Please recommend good translations from Sanskrit

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Irene Galstian

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Sep 9, 2019, 5:54:04 AM9/9/19
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Dear list,

For the purposes of constructing a parallel corpus of around 1M words (to begin with), I am collecting good translations from Sanskrit into Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian. 
I define a translation as good if it faithfully captures the meaning of the original Sanskrit, including subtleties and word plays - even if the result in the target language isn't particularly smooth according to the literary norms prevalent in that language today.

Your help is requested in two ways:

1. Please list translations and translators you'd describe as good according to the above definition.
2. If you think that a substantial amount of worthwhile translations exists in other Indian languages, please name both the work(s) and the language(s). 

It's desirable to have texts in various genres, so all responses are received with gratitude.

Thank you,
Irene

Sampath Kumar

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Sep 9, 2019, 9:48:48 AM9/9/19
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*64-TantraBooks* are translated -From Sanskrit to Telugu Language
by
*Sampath kumar Medavarapu*
1- Atharva veda Tantra ; 
2-Akaasa Bhairava Tantram -
3-Alabdha Tantraalu- 
4-Badanikaa Tantram- 
5-Bhutadaamara Tantram-
6-Bhutasuddhi Tantram- 
7-Bruhannila Tantram- 
8-Brahma yaamala Tantram-[Up to 51 Patala]
9-Damara Tantram- 
10- Devi kalottaragama Tantram- 
11-Fhetkarini Tantram- 
12-Gandharva Tantram- 
13-Guhya kaali Tantram- 
14-Hevajra Tantram- 
15-Jñanasa kalini Tantram-
16- Kakacha ndisvara Tantram-
17-Kamakala Kaali Tantram -
18-Kamaratna Tantram-
19-Kamakhya Tantram- 
20-Kali karpura Tantram- 
21-Ka kala malini Tantram- 
22-Kaulaachaara Tantram- 
23-Mahamaya Tantram- 
24-Maha nirvaana Tantram- 
25-Meru Tantram- 
26-Mruge ndra Tantram-
27-Mu ndamaala Tantram-
28-Nagarjuna Tantram-
29-Netra Tantram-
30-Nila sarasvati Tantram-
31-Niruttara Tantram-
32-Prapa ncha Sara Tantram- 
33-Pratya ngira Tantram- 
34-Rasa Tantram-
35-Rudra Yamala Tantram-
36- Sarada tilaka Tantram- 
[ padarthadarsa]-
37-Sa khyayana Tantram-
38- Angushta Nadi jataka m
39-Siva Tantram-
40- Sakti pithalu-
41-Srilakshmi Tantram-
42-Nidhi pradipa Tantram-
43-Srisaila Tantram- 44-Jayadratha yamalam - 
45-Tantravaahini-
46-Sri tattvanidhi -
47-Uchishta ganapati Tantram-
48-Saktisa ngama Tantra*
[ kalikhanda]
49- Purascharyarnava - 
50-Yakshini Tantram- 
51- Srividya ganesa Ta ntra m- 
52-Yogini Tantram-   53-Tridasadamara tantram Siddha kapali 
54-Vamachara Tantram- :
55-NirvanaTantram-
56-Vamakesvari Tantram- (English &Telugu)
57-Timirodhghatana Tantram-
58-Va ndhya Tantram-
59-Kubjika Tantram-
60-Vinasikha Tantram- 
61-Tridasa Daamara pratyangira Tantram
62-Dasamahavidya Tantram-
63-Tara Tantra m- 
64-Mahasakti-Ma ntra-Ta ntra-Rahasyalu-
*All these books are available in leading Book stalls in entire Andhra Pradesh*

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Siddharth Wakankar

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Sep 9, 2019, 10:01:32 AM9/9/19
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Hearty congratulations on this singular achievement.

Prof. Siddharth Y Wakankar.
Vadodara.9427339942.

