Ganganatha Jha’s “Second Edition—Thoroughly Revised” of The Yoga-Darshana
David and Nancy Reigle
He wrote in his 1907 Preface: “The translation now placed before the public was prepared so long ago as 1895; and the vicissitudes through which the manuscript has passed has made it absolutely impossible for it to undergo any revision. So what is presented here is the work of a mere neophyte in the mysteries of Sanskrit Philosophical translation; and the translator would therefore, at the very outset, offer his apologies to the reader, for his providing for him what he himself considers a rather poor fare.”
He wrote in his 1934 Preface: “This revised and entirely re-written translation is presented before the world of scholars, in liquidation of the fourth, and I hope, the last debt due from me. This is the last of my works which I myself regarded as imperfect; and it was therefore due to the scholarly world that it should be revised. . . . In this revised edition, I have made the work as good as it lay in my power to make it.”
I have already provided the second edition to Asian Humanities Press/Jain Publishing Company for a photographic reprint in 2002, still available, but am making this query for the sake of those who require digital books.
Best regards,
David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.
हर्षवर्धनः Harsha Wardhan
David and Nancy Reigle
It has taken me a little time to make a scan of this book, which is now posted here: http://www.downloads.prajnaquest.fr/BookofDzyan/Sanskrit%20Hindu%20Texts/yoga-darsana,_ganganatha_jha_1934_eng.pdf. A companion volume to it, A Concordance-Dictionary to the Yoga-Sūtra-s of Patanjali and the Bhāshya of Vyāsa, by Bhagavan Das, 1938, is also posted here: http://www.downloads.prajnaquest.fr/BookofDzyan/Sanskrit%20Hindu%20Texts/yogasutra_and_vyasa_bhasya_concordance-dict_1938.pdf. Bhagavan Das wrote in the Foreword to that book (p. vi) that the Vyāsa-bhāṣya “has been largely avoided by the Pandits, for centuries perhaps, because of its often peculiar syntax and strange and obscure diction.” This points to two main difficulties faced by any translator of the Vyāsa-bhāṣya: the vocabulary (how to translate the many technical terms), and the syntax (how to construe the old darśana-style sentences). I do not think the Yoga-sūtra can be responsibly translated or adequately understood without full reference to the Vyāsa-bhāṣya. In fact, modern scholarship confirms pre-modern Indian tradition that these two are an inseparable whole. So in reply to your query I will comment only on translations of the Yoga-sūtra that include translations of the Vyāsa-bhāṣya, which I think was your intention.
As far as I know, there are seven complete English translations of the Vyāsa-bhāṣya on the Yoga-sūtra, besides the newly published one by Gerald James Larson that you mentioned (which has not yet reached me from India). These seven are by:
1. Ganganatha Jha, 1907, second edition thoroughly revised 1934.
2. Rama Prasada, 1910, 1912 (no change in the translation), also includes Vācaspati-miśra’s sub-commentary.
3. James Haughton Woods, 1914, also includes Vācaspati-miśra’s sub-commentary.
4. Bengali Baba, 1943, second edition 1949 (correcting serious printing problems in the first edition, he says in his second edition, p. xi), reprinted in 1976 as by Bangali Baba and as first edition (without any introductory material telling about this edition; it is slightly edited according to my comparison).
5. P. N. Mukerji, translation of the Bengali translation originally made in 1911 by Hariharananda Aranya, 1963, 2nd ed. thoroughly revised and enlarged 1977, 3rd ed. thoroughly revised and enlarged 1981, 4th enlarged edition 2000 (adding Hariharananda Aranya’s Bhāsvatī commentary).
6. T. S. Rukmani, included with her translation of Yogavārttika of Vijñānabhikṣu, 4 vols., 1981-1989, and with her translation of Yogasūtrabhāṣyavivaraṇa of Śaṅkara, 2 vols., 2001.
