Sir William Jones Revisited: On His Translation of the Śakuntalā

Author(s): William Jones, Garland Cannon and Siddheshwar Pandey

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 96, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1976), pp. 528-
535
Published by: American Oriental Society
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 SIR WILLIAM JONES REVISITED:
ON HIS TRANSLATION OF THE SAKUNTALA

GARLANDCANNONAND SIDDHESHWARPANDEY
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Jones's pioneeringversion had to resolve numerousproblems. He had to see down through

the sandhi, as it were, to discover the constituent elements of complex conglomerates. In
attempting to communicate the local color of flora, fauna, and divinities' names, he had
to make original Roman transliterations,some of which later joined the English language,
and to insert brief descriptive explanations into the text without disturbing the artistry.
His version permitted later translators to stand on his shoulders while utilizing the now
easily available linguistic aids and resources. Yet these modern translators did not
always achieve Kalidasa's extremely sensuous, colorful, and concrete imagery growing
directly out of the Hindu tradition, sometimes because an item or concept is simply un-
translatable. At times they unsatisfactorily attempted conveyance of the explicitly
erotic passages that Jones tried to conceal, partly so as not to diminish the Oriental
treasure that he was seeking to communicateto the West.

SIR WILLIAMJONES'STRANSLATION of Kalidasa's of his translation but also made us oblivious of

Sakuntala (1789) was a major event introducing the immense linguistic and cultural barriers he
the literary East to the West. It aroused so had to overcome in accomplishing this task. Along
much interest among Western scholars that within with this we forget that most later translators
seven years it was reprinted thrice in Britain and have stood on Jones's shoulders while utilizing
was retranslated into French, German, and Ital- the now easily available linguistic aids and re-
ian.1 Goethe eulogized the drama in his oft- sources.
quoted stanza and modelled the Prologue to Faust When he arrived in India in 1783, Jones was
after Kalidasa. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy almost ignorant of Indian literature. His earliest
of the 1790 reprint of Jones's translation; a London "Indian" work, "The Palace of Fortune: An Indian
1792 edition seems to have reached a wider circle Tale" (Poems, 1772), was based on a secondhand
of American readers.2 Since then several scholars, source, Alexander Dow's Tales Translated from
both Western and Indian, have tried to emulate the Persian of Inatulla. Inspired by a non-literary
Jones, and some have been acclaimed as success- and humanitarian zeal to translate the Manava-
ful.3 Certain improvements upon Jones's pio- Dharmasdstra (Ordinances of Manu) so that the
neering work have not only diminished the worth Indian people might be ruled justly according
to "their own prejudices, civil and religious, and
1 Garland Cannon, OrientalJones
(London: Asia Pub- suffered to enjoy their own customs unmolested,"
lishing House, 1964), p. 165. He is now revising this he started learning Sanskrit. But the Brahmans,
biography for publication by the Clarendon Press in the traditional custodians of Sanskrit manuscripts,
1977.
jealously guarded the sacred texts and would
2 J. P. Rao Rayapati, Early American Interest in
not impart the knowledge of their divine language
Vedanta (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1973), to a mlechha (unclean and unsanctified one). In
pp. 55-56. 1785 he found a non-Brahman teacher, who
3 G. L. Anderson comments in the
bibliographical agreed to help him learn the language.4 In the
entry of Ryder's translation in Shakuntala and Other short period of three years (1785-88) he gained a
Writings(New York: Dutton, 1959): "ArthurW. Ryder's mastery over Sanskrit and immersed himself in
translation of Kalidasa's work is the best in English, its literature. He wrote poems based on Sanskrit
though Monier Williams' translation of 'Shakuntala'
is satisfactory and Sir William Jones' (1789) is still 4 TheLettersof Sir William Jones, ed. Cannon(Oxford:
worth reading." ClarendonPress, 1970), 2 vols. See II, 687.

