XV111

and it i?> a remarkably efficient instrument for that purpose. So also the alliteration,
which is also an essential in Tamil verse, is not merely an idle sound repetition but
actively aids the enforcement of the thought and imagery contained in the verse. Of
course these aids are of no value in unskilled hands and become just jingles. But in
Kamban's art, the alliteration is subdued with great care and the rhyme-words always
go up with mounting quality and are never allowed to deteriorate into a laboured
selection out of a thesarus. They come as an appropriate climax at the top of an
ascending scale. This quality among many other things distinguishes Kamban from
the interior Tamil poets. The lyric cannot be a lyric without conspicuous econom y of
words, without sparkle and lilt; these are Kamban's special characteristics, not to
speak of the depth of his thoughts, his human understanding and his wonderful poetic
imagination".

With these grand observations, Rajaji has translated the Ayodhya Kandam of
Kamban's Kamayana in verse form in the said work. Yet he himself states in his
preface: 1 cannot in an English rendering bring out the rhyme or the sparkle or the lilt
in kamban I can only attempt to do some justice to the wealth of substance and
brevity of presentation. It is not possible to reproduce in a translation the exquisite art
ot the lamil poet. This is so indeed in respect of all translations of poetry by the ablest
amt*ng us William Cow per wrote in one of his beautiful letters: 'There are minutiae
m every language which transferred into another will spoil the version. Such extreme
fidelity is in tact unfaithful.'

But what is one to do if one does not wish to impose on the public and palm off
one > own bad composition as a rendering of Kamban? All one can do is to avoid the
pitfalls and be as taithful as possible without damage to the purpose. In another letter
the same English poet writes: There is something in his style that touches me
exceedingly and which I do not know how to describe. This property o f it which
depends perhaps altogether upon the arrangement of his words and the m odulation
of his sentences, it would be very difficult to preserve in a translation'.
 x ix

"Yet another quotation from Cow per dealing w ith the difficulty of satisfactory
translation: It cost m e all the m orning yesterday and all the evening to translate a
single sim ile to m y m ind. The transitions from one m em ber of the subject to another,
though easy and natural in the Greek, turn out often so intolerably aw kw ard in an
English version that alm ost endless labour and no little address are requisites to give
them grace and elegan ce.' I m ust say that I have gone through m any occasions o f this
kind especially w here K am ban, in the m idst of the hum an narrative, suddenly and
w ith exquisite beauty rem inds his readers of the fact that Ram a w as God incarnate.
O ften I felt it best to om it such passages in the translation".

The observations of Rajaji would have been the experience of any one w ho m ade
a serious attem pt to translate K am ban's w ork into English or for that m atter into any
other language. In spite of pointing out the difficulties above quoted, R ajaji did
translate the Ayodhya K andam only in verse form.

H owever, as fa r as the present work is concerned, Dr H ande, who had been an

adm irer and disciple o f Rajaji, has very wisely refrained from m aking any attem pt to
translate the w hole o f Kamban's Ram ayana, in English, in verse form . What he has
done in this case is an easy prose rendering in English o f Kamban's Ram avataram .
N aturally in such a rendering, the art form referred to by Rajaji in the quotation
extracted above, will be difficult, i f not impossible, to adopt. The result is an easy and
clear prose version o f Kamban's Ram avataram in English w ithout m aking any
unsuccessful attem pt to translate the art form o f the original Tamil version.