7. Trevor Leggett, included with his translation of Śaṅkara on the Yoga Sūtra-s, 1990.
Additionally, two of the four chapters of the Vyāsa-bhāṣya have been translated in two separate volumes, the first by Usharbudh Arya in 1986, and the second by him, now Swami Veda Bharati, in 2001. Unfortunately, he passed away without completing the remaining two chapters. Also, a partial translation of the Vyāsa-bhāṣya is included in M. R. Yardi’s 1979 translation of the Yoga-sūtra.
The first three of these translations seem to have been made independently of each other. So they often came up with quite different pioneering translations of the technical terms. Even now we have no standard translations for Sanskrit technical terms. Thus, these difficulties of translation terms have continued in the translations up to the present. I do not think it is fair to judge these translations on the basis of their translations of technical terms, since accurate equivalents of these technical terms simply do not exist in English. Each of these translations has some translation terms that I find helpful and some that I find misleading (as a native speaker of American English).
In view of the unavoidable situation with translation terms, the inclusion of the Sanskrit text is a great help. Numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6 include the Sanskrit text. Numbers 2 and 5 have it all together before the translation of each sūtra. Numbers 4 and 6 have it separated into paragraphs followed by the translation of that paragraph, and then the next paragraph in Sanskrit followed by English, etc. I find this helpful.
Probably number 5, by P. N. Mukerji, follows the Sanskrit the least closely, because it is a translation of a translation, rather than a direct translation from Sanskrit. But it is highly regarded because of the status of Swami Hariharananda Aranya. Probably number 3, by James Woods, follows the Sanskrit the most closely, in that it accounts for every word, and puts words that are only implied in brackets. Some of his rather innovative translations of technical terms, however, such as “undifferentiated-consciousness” for avidyā, have not been accepted by later translators.
As for syntax, it is here that the revised translation by Ganganatha Jha stands out, although I am not in a position to judge whether some of the other translations may be equally good in this regard. What I know is that Ganganatha Jha spent his life translating highly difficult darśana texts, and revised his translation of the Yoga-sūtra and Vyāsa-bhāṣya near the end of his life, after completing his other darśana translations. He had become a master of the difficult darśana syntax found in the very old darśana commentaries, texts whose language is archaic in comparison with later commentaries, such as the sub-commentary by Vācaspati-miśra. Of course, he translated the Vyāsa-bhāṣya largely on the basis of Vācaspati-miśra’s sub-commentary (see pp. 2-3).
His reference to this revised and entirely re-written translation being presented in liquidation of the fourth and last debt due from him pertains to his translations of the bhāṣyas on four of the six darśana texts. When he began translating these, translations of the commentaries on the other two darśana texts had already been undertaken by others. But he also translated texts pertaining to these other two darśanas: Vācaspati-miśra’s Tattvakaumudī commentary on the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, published in 1896, and Śaṅkarācārya’s commentary on the Chāndogya-upaniṣad, published in 1899. On the Vaiśeṣika darśana, he translated Praśastapāda’s Padārthadharmasaṅgraha (the Praśastapāda-bhāṣya) along with Śrīdhara’s Nyāyakandalī, published serially 1903-1915 (686 pages). On the Nyāya-sūtra, he translated Vātsyāyana’s Nyāya-bhāṣya along with Uddyotakara’s Nyāya-vārtika, published serially 1912-1919 (reprinted in four volumes, 1,772 pp.). On the (Pūrva) Mīmāṃsā-sūtra, he translated the Śābara-bhāṣya, published 1933-1936 (three volumes, 2,429 pages). On this darśana, he had previously translated the Tantra-vārttika, published 1903-1924 (1,728 pages), and the Śloka-vārttika, published in 1907 (555 pages). After he finished his translation of the Śābara-bhāṣya in 1933, now a full master of old darśana syntax, he thoroughly revised his translation of the Yoga-sūtra and Vyāsa-bhāṣya.
Best regards,
David Reigle
Colorado, U.S.A.
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