528

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 CANNONAND PANDEY: Sir William Jones Revisited 529

texts-"A Hymn to Camdeo" (1784), "A Hymn Laws (1776). Jones described both his method
to Narayan" (1785), and "The Enchanted Fruit; and intent:
or, The Hindu Wife" (1785)-as language-learning I soon procureda correct copy of it; and, assisted by
exercises and more as appreciation for Hindu
my teacher RSmalochan, began with translating it
literature. As a further exercise in Sanskrit
verbally into Latin, which bears so great a resemblance
learning, he translated and finished revising the to Sanscrit,that it is more convenient than any modern
Hitopadesa (Amiable Instructions) in 1786; it was language for a scrupulousinterlineary version: I then
his first major translation in India. But his second turned it word for word into English, and afterwards,
major translation, of Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, without adding or suppressing any material sentence,
marked his incursion into great Sanskrit literature
disengaged it from the stiffness of a foreign idiom,
representing a synthesis of philosophy, mysticism, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian
eroticism, and artistic expression. drama, which I now present to the publick as a most
His poetic imagination was kindled by the
pleasing and authentick picture of the old Hindu
Hindu pantheon: "I am in love with the Gopia,
manners, and one of the greatest curiosities that the
charmed with Crishen, an enthusiastick admirer
literature of Asia has yet brought to light.7
of Ram, and a devout adorer of Brihma-bishen-
mehais: not to mention, that Jidishteir, Arjen, Jones's method of translation required a con-
Corno, and the other warriours of the M'hab harat siderable knowledge of Sanskrit grammar and
appear greater in my eyes than Agamemnon, lexicon. In Sanskrit the words with their in-
Ajax, and Achilles appeared, when I first read flectional endings, prefixes, and suffixes merge into
the Iliad."5 In admiring all these, he might have a single complex conglomerate of sounds which
been content to be a pagan in the sense that must be disengaged into separate constituents
Wordsworth and Keats later were: "I am no according to sandhi rules. In real life the task
Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus would be like listening to the sequence "Swarm"
concerning a future state to be incomparably and interpreting it as "It is warm." It would be
more rational, more pious, and more likely to as difficult as cutting the word antidisestablish-
deter men from vice, than the horrid opinions mentarianism into its constituent morphemes for
inculcated by Christians on punishments 'without a learner of English. Here is an extreme example
end. '" from Dushyanta's soliloquy in the gakuntala:
By the time Jones discovered the Sakuntala, he evam atmdbhiprayasambhavitesfajanacittavrttih prartha-
had mastered Sanskrit, developed a deep apprecia-
yitavipralabhyate(Act II, between verses 1 and 2)8
tion for Hindu literature, and become a consum-
mate translator. He had now emerged from the It would be divided in the following way:
rigorous exercises of apprenticeship to undertake dtma/abhiprdya/sambhavita/ista/jana/citta/vrtti ....
the difficult task of translating Kalidasa. By
now the Brahmans, too, were impressed by his Some of the constituents could be further sub-
dedication and humanistic concern. In 1787 he divided. Jones translated this verse as "Thus do
claimed that he could converse fluently in Sanskrit lovers agreeably beguile themselves, when all the
with pundits and was translating all that he met powers of their souls are intent on the objects of
with. Curious to know whether ndfakas contained their desire" (IX, 403). It is not a bad rendering.
information about Hindu law and mores, he was His early apprenticeship in translating simpler
informed by a learned Brahman, Radhakant Sar- Sanskrit texts made it possible for him to ac-
man, that ndtakas were plays similar to those in complish this arduous task admirably. Of course,
English. Delighted with the help from this pundit, he had the assistance of his learned pundit, Ram-
he chose to translate the Sakuntald, "the most lochan. But then other linguistic problems had
esteemed" Sanskrit play. to be solved. Kalidasa's kavya is notably poetry
He adopted the interlinear-intermediate Latin
translation method, an example set by his friend 7 Preface to
Sacontald; or, the Fatal Ring: an Indian
Nathaniel Halhed in rendering a Persian version Drama, by Calidds (Calcutta: Joseph Cooper, 1789), in
of Sanskrit law into English, A Code of Gentoo The Works of Sir William Jones (London: John Stock-
dale and John Walker, 1807), IX, 366-367.
5 To Wilkins of 22 June 8
1784, Letters, II, 652. Kalidasa-Lexicon; Abhijilanasakuntala, ed., A. Schar-
6 To Earl Spencer of 4 Sept. 1787, Letters, II, 765-768. pe (Brugge: De Tempel, 1954), Vol. I, Part 1, p. 25.

