that Indians should not criticize the translation. I merely point out that (a) there is indeterminacy in …

One could justifiably see spirituality (the Jewish, Christian and Islamic) as ‘Adhyatma’ if one focusses on the psychological transformations that a human being undergoes in the process of moving from the mundane life to a ‘spiritual’ one. You would be closer to the notion of ‘Adhyatma’ if you can also additionally guide such a process. Such guidance requires, of course, that there is some deep …

I want to respond to three of your points Claus. First you are not talking only about the Greeks and the Romans because all the problems arising with respect to the phenomena of non-Western societies and culture are/were equally the problems in the frameworks of different varieties of culture. You not only talk about the Greeks and the Romans, you gave examples about the French and the English as …

Note: For a broader application and context, please read this paper: translation, interpretation and culture The word ’temple’ is not used in English to refer to a place where false gods are worshipped. It is used to speak of “the temple of Solomon” (the king Solomon of the Jews) too and there is no suggestion in the western culture that the Jews worshipped false gods. Your friend is providing you …

Firstly, you want to know whether there is anything intrinsically wrong with performing idol worship the way it is with robbery. Let us assume that we agree we know what robbery is and that it is intrinsically wrong. We need to make these assumptions because (a) in all probability, the robbers do not see anything intrinsically wrong in the act of robbing; (b) even then, some of us might not be …

Here is the question: How would one translate the word ‘God’ into, say, Sanskrit? Now, the answer has to satisfy certain conditions because the question also meets certain conditions. Let me say very clearly what all these are, so that the playground and the rules are transparent and favour no one party in the dispute. I propose we accept the best theory of meaning that exists in the market place. …

Why understanding bullshit is important? Three reasons: (a) there is a very frequent use of the word ‘bullshit’ (mostly in my posts); (b) bullshit has been tied directly to truth in the literature on the subject, (c) far more important is the fact that it is much more connected to knowledge than has so far been acknowledged. In this post, the focus is on the third reason. I First, an …

The problem is more complicated and the implications far more massive than either of us can even dream of. In fact, I think we are not even aware of the nature, size and the dimensions of the problem(s) today. We do not even know whether we are dealing with something called the ‘translation’ problem or whole sets of other issues and problems that also redefine what it is to ‘translate’ texts …

Check Balu’s paper on comparative theology, and in particular Francis Clooney’s: Translation, interpretration and culture: on the disingenuity of a comparative theology

If we want to grasp the nature of the discussions in the Indian traditions, there is much we need to do beforehand: (a) identify the entity they were talking about; (b) identify the specific questions they were answering; (c) identify the generic questions that defined both the outlines of the acceptable answers and the formulation of the specific questions; etc. (The ‘cetera’ indicates that I do …

In one sense, the title of the piece captures the nature of the tasks facing the contemporary generation, whether in India or in the Diaspora. This generation, unlike many from mine, is confident and self-assured; perhaps, it is proud too about the strength of its culture and traditions. Rightly so. However, personal convictions about the value of our traditions and culture do not automatically …

In our daily life, we hardly pause to reflect upon many problematic things that we routinely assume as self-evident. Such an attitude is useful since it allows us to focus on other things that occupy us at that moment. One such attitude is not to bestow too much care on how we use language: we routinely speak of similarity in meaning, identical concepts, exact and accurate translations and so on. …

The problem about translating ‘sruti’ is not as easy as it has been made out to be. Is it possible to translate it as ‘revelation’ or even as ‘divine revelation’? Because it has so far been translated in this manner, we can only conclude that it is indeed possible to do so. Next issue: how accurate is this translation? The answer to this question depends upon what ‘revelation’ or ‘divine …

Many are concerned that English translations of some words from native languages distort their meaning. If we restrict ourselves to terms like ‘Deva’, ‘Dharma’ and such like, the worry is not just that their translations distort the meaning of these words (as we use them in our native languages) but that they suggest something (by way of reference and meaning) that does not even exist in these …

I do not have a theory of meaning. I do not know which of the many fragmentary theories of meaning I should choose from and why. Even though I acknowledge the importance of the topic, I do not feel called upon to do research on it. So far, I have been able to steer clear of the topic in an interesting way: I am able to show that what appears as translation problem or a meaning problem (how should …

X says: “Wendy Doniger translates all the Sanskrit words into English and thereby ends up distorting their meaning. Dharma becomes religion, Varna becomes color, and apparently she ends up even translating the names of some tribes into English.” Assuming that this is the case (assumption is on my part because I have neither read her translation nor do I intend reading it), what is the problem? Out …

Is the Bhagavad Gita revelation? E.g. 15:15, rendered by one translator as “And I am seated in the hearts of all; from Me are memory, knowledge, as well as their loss; I am verily that which has to be known by all the Vedas; I am indeed the author of the Vedanta as well as the knower of the Vedas”.If nothing else, the authorship of Vedanta is what is revealed here. But the claim is there both to …

To take German language, let us look at how Heidegger talks about ‘being’: there is the ‘big Being’ (‘Sein’) and there is the ‘small being’ (‘Dasein’ meaning ’there-being’ or ‘so-being’). And then there is ‘Sein’ and ‘Seindes’. All these are translated by the word ‘being’. To jump back a couple of hundred years, and pick up another philosopher with the same alphabet and the same language, we have …

X says: if “pujya” means “worthy of worship”, wouldn’t “puja” mean worship? ‘Pujya’ means “deserving of ‘puja’”. If ‘puja’ translated as ‘worship’, quite obviously one translates ‘pujya’ as you do. You see, what is at stake is not a mere ’translation’ problem. It has to do with how the Indian culture (and not merely this one culture, I might add) has been, and continues to be, represented not just …

1.1. The inherent logic of such an enterprise forces one, as it were, to build alternate theories to the existing, ‘western’ theories. Instead of explaining this statement in the abstract, let me take a concrete example to illustrate what I mean. 1.2. In the University of Chicago, there is a certain Richard Shweder. He practices ‘Cultural Psychology’, and is (was?) professor of ‘Human …