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Articles: Education/Training | Sanskrit comes of age
- Prof. venkata ramanamurty mallajosyula
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Though Sanskrit was taught at Berkeley beginning 1897, it was in 1906 that the first professorship in Sanskrit was created when the celebrated scholar and translator, Arthur Ryder joined the Berkeley faculty. South Asia related programmes were gradually expanded in succeeding decades, but began in earnest in 1940 when Murray Branson Emeneau came to Berkeley. He taught and conducted research in Sanskrit and Dravidian linguistics, and Indian ethnography and folklore. He was joined after the war by the distinguished anthropologist David Mandelbaum.
Professor Goldman says the Ramayana project is the first to translate the critically edited text that scholars at the Oriental Institute at the University of Baroda, prepared from 1960 to 1975.
'But it is much more than a line-for-line translation', he adds.
'There is also a thorough critical analysis of the epic. Several of the centuries-old commentaries that we have studied have never before been published, and we offer this discussion to readers with annotations.'
To many Berkeley students in the Sanskrit or other departments, the new translations could nudge others towards greater awareness of Sanskrit lore. 'What we have provided, and what no other translation has ever provided, is a very detailed, dense annotation of every line in the text,' says Professor Goldman. 'These notes are based in part on this rich tradition of Sanskrit commentary, which provides us with a window into how this text was read, understood, and argued over for centuries by traditional Sanskrit scholars.'
A basic knowledge of the poem is also essential for understanding modern India, its politics, religion, history, and popular culture. And how the epic is exploited by the political parties to further their agenda. Until Professor Goldman began the translation project, however, the poem was out of reach to most scholarly communities outside Asia.
'We have also signed a deal with a publisher in New Delhi to produce a rather inexpensive version in India in a few months', he adds.
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