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 530 Journal of the American Oriental Society 96.4 (1976)

of nature and human love. He frequently refers message or in accompanying explanation, e.g., marginal
to local flora and fauna, in addition to numerous notes.11
allusions to Hindu divinities. The task of trans-
Jones knew his audience's limitations extremely
lation was beset with special problems because
well and decided to incorporate the needed an-
no equivalent words for the originals existed in
notations, explanations, and definitions into the
eighteenth-century English. In fact, Jones used text even though these would be redundant to a
at least 118 different nouns transliterated from
Sanskrit student. For example,
the Sanskrit, including what may have been the
first written use of avatar, Brahma, champac, lat, Man. This, Madam, is the numerous and polite
and Vedanta.9 These words were essential to assembly of the famed Hero, our king Vicramaditya,
create the environment of the original play and the patron of every delightful art. (IX, 378)
to communicate ideas far removed from European Madh. (Laughing) Stay suspended between them
culture. He skillfully incorporated them into his both, like King Trisancu between heaven and earth;
text without appearing obscure or stilted. Re- the pious men said, "RiseI" and the gods of Swerga
garding the use of such proper names of personages said, "Fall I" (IX, 415)
or places in translation, Rolfe Humphries aptly In the first passage Jones supplied the historical
comments: context by adding "the famed Hero, our King
We all know how, as soon as a word begins with a Vicramaditya, the patron of every delightful art."
capital letter, boys and girls get the absolute horror Similarly, in the jesting remarks of Madhavya,
and tie their tongues all up in knots over words that he added his annotation about Trisanku's plight
would bother them no whit in lower case. They prove of being suspended between the two worlds. If
stumbling blocks to the translator, too .... Some he tried word-for-word translation, omitting ex-
names, whether of or
place persons, let's face it, mean planations and annotations because they were
nothing to us in allusion or connotation, and one of not in the original, there would be obscurity in
our obligations to the original author is not to bore the first passage and no humor in the second.
his audience .... Occasionally I will include, in the Murray B. Emeneau, whose modern prose trans-
text proper, material that would otherwise have to lation has been acclaimed as extremely literal and
go in eye-droppingfootnotes.10 faithful, uses the same number of words as Kali-
dasa, but he explains the passage in an annotation:
Eugene A. Nida elaborates on the same problem "Clown (smiling) Sir I Stay halfway between like
and suggests a solution: Trisanku."12
The extent to which adjustment should be made It is interesting that Monier-Williams renders
depends very largely upon the audience for which the story of Trisanku by adding more than a
the translation is designed. For example, if it is to be dozen words to the original. While he improves
used by those who have little or no backgroundin the upon Jones's prose translation through the use
subject matter and relatively little experience in of blank verse, he misses the dramatic effect:
decoding such texts, a greater degree of redundancy Madhavya: You will have to take up an intermediate
must be built into the translation. Accordingly, there position between the two, like King Tri-
will not only be more adjustments, but the adjustments sanku, who was suspendedbetween heaven
made will be far-reaching. Moreover,the nature of the and earth, because the sage ViSwamitra
audience determines to a large extent whether these commanded him to mount up to heaven,
adjustments are to be reflected in the text of the and the gods ordered him down again.13
Consider another example from a love scene.
9 Cannon, "Sir William King Dushyanta allays Sakuntala's fear that this
Jones's Translation-Inter-
marriage may not be agreeable to Kanva:
pretation of Sanskrit Literature," Literature East &
West, XV (Fall 1972), 370. See also his "Sir William 11 Toward a Science of Translating
Jones's Indian Studies," JAOS 91.3 (July-Sept. (Leiden: E. J.
1971), Brill, 1964), pp. 226-227.
421-422. 12 Emeneau's tr.
10 "Latin and English Verse-Some Practical Consider- AbhijiVdna-Sakuntald (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of CaliforniaPress, 1962), p. 26.
ations," in R. A. Brower's On Translation (Cambridge: 13 Sakoontala; or the Lost
Ring (Hertford: Stephen
Harvard University Press, 1959), pp. 63-64.
Austin, 1856), p. 57.