In fact Shri K asthuri Sreenivasan of C oim batore in his introduction to his

translation of selected verses from the Sundara K andam o f K am ban's R am avataram
(Published by K asthuri Sreenivasan Trust, C oim batore) has observed:

"O ne of the first questions that a translator has to address h im self in u ndertaking
a w ork of this nature is w hether the translation should be in prose or verse. W henever
,1 work, of poetry is rendered into prose in a foreign language, its beauty and its
ubtletv are lost to a very great extent. This is particularly so in the case of Kamban
who produce', a variety of verse patterns and rhythms according to the mood of the
itorv that any prose version cannot do justice to it. The tempo is designed to suit the
mood ot the story, the feelings, situations or incidents. When he talks of war, blood and
manliness, he uses harsh words. When he describes the tender feelings of wom en or
their beauty, he uses soft mellifluous words and a different tempo. It is this
combination of sound and rhythm with ideals, feelings and incidents into an integral
whole that makes Kamban's poetry truly great. But the very beauty of his poetry is the
despair of the translator who cannot hope to reproduce the prosody of Kam ban in
another language. One cannot hope to achieve the diversity of the type of verses in the
original"

shn Sreenivasan further points out certain other difficulties in attempting a

translation of this nature: "There is considerable amount of exaggeration in Indian
poetry in general and Kamba Ramayanam in particular. The exaggeration may be said
to be almost an art-form. Shoulders tall as Mount Kailas, or the compound walls of
l anka reaching the sun and the moon may be acceptable in the environment of an
ancient Tamil epic, but put into modem English, they seem unreal and archaic.... One
ot the problems in translating a mythological story is in the treatment of the
supernatural. To accept it as literal truth is somewhat repugnant to the scientific
temper ot the modem age. On the other hand, it is quite likely that some of these
people did have certain mental and spiritual powers which enabled them to perform
teats which seem impossible for us today. Modem psychology is just beginning to
probe into this vast field of the potentialities of the mind. The ancient people probably
had a greater knowledge of science than we give credit to them. Under these
circumstances, one can only speculate on what was real and what was due to the
p e t s imagination, be skeptical in accepting things literally, but keep an open mind.
To eliminate the supernatural altogether is impossible. The natural and supernatural
arr so inextricably interwoven that any attempt to remove it would be to destroy the
litrrarv and artistic merits of the story.
 XXI

"Further, certain figures of speech w hich are peculiar to a particular tim e and place
are often u ntranslatable into a different m edium in a different age. K am ban also m akes
a large num ber of allusions to m ythological stories w ith w hich the non-Tam il or the
non-H indu reader m ight not be familiar. A nother problem of translation is the use of
a large num ber of qualifying phrases to people or places involved, in m any o f the
verses. For exam ple, he says, 'R avana w ho w as a result of boons from Brahm a who
w as born from the navel of Vishnu reclining in the m ilky sea w ith the divine snake
A disesha as his b ed ....' and so on. Tamil gram m ar lends itself to such phraseology
w hich cannot be com pressed into a single line in the English lan gu age......... This raises
a question of ethics. H ow m uch freedom should be perm itted to a translator to m odify
the original? I believe that ideas, thoughts, the basic philosophy, the nature of
characterisation and the m ajor elem ents in the story should not be tam pered w ith by
a translator. He m ust be true to the original. If he w ishes to m odify them , then his
w ork should be called an adaptation and not a translation. But w hen figures o f speech
are u ntranslatable or have changed their m eaning in course of tim e, or are no longer
relevant, the translator can use his discretion in m odifying them w hile preserving the
spirit o f the original. The objective should be to recreate the original in the new
language exactly as the poet w ould have done had he been aliv e..... In rendering the
sw eep, the grandeur and the m ajesty of K am ban's verse in another language, one
cannot hope to be com pletely successful".

T he above problem s indicated by Shri Kasthuri Sreenivasan w ould have been

experienced by anyone w ho had attem pted to translate any epic poem in one language
into another language. That probably is the reason that prom pted Dr H ande to avoid
the verse form and to render the story in the form o f running prose in English. In such
an endeavour, it is inevitable that certain im ageries and descriptions w ould have to be
om itted since if they are literally translated, that w ould not have m ade the m eaning
of the other parts or w ords clear and the context unam biguous. O f course, w hen such
a m ethod is adopted, the w ork cannot be strictly called an English translation of
K am ban's Ram avataram . H ow ever, so long as the author m akes it clear w hat he has