Gains in translation

Manmatha Nath Dutt was one of India’s greatest translators, from Sanskrit to English (he also wrote other books). He died in 1912. Before 1914, there was no proper copyright legislation in India. The present Copyright Act of 1957 was preceded by a Copyright Act of 1914. Before that, the applicability of copyright legislation was tenuous, though British legislation (dating from 1911) existed. Stated simply, there was no copyright on Dutt’s works. The fact that his children lived in far-flung places (two were abroad) probably also meant no one was interested in pursuing copyright on his works. Hence, some of his books were freely reprinted by other publishers. While I was writing his biography ( Manmatha Nath Dutt, Translator Extraordinaire, Rupa, 2020), I discovered some of his books had been reprinted in first two decades of 20th century by Panini Office, Allahabad. That’s how I came to discover a treasuretrove known as the Sacred Books of the Hindus series. Most people know of the mammoth 50-volume Sacred Books of the East series. From a Hinduism perspective, they covered the vedas, Vedanta Sutras, Upanishads, Dharmashastras and parts of Satapatha Brahmana. Because of my interest in translating Itihasa/purana texts, I was especially interested in prior translations of the Puranas.

So I was delighted when I discovered the 32-volume Sacred Books of the Hindus series published by Panini Office. These volumes were published in first two decades of 20th century and apart from the obvious (Bhagavat Gita, Upanishads, Dharmashastras), had translations of Garuda Purana, Matsya Purana, Shukra Niti, Shiva Samhita, Devi Bhagavatam and Adhyatma Ramayana. These volumes have been part of my reading during the pandemic lockdown. In addition, I have been reading the Bibliotheca Indica, another series that deserves greater dissemination. In 1849, Asiatic Society started publishing editions/translations under the Bibliotheca Indica series. It is a fantastic series! It probably continued till the 1950s and there must have been almost 300 titles in it. In the area of translations and editions of ancient texts, what a fantastic time it was for Bengal then and what an amazing reservoir of talent. Kaliprasanna Singha (1841–1870) translated the entire unabridged Mahabharata into Bengali. Between 1862 and 1873, the Burdwan edition of Mahabharata was brought out in Sanskrit and with a Bengali translation. Between 1869 and 1874, there was a Bengali translation of Mahabharata brought out by Pratap Chandra Roy, the publisher for the subsequent Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation in English. William Carey and Joshua Marshman published an English translation of Valmiki Ramayana between 1806 and 1810, from Serampore. More or less at the same time, Hemachandra Bhattacharya brought out a translation in Bengali. Ganga Prasad Mukhopadhyaya, Ashutosh Mukherjee’s father, did a translation of Valmiki Ramayana in Bengali, in verse form. Panchanan Tarkaratna (1866–1940), a traditional Sanskrit scholar from Bhatpara, edited many Sanskrit texts and translated them into Bengali. Most editions of the Puranas in Bengali continue to be based on Panchanan Tarkaratna versions. His editions included Valmiki Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana, Dharmashastra texts and several Puranas. Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824–1873)wrote his version of the Ramayana story Meghnad Badh Kavya . In 1840, Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860) published the first unabridged English translation of any

Purana, Vishnu Purana. Hara Prasad Shastri (1853–1931) was busy collecting manuscripts from Nepal.

This was the setting for the Bibliotheca Indica series. Which ones have I read from that long list of almost 300 titles? The list is Agni Purana (1873–79, by Rajendralal Mitra), Brihad Dharma Purana ( 1888, by Hara Prasad Shastri), Brihad Naradiya Purana ( 1891, by Hrishikesha Shastri), Kurma Purana (1890, by Nilmani Mukhopadhyaya), Markandeya Purana (1904, by F E Pargiter), Varaha Purana ( 1893, by Hrishikesha Shastri) and Vayu Purana (1880–81, by Rajendralal Mitra).

(The writer is the translator of Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Puranas)