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 CANNON AND PANDEY: Sir William Jones Revisited 531

Many daughtersof the holiest men have been married proper interpretation. Jones attempted to com-
by the ceremony called Gandharva, as it is practised municate precisely this contexual meaning to his
by Indra's band, and even their fathers have approved European audience.
them. (IX, 431) In some places Jones supplied the exact refer-
Kalidasa's original text has only one phrase, gdn- ence to explicate vague allusions to an Indian
dharvena vivdhena. The textual annotation is es- mythological or folklore name. For example, Dus-
sential to explain the mythological and customary hyanta exclaims when Sakuntala comes back un-
allusions to the West, although it is unnecessary expectedly: "The bird Chatac, whose throat was
for the Indian audience. Let us compare Monier parched with thirst, supplicated for a drop of
Williams' rendering of this speech: water, and suddenly a cool stream poured into
his bill from the bounty of a fresh cloud" (IX,
King: In Indra's heaven, so at least 'tis said,
433). The original text has just the word paksina
No nuptial rites prevail, nor is the bride
(bird), not its name Chatac, which it exactly
Led to the altar by her future spouse; alludes to. It is useful to compare Jones's render-
But all in secret does the bridegroomplight
ing with Emeneau's to realize how essential the
His troth, and each unto the other vow
word Chatac is: "As soon as the bird, its throat
Mutual allegiance. Such espousal, too,
parched by thirst, begged for water, a stream was
Are authorized on earth, and many daughters
discharged from a new-formed cloud and descended
Of royal saints thus wedded to their lords, to its mouth" (p. 38). Then Emeneau annotates:
Have still received their father's benison. (p. 79) "Of course the Cataka-bird, for which see vii.
Arthur W. Ryder's translation reads: 7 and note" (p. 112). The folklore behind the
For many a hermit maiden who allusion is that the Cataka bird lives on the drops
that rain in a particular season of the year called
By simple, voluntary rite
Svati; it keeps on thirstily looking toward the
Dispensed with priest witness, yet
Found favour in her father's sight.14 clouds till it gets the desired drops, but refuses to
taste any other kind of water. In the context of
And yet another rendering by a Swedish scholar, this reference, Dushyanta's words have much
A. Hjalmar Edgren (1894): richer meaning.
Often, as tradition tells, Besides elucidating passages which would other-
Have daughters of a royal saint wise be obscure, Jones's use of such Hindu words
Been wedded by Gandharva rites, served another important purpose. The content
And yet their fathers' blessing won.15 as well as the sound and the form of an unfamiliar
word, if skillfully employed, could help create
The Sanskrit phrase gandharvena vivdhena means the needed new world for his culturally removed
"by Gandharva marriage." Ryder uses "voluntary audience. He used more than a hundred Sanskrit
rite" and Emeneau "the rite of mutual agreement" items, of which more than sixty are common
(p. 37). An Indian scholar, P. Lal, renders it as nouns. Some of them have English equivalents:
"Gandharva rites."'6 While Ryder and Emeneau kokila (cuckoo), madhavi (jasmine), amra (mango),
attempt to define the word, Lal wants the reader etc. It is interesting that even modern translators
to consider it as a fossilized noun from the old still use these words, not their English equivalents.
Hindu tradition. But this does not solve the Jones and later translators realized the evocative
problem. The word gdndharva is loaded with capacity of these Sanskrit words for helping create
semantic content, harking back to ancient Hindu Kailidasa's pastoral-mythological-romantic world.
literature as much as any such noun in other These words surely enrich the symbolism which
classical literature looks back to its milieu for Western critics have found in the gakuntald.
14 Shakuntala
Lal believes that the Sanskrit language has
and Other Writings (New York: E. P. enchained many translators to its structures and
Dutton, 1959), p. 34. has been mainly responsible for bad translations
15 Shakuntala or
the Recovered Ring, in Six Sanskrit of Kalidasa. Early translators failed to com-
Plays, ed. Henry W. Wells (London: Asia Publishing municate the essence of Kalidasa because
they
House, 1964), p. 229. remained slavishly faithful to Sanskrit: "The thing
16 Shakuntala, in Great Sanskrit
Plays (New York: to do is to attempt to preserve not the Sanskrit
New Directions, 1964), p. 35.
language but the Hindu tradition which it en-