Madhav Deshpande

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Sep 9, 2019, 10:57:40 AM9/9/19
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Dear Irene,

     Translations from Sanskrit into Marathi will be a huge number and this would be a good research project for someone to conduct.  Among top of the line major translations, I would include the following:

Seven volume translation of the Vyākaraṇa-Mahābhāṣya by Vasudeva Shastri Abhyankar

Translation of the Brahmasūtra-Śāṅkarabhāṣya by Vasudeva Shastri Abhyankar

Many volumes of translations of Upaniṣads with Śāṅkarabhāṣya by Vishnushastri Bapat

Translation of Nāgeśabhaṭṭa's Paribhāṣenduśekhara by Shri N. D. Vadegaonkar

Translation of Bhaṭṭojī's Prauḍhamanoramā with Śabdaratna [many volumes] by N. D. Vadegaonkar

Translation of Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra by Kangle

Translation of Ānandavardhana's Dhvanyāloka by Patwardhan and Virkar

Translation of Mammaṭa's Kāvyaprakāśa by Mangrulkar and Arjunwadkar

Many translations of the Bhagavadgītā, including significant works like the Gītārahasya by B. G. Tilak

These are just a fraction of significant Marathi translation that come to my mind.  I am specifically mentioning those translations that contain a significant amount of scholarship beyond translation.  Beyond this short list, there are hundreds of Marathi translations of Sanskrit Kāvyas, dramas, works on Vedānta, stotra literature, and complete translations of works like Rāmāyaṇa, Mahābhārata, Yogavāsiṣṭha, Yogasūtras etc.  There are partial translations of Śābarabhāṣya on Mīmāṃsāsūtras etc.  Some are plain translations, while some have very useful introductions and notes etc.  It would be a good idea for some institution like the Bhandarkar Institute in Pune to undertake a comprehensive bibliography of Marathi translations of Sanskrit works. Connected to this, is the area of commentarial works in Marathi beginning with Jñāneśvarī and including many Marathi Kāvyas on themes from Sanskrit epics, Marathi dramas based on Sanskrit dramas like Śākuntala, Mr̥cchakaṭika etc.   With best wishes,

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


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Sampath Kumar

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Sep 9, 2019, 11:13:46 AM9/9/19
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Below mentioned sanskrit Astrology manuscripts are translated by Sampath kumar Medavarapu in to Telugu language 
1- Kalpalata of Somanatha Misra [ Bhashya on Jaimini Sutras]
  English & Telugu 
2- Jataka sara sangrha of Raghava bhatta  Gottumukkala
3-Vamakeswari Matam -Jyaratha's Sanskrit commentary in to English [Sampatkari]
Sampath kumar Medavarapu
Good Luck
SK सॊऽहं हंसः परमहंसः సోsహం హంసః పరమహంసః}


 

 



            


 


            







Deva Pattanayak

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Sep 9, 2019, 12:36:37 PM9/9/19
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Dear Irene_ji
You missed Odia which is one of the  classical languages and there are many scriptures in Odia.
One example is 
Srimad Bhagabata Mahapurana, by Atibadi Jagannath Das
Gita Press, Gorakhpur, India 273005
This book is very popular and read in almost all villages in Odisha for a long time in a small room called "Bhagabata Tungi". People will gather in the evenings to listen to the Guru followed by discussions.

At the end of this book which is 1083 pages long, there is a list of Odia translations of many original Sanskrit texts.

There is also Odia Mahabharata by  Sudramuni Sarala Das, Dharma Grantha Store, Alissha Bazar, Cuttack. Odisha
Sarala Mahabharata in odia  is also very popular in Odisha.

Interestingly Odia is a highly phonetic language and there are many poets of which Upendra Bhanja come to mind. 

A link about him is 

One of his popular book " Baidehisa Bilasha" about Sita does not use the name sita but other different names of Sita and each line starts with the
letter "ba".

Odia is the language of Odisha which is known by many names. One of its famous name is Kalinga. The famous Konarak temple is there. Also the very well known Jagannath temple of Puri. 

I will be interested to know if you are not aware of the Odia language. If you are ,why you did not include it in your list.
With best wishes
Deva



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Irene Galstian

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Sep 9, 2019, 4:54:04 PM9/9/19
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Thank you to the members who have responded with suggestions. I'll follow these up.

