Translations or Travesty of Traditions? –S.N.Balagangadhara
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…
Read moreTranslation or Theoretical Dispute: electron, dharma
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…
Read moreApaurusheya, shruti and revelation: theoretical dispute
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’?…
Read moreColonial Consciousness and Sanskrit Concepts
1. 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…
Read moreAre Brahmins ‘priests’?
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…
Read moreIndians’ Barren criticisms of Western translations
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…
Read moreIs the Bhagavad Gita a revelation?
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…
Read moreIs ‘sat’ ‘being’? S.N.Balagangadhara
[For extended discussion on sat, truth, etc, check this paper.] To take German language, let us look at how Heidegger talks about ‘being’: there is the ‘big Being’ (‘Sein’) and…
Read morePuja and Worship
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…
Read moreWhy ‘Westology’ ala Indology doomed to fail?
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,…
Read more