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532 Journal of the American Oriental Society 96.4 (1976)

shrines; in fact, I would suggest that the best other, the less of the original can be salvaged in
way to translate Shakuntala is to have the trans- the process of transfer."'7
lation as far removed from the coils of Sanskrit Let us consider the above verse in some detail.
as possible" (p. 8). "O thou with-thighs-like-the-outer-edge-of-the-
The crux is that in translating Sanskrit poetry, palm-of-the-hand" is the literal rendering of one
one does not know where the Hindu tradition compound word in the original, karabhoru, which,
begins and the Sanskrit language ends. A trans- according to Sandhi rules, could be divided as
lation based on Lal's notion would presuppose karabha and uru. Uru means "thigh," but karabha
communication of the content to the exclusion might mean either "the outer edge of the palm"
of the stylistic component of the source language. or "the young elephant." While accepting the
Patently, this would be a paraphrase or summary, latter interpretation in his annotation ("Literally,
not a translation. A translation is successful in- one whose thigh tapers like an elephant-trunk"),
sofar as it substitutes both matter and style of Emeneau omits this from his translation and comes
the source language. Modern linguistics has shown closer to Jones:
that the medium is as important as the content; Shall I wave the lotus-leaf fan, its breeze damp with
much of the original import is lost the moment
spray that removes fatigue, or shall I put your lotus-
that style is sacrificed. If some translators pro- red feet in my lap and stroke them to ease you, O
duced "succulent silliness" (Lal), it was as much
beautiful-thighed girl? (p. 36)
from their "overtly meticulous attention to the
Sanskrit" as it was from their inattention to "O beautiful-thighed girl" was probably the ut-
the spirit of the English language and from their most a translator could include and still remain
inability to transfer the Sanskrit content into faithful to the original. Jones probably had,
a language culturally removed in time and geo- among other things, such expressions in mind
graphy. when he referred to "the stiffness of the foreign
In view of these facts, let us examine a verse idiom" in his Preface. One of his tasks as a
from P. K. Roy's translation of the Sakuntala translator and mediator between the East and the
(as quoted by Lal): West was to get rid of such expressions. Pruned
of the stiffness, Jones's rendering is as faithful
Shall I work the lotus-leaf-fan whose breeze is moist as any translator's:
with particles of water that allay lassitude; or O thou,
with thighs-like- the-outer-edge-of- the- palm-of-the- Why should not I, like them, wave this fan of lotus
hand, having placed your lotus-red feet in my lap, leaves, to raise cool breeze and dissipate your un-
shall I press them as is agreeable to you? (p. 7) easiness? Why should not I, like them, lay softly in
my lap those feet, red as water lilies, and press them,
Roy's adherence to Sanskrit lexicon and English O my charmer, to relieve your pain? (IX, 429)
grammar produces these lines. But allegiance to
these two components only partly fulfills the con- Both "O beautiful-thighed girl" (Emeneau) and
ditions for a good translation. The language of "O my charmer" (Jones) are quite acceptable,
but neither "O thou with-thighs-like-the-outer-
poetry in Shakespeare and Kalidaisa stretches far
edge-of-the-palm-of-the-hand" nor "O thou with-
beyond the lexical superficialities. Despite his
thighs-like-the-tapering-trunk-of-an-elephant" is
grammaticalness and literalness, Roy has produced
agreeable to a European audience. Even Monier-
phrases which might be called linguistic mon- Williams and Ryder realized the difficulty of
strosities from a cultural no-man's land between
translating such an expression and quietly dropped
Sanskrit and English. If zeal for faithfulness to it altogether. Thus Monier-Williams:
the original requires such translations, we should
search for some compromise or approximation Oh let me tend thee, fair one, in the place
Of thy dear friends; and with broad lotus fans,
between the two languages: "There is no com-
Raise cooling breeze to refresh thy frame;
pletely exact translation. There are approxima- Or shall I rather, with caressing touch,
tions, and the degree of similarity possible between
original and translation depends on the degree of 17 Werner
Winter, "Impossibilitiesof Translation,"in
similarity between the systems of form and mean- William Arrowsmith and Roger Shattuck's The Craft
ing in the two languages involved. The more and Context of Translation (Austin: Univ. of Texas
serious the deviations from one language to the Press, 1961), p. 69.