Deva ji, my omission of Odia and other languages was covered by item 2. in the original post: if members feel that more Indian languages need to be represented, could works and languages be mentioned - which is what you did, so now Odia translations need to be looked into. There is another practical constraint. Since I'm assembling translations for a parallel corpus, the quality of these translations matters very much, and I'll be soliciting the advice of Sanskrit scholars I admire and respect. Now in order to assess a translation from A to B, both A and B have to be known to the assessor, yet I don't think any of these individuals knows Odia. Hence my task is twofold: to locate an Odia-speaking Sanskritist whose opinion can be relied on and to locate translations (those kindly listed by you plus maybe additional ones, if more list members reply). 

Irene
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Deva Pattanayak

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Sep 9, 2019, 10:17:11 PM9/9/19
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Dear Irene,
Thank you for your reply. 
There is a  story regarding the Odia Maha Bharata  that goes somewhat like this:
The mother of the bhakta kabi Jagannath Das asked her son to write the Bhagabata in Odia so that she and others do not have to depend on the interpretation of the Sanskrit text by Sanskrit  priests  some of whom  were arrogant and rude.  One of them rebuked her that she was an ordinary "muddha"(stupid) woman when she asked for an explanation of a Sanskrit sloka.  

That led poet Jagannath Das to write Bhagabata in Odia.

I am sure the experts must be aware of this work and that of Sarala Das. These texts were in print around 1500 and was popular in adjacent states like Bengal, because at that time there were no translations in Bengali of Mahabharata or Bhagabata.

The quality of these Odia texts are of a very high calibre.

Would be of general interest to know bit more  about this project which appears to me to be some short of interactive interlanguage dictionary which will be of  interest to some researchers.   

Thank You.

Best wishes
Deva

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Irene Galstian

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Sep 10, 2019, 3:15:27 AM9/10/19
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Dear Deva,

Thank you for the additional information. 
You are right, I'd better clarify what I'm trying to do. If, in light of these clarifications, other works come to mind, please do share them.

My goal is to collect a fairly large number of Sanskrit texts, digitise the ones that haven't been digitised already, but mostly to find well-executed translations of the large volume of already digitised Sanskrit works. The user would then view the translation side by side with the Sanskrit original, which has a number of linguistic benefits compared to lookups of single words (although that functionality will also be available). 

Such a corpus can be used in many ways. 

For example, if several translations of the same Sanskrit text are found (into different Indian or non-Indian languages), there arises the opportunity to gradually get to know these languages. Today Indians are encouraged to learn other Indian languages, which is good advice, but assembling a corpus as described above can make the acquisition of other Indian languages easier for people who already know one of them. 

Or consider the example of a scholar working on a new translation of a Sanskrit text, or perhaps wanting to read a given text with deeper understanding. Or maybe a student learning Sanskrit. He/she could search for the occurrence of a given phrase within the Sanskrit corpus, and then, depending on which languages are known to this person, see how this phrase has been translated by others, as well as the contexts in which the phrase occurs in other Sanskrit texts. Obviously, the more languages the researcher knows, the more translations he/she would be able to make use of and the richer the reward from using the corpus. And if some translations happen to be fanciful, then looking at other translations might mitigate this. There will be a way for the user to customise their workspace by defining which texts and which translations they prefer. Or, if they want to see everything, then they can do that too. On the more technical side, the further automated Sanskrit corpus annotation develops, the more sophisticated tools will be at the disposal of technically savvy users. But there is plenty for everyone even without that functionality. 

While the uses of such a parallel corpus can be manifold, but I make no secret of the fact that my key goal is to advance Sanskrit knowledge worldwide by creating a flexible platform to which texts, translations and dictionaries could be added. I also think that Sanskrit studies would benefit from bringing into the picture other Indian languages, since the many linguistic commonalities there can't be ignored. 

Does this explanation help? If not, please reply with questions, and I'll clarify further. 
Irene

Siddharth Wakankar

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Sep 10, 2019, 3:23:18 AM9/10/19
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Dear Dr.Irene,

Prof.Deshpande has already given a long list.I just add a little more.

MM.Siddheshvar Shastri Chitrao has translated the entire Rigveda in Marathi.