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 CANNON AND PANDEY: Sir William Jones Revisited 533

Allay the fever of thy limbs, and soothe A. B. Keith underlines the same fact about Kali-
Thy aching feet, beauteous as blushing lilies? (p. 78) dasa:
Now Ryder: It is in the great writers of Kavya alone, headed by
Shall I employ the moistened lotus-leaf Kalidasa, that we find depth of feeling for life and
nature matched with perfection of expression and
To fan away your weariness and grief?
Or take your lily feet upon my knee rhythm. The Kavya literature includes some of the
And rub them till you rest more easily? (p. 33) great poetry of the world, but it can never expect to
attain wide popularity in the West, for it is untrans-
And Edgren: latable; German poets like Riickert can, indeed, base
May I with cooling lotus-fans excellent work on Sanskrit originals, but the effects
Allay the fever of your frame? produced are achieved by wholly different means,
Or take your lily-tinted feet, while English efforts at verse translationsfall invariably
Sweet-molded maid upon my lap, below a tolerable mediocrity, their diffuse tepidity
And, gently stroking, soothe your pain? (pp. 228-229) contrasting painfully with the brilliant condensation
of style, the elegance of metre, and the close adaptation
Finally, Lal's attempt to free Kalidasa from "the of sound to sense of the originals.19
coils of the Sanskrit language":
In our examination of the translation of Kali-
Shall I fan you with the lotus leaf? Would you dasa's kdvya, it would be relevant to know what
rather I pressed your tired feet ? (p. 35)
happens to his srigara rasa (erotic element), where-
It is evident from these examples that, in trans- in lies some of his consummate artistry. It is in
lating, we look for equivalence, not always exact- rendering the erotic and sensual expressions that
ness, at the cost of idiomatic beauty. This is Jones is alleged to have been puritanical, along
specially true when the material is so inextricably with his failure to see the necessity for a prose
native that it cannot be poured into another mold and verse translation to communicate Kalidasa's
without sacrificing its original charm. Thus Jones Shakespeare-like linguistic and stylistic ingenuity
and others replaced Kalidasa's extremely sensous, in mirroring the social status of the individual
colorful, and concrete image growing directly out characters. But his approach to .rnigdrarasa was
of the Hindu tradition with their more familiar, also flawed, amid the circumstantial, linguistic,
if commonplace, phrases. This also explains why and cultural barriers imposed on his pioneering
Monier-Williams and Ryder ignored its presence effort:
altogether. The untranslatability of the item His minor errorsin translation, his ratherpuritanical
forced them to give it up, for blemishes in trans- rendering of the sensual lines, his working from a
lation due to inclusion can be more glaring than padded recension in the first place, and his using only
those due to omission. prose without any particular effort to discriminate
The problem is not peculiar to Kalidasa or social level were predictably unobserved by his Euro-
other culturally removed poets; it may be built pean readers, who were stunned to learn that antique
into the works of any poet of genius. Pointing India had a rich culture.20
to the problem of untranslatability, Jackson
Mathews quotes Paul Valery: While Jones's own stern morality made him censor
the love scene in the play, his literary intuition
Painters, sculptors, and musicians can be understood led him to adjudge the repetition without know-
beyond the borders of their country, but a poet, as
ing that a better, Devanagari recension existed.
Valery says, 'is never profoundly, intimately, and He said in his Preface: "it must be confessed that
completely understood and felt but by his own people; the whole of Dushmanta's conversation with his
he is inseparable from the speech of his nation ....
to the poet belongs the privilege and inevitable dis- buffoon, and a great part of his courtship in the
hermitage might be omitted without any injury
advantage that his work cannot be translated either to the drama" (IX, 372).
into prose or into a foreign language. A true poet is
strictly untranslatable.'18 19 A History
of Sanskrit Literature (London: Oxford
University Press, 1966), pp. vii-viii.
18 "On Translating Poetry," in Brower's On Trans- 20 Cannon, "SirWilliam Jones's
IntroducingSakuntald
lation, pp. 73-74. to the West," Style, IX (Winter, 1975), 89.

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 534 Journal of the American Oriental Society 96.4 (1976)

Yet in his translation of erotic and sensual pas- Here at the entrance, in the sand,
sages, he did not make any major alterations and I see a line of recent steps,
took fewer liberties with the text than did Monier Markedlight in front, but by the weight
Williams and Ryder. Let us compare the various Of rounded hips more deep behind. (p. 223)
renderings of one simple verse. Love-sick Dush- We have examined three types of translations
yanta, looking for Sakuntala, suddenly discovers and six translators, from Jones to Lal. Monier-
her footprints in the yellow sand and comments Williams and Jones try to hide the would-be
on their unique shape:
grossness resulting from the explicit mention of
abhyunnatapurastad avaga.dhajaghanagauravatpascat female hips in the original. Emeneau and Edgren
dvare 'sya pandusikatepadapanklirdrsyate bhinayd find words closer to the original and explicitly
(Kdlidasa-Lexicon,Act III, 9, p. 36) express what is actually in the text. Both Ryder
and Lal omit the phrases descriptive of female
We will start with Emeneau's literal translation,
which is closest to Kalidasa: hips, probably because they found no suitable
equivalents. But by dropping the phrases they
at its entrance with its yellow sand there appears diminish Kalidasa's
poetry built around the Hindu
a fresh row of footsteps shallow at the toe depressed concept of beauty. At the same time one cannot
at the heel because of the heaviness of her hips. (p. 29) say that the literal and faithful Edgren and
the Emeneau have really done great justice to Kali-
Ryder drops phrase describing Sakuntala's
the cause of the unique footprints: dasa by being closer and more explicit. Many
physique,
readers, in the absence of exactly equivalent ex-
In white sand at the door
pressions in English to communicate the whole
Fresh footprints appear, content of the original, might still prefer Jones and
The toe lightly outlined,
Monier-Williams, who transfer the idea but some-
The heel deep and clear. (p. 28) times not the literal meaning. This is a typical
Lal drops the words which explain the formation example of the inextricable fusing of the Sanskrit
of the type of footprints, but adds his own ludi- language and the Hindu tradition by which Ka-
crous explanation. lidSsa produced artistry.
The Hindu concept of a beautiful, desirable
here are her footprints, shallow in front and deep
woman appears in several of the ancient books,
at the back: she must be very tired. (p. 31)
paintings, and sculptures. The Indian law-giver
Now let us consider three other translators, Manu ordained: "Let him (a Brahman) wed a
including Jones, who seem to vie with each other female free from bodily defects, who has an agree-
in their renderings. Both Jones and Monier-Wil- able name, the (graceful) gait of a Hamsa (a swan)
liams come close to the original except for the or of an elephant."21 The sage Vatsayana's well-
use of genteel words. Jones suggests the general known Kama Sitra, a treatise on erotic love,
idea while scrupulously avoiding any grossness classifies women into hansini (swan-like), padmini
in expression: (lotus-like), hastini (elephant-like), etc. Ancient
for I discern on the yellow sand at the door of yon India's painting and sculptures of female figures
arbour some recent footsteps, raised a little before, attest to this concept of beauty:
and depressed behind by the weight of her elegant There is a curious grace about the Ajanta women,
limbs. (IX, 419-420) and quite clearly the artists adored painting them.
Like elegant cats they seem to fall into natural attitudes
Monier-Williams is more verbose, yet more elegant
of their own accord, even though their hour-glass
in hiding the physique:
figures appear to be wildly exaggerated to a Western
For at the entrance here I plainly see eye .... such enormous high breasts and such tiny
A line of footsteps printed in the sand. waists as these; and yet, after you have been looking
Here are the fresh impressions of her feet; at the frescoes for an hour or two it is difficult to think
Their well-known outline faintly marked in front, of the female figure in any other way.22
More deeply toward the heel; betokening
The gracefulundulation of her gait. (p. 64) 21
Georg Biihler tr. The Laws of Manu (New York:
Edgren rivals Emeneau in his explicitness of ex- Dover, 1969), p. 77.
pression, except for the beautifying word rounded: 22 Alan
Moorehead, "The Caves-temples of Ajanta,"

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 CANNON AND PANDEY: Sir William Jones Revisited 535