Similarly, Patwardhan and Hivargaonkar also brought out three volumes of Marathi translation of the RV.

We have Marathi translations of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavat etc.completed towards the end of the 19 th cent.and early 20 th cent.

Marathi is a very rich language and almost entire Sanskrit literature embracing different subjects is translated therein.

It will be a Herculean task to collect all this material and it needs a team of scholars to carry out this very ambitious project.

Best of luck in your intellectual pursuits.


Prof. Siddharth Y Wakankar.
Vadodara.9427339942.
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Irene Galstian

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Sep 11, 2019, 2:35:48 AM9/11/19
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Dear Professor Wakankar,

Thank you for the good wishes. I appreciate your ever-present benevolence immensely. 

The task may seem vast, unless we carefully define what is it that's needed to be able to create a working resource right now. The 20-80 principle is alive and well in all areas of human endeavour, and this corpus isn't an exception.
Are all the Marathi translations ever made from Sanskrit required? Not at this stage, and perhaps not ever. Chomsky may have occasionally misfired in other departments, but his observations on poverty of stimulus do hold. 

To vividly explain what I'm after, imagine the following scenario. Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc-speaking Sanskrit scholars go into their classrooms in the morning to meet and teach Sanskrit to their Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc-speaking students. At one point these students ask, Sir/Madam, what good translations exist from Sanskrit into Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc? Hearing that question, several titles immediately float up in the teacher's memory and he/she lists them. These are the lists I'm looking for, in the languages listed in the original post. 

Thank you for the additional texts you've suggested. With your and Prof Deshpande's combined input, Marathi is well-represented for now. The next step is to obtain recommendations of texts in the other languages. Please help if you can.

Best wishes,
Irene

Siddharth Wakankar

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Sep 11, 2019, 3:22:25 AM9/11/19
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Dear Dr. Irene,

Many thanks for your kind words of appreciation.

It will be my pleasure to help those who seek some academic help, esp.regarding books in my mother tongue.I have suggested only those books or scholars whose efforts were pioneering in that area and who were regarded as scholars in their times.

I shall suggest other names as and when I recollect them.

Thanks and warm regards.


Prof. Siddharth Y Wakankar.
Vadodara.9427339942.
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shankara

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Sep 11, 2019, 3:30:35 AM9/11/19
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Irene ji,

I read somewhere that Sanskrit poet S. Jagannatha ji who is an esteemed member of BVP has translated several Sanskrit works in to Kannada. Hope someone from BVP will enlighten us about this.

regards
shankara


On Wednesday, 11 September, 2019, 12:03:04 pm IST, Irene Galstian <gnos...@gmail.com> wrote:


Dear Professor Wakankar,

Thank you for the good wishes. I appreciate your ever-present benevolence immensely. 

The task may seem vast, unless we carefully define what is it that's needed to be able to create a working resource right now. The 20-80 principle is alive and well in all areas of human endeavour, and this corpus isn't an exception.
Are all the Marathi translations ever made from Sanskrit required? Not at this stage, and perhaps not ever. Chomsky may have occasionally misfired in other departments, but his observations on poverty of stimulus do hold. 

To vividly explain what I'm after, imagine the following scenario. Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc-speaking Sanskrit scholars to into their classrooms in the morning to meet and teach Sanskrit to their Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc-speaking students. At one point these students ask, Sir/Madam, what good translations exist in Hindi/Marathi/Kannada/Telugu/etc? Hearing that question, several titles immediately float up in the teacher's memory and he/she lists them. These are the lists I'm looking for, in the languages listed in the original post. 

Thank you for the additional texts you've suggested. With your and Prof Deshpande's combined input, Marathi is well-represented for now. The next step is to obtain recommendations of texts in the other languages. Please help if you can.

Best wishes,
Irene

On Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 8:23:18 AM UTC+1, Siddharth Wakankar wrote:

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Irene Galstian

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Sep 11, 2019, 3:31:06 AM9/11/19
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Dear Prof Wakankar,

It’s precisely because you consider your recommendations carefully that your advice is especially valuable. 
I look forward to other titles from you, as and when they come to mind. 

Best wishes,
Irene
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