Probably woman, portrayed primarily as a mother Monier-Williams' more removed "the graceful un-
and progenitor, made the artists accentuate the dulation of her gait." Evidently it is impossible
heaviness and largeness of breasts and hips in to render such expressions both faithfully and
female figures. However, comparison of a beauti- beautifully, and Emeneau's linguistic acumen led
ful female figure to an elephant would appear him to elect the former. Notwithstanding Jones's
strange to a Westerner, though perfectly aesthetic other problems as a pioneer linguist and literary
and natural to Indians, who live surrounded by translator, he tried to steer a middle course. He
these animals and draw their similes and meta- wanted to be faithful without giving his Western
phors mostly from their ecology. audience any impression of grossness and vul-
In light of this concept of Hindu beauty, we garity about Indian culture. He knew that if
can better assess the varied renderings given above. the Sakuntald, the best and most
meticulously
Once the inadequacy of the faithful renderings is chosen specimen of Indian literature, created a
realized, we tend to become less critical of Jones's wrong impression on the West because of his
so-called puritanical approach. The phrase jagha- translation, the very purpose of his whole stu-
nagauravdt is composed of two words, jaghana pendous effort would be defeated. It would seem,
and gauravat. Jaghana might mean "mon veneris, then, that his supposed puritanism was a product
pudenda, buttock, hip and loins, or the hinder- of his mission, his zeal to impress
Europe with
part." The word gauravat has all these associa- the treasures of the Orient.
tions: "weight, heaviness, importance, high value Jones's major purpose in translating the drama
or estimation, gravity, respectability, venerable- was not to enrich Western literature. Nor was
ness, or respect shown to a person."23 There is he particularly desirous of creating another work
almost poetic artistry in the fusion and even of art in translation. As a person extremely
transmutation of the grossly physical (jaghana- sensitive to and perceptive of ideas and
objects-
the hinderS part of a female) and the abstract botanical, linguistic, literary, mythological, and
and respectable (gauravat-heaviness, venerable- humanistic-he was entranced by the hidden lit-
ness, etc.) to raise the resultant compound word erary treasures which he had unearthed. He
to a different level of semantic realization. Per- wanted his fellow-Englishmen to know that India
haps in the art of achieving this balance lies the had a great past. Burdened with his duties as a
subtle effect of Srngdra rasa. This was not in- Supreme Court Justice in Bengal, he had already
compatible for the Hindu whose area of religious impaired his health from extensive overwork. His
thought especially the Tantric tradition conceived linguistic and literary pursuits, highly conscienti-
of a type of yoga in which one is liberated from ously executed, were a time-consuming avocation.
the bondage of this world through sexual union With all humility he said in his Preface: "It is
with the right kind of woman at an auspicious my anxious wish that others may take the pains
moment. to learn Sanscrit, and may be persuaded to trans-
With this linguistic and cultural context in late the works of Calidas." That his translation
mind, the rendering of jaghanagauravut as "the more than served his purpose is evident from the
weight of rounded hips" (Edgren) and "the heavi- enthusiasm it evoked among the Western scholars
ness of her hips" (Emeneau) sounds gross. Despite who tried to retranslate or emulate
its admirable literalness, neither expression can him, ranging
from Goethe to linguists.
substitute for Kalidasa's poetic language. It would Unfortunately, a translation is a secondary work
be an interesting exercise to retranslate such of art. A given rendering is likely to be
inadequate
English expression into Sanskrit or a modern and become dated, to be superseded
Indian language and let those acquainted with by fresh
attempts building upon earlier experiments. This
the original Sanskrit Sakuntald hear it. For ob- has happened to even the King James Bible
vious reasons the readers would presumably prefer and
Chapman's Homer. As for his translation of the
Jones's "the weight of her elegant limbs" or Sakuntald, Jones, if it were possible to ask him,
might agree in all humility with Humphries: "It
The Cornhill (Spring 1955), quoted in B. N. Pandey's will have to be done over again,
A Book of India (London: Collins, 1965), p. 106. anyway, 'post
mea mansurum fata superstes
23 A opus ' is a prayer
Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary the translator knows can never be answered
(Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1964, new ed.). with
any excessive life expectancy" (p. 66).

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