French scholars translations

[Guy Werlings]

Due to my  own,fault pointing out the strange translation of
kevaladvaita by  famous Frenchindologists, the thread on kevaladvaita
and advaita turned to be a matter of translation studies and
Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote also on 27 Sep :
>
> On Sun, 27 Sep 1998, Guy Werlings wrote:
>
> > I could quote to you tenths and tenths of such meaningless translations
> > of our French Indologists (they prefer to call themselves indianists)
> > mostly interested in philology and still unable to produce one single
> > readable and faithful translation, the worst ones being the translations
> > of the Upanishads.
>
> That's an amusing and a very interesting comment, considering that the
> Western world was first introduced to Upanishadic thought  I hope that the following quotation will also seem amusing to you :

This is how the world famous Professor Louis Renou translated the well
known invocation in the beginning of the ÎSÂVÂSYOPANISHAD : pUrNam adaH
pUrNam idam pUrNAt pUrNam udacyate. pUrNasya pUrNam AdAya pUrNam
evAvaSishyate.
Plein là-haut, plein ici, le plein est puisé du plein ; quand on a pris
le plein du plein, le plein demeure
i.e, in English :
Full up there, full here, the full is drawn from the full ; when the
full has been taken from the full, the full remains.

a) reading this an ordinary Frencman will think that a fool has written
this and than another fool has made the translation : and with his
cartesian mind, he will say that if you take out the full from the full,
what remains is vacuum or void, but not the full.

b) as a comparison, this is the French translation of SwAmi
SiddheSvarAnanda : cela (cette réalité) est plénitude infinie, ce
monde-ci est plénitude infinie ; l'infini procède de l'infini ;
l'infinie plénitude demeure même si l'univers infini en est issu.
English : That (reality) is infinite plenitude, this (world) is infinite
plenitude ; the infinite world is proceeding from the infinite reality ;
the infinite Reality remains even if the infinite world has come out of
it.
I do not mean that an ordinary Frenchman will understand this at the
very first reading but he will at least start thinking about what is
reality, what is infinite, what is plenitude and will probably come to
the conclusion that all this deserves further investigation.

Om SaantiH, SaantiH, SaantiH

the "quoting Guy" of the list

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>From  Thu Oct  8 19:05:45 1998
Message-Id: <THU.8.OCT.1998.190545.0400.>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 19:05:45 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: shankara's vivaraNa on vyAsa bhAShya of yoga sUtra-s
Comments: To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
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Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:

> Is this Subbaramaiah's translation? It seems like an unfortunate choice of
> words. Those used to pUrva mImAMsA (their ranks are few in total number,
> but not negligible in the academic community) attach a technical meaning
> to injunction. Note that the original bhAshya quotation does not use the
> term "vidhi," but only says "vihita".

Yes, it is Subbaramaiya's translation. However, IMO (from reading
kR^ishhNa yajvan's text) I am quite convinced that interpreting
something as injunction is not as simple as looking for the word vidhi.
He (yajvan) shows how the present tense may also imply an injunction. As
for Subbaramiya's work, this occurs in the section where he talks about
how some of the other schools can serve as initial preparation. This
combined with the fact that Sh mentions that _both_ karma and dhyAna are
essential for non-sannyAsis, this can certainly be interpreted as an
injunction as far as they are concerned. In any case since he studied
directly under Mahasannidhanam, it would probably be a good idea to ask
him directly. As I understood from the preface (by Sri Gowrisankar)he is
also well versed in the mImA.nsA. Perhaps
it was an oversight.

Rama

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>From  Thu Oct  8 19:49:40 1998
Message-Id: <THU.8.OCT.1998.194940.0400.>
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 19:49:40 -0400
Reply-To: ramakris at erols.com
To: List for advaita vedanta as taught by Shri Shankara
        <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian <ramakris at EROLS.COM>
Subject: Re: shankara's vivaraNa on vyAsa bhAShya of yoga sUtra-s
Comments: To: Advaita-L <advaita-l at tamu.edu>
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Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian wrote:

> Yes, it is Subbaramaiya's translation. However, IMO (from reading
> kR^ishhNa yajvan's text) I am quite convinced that interpreting
> something as injunction is not as simple as looking for the word vidhi.
> He (yajvan) shows how the present tense may also imply an injunction. As
> for Subbaramiya's work, this occurs in the section where he talks about
> how some of the other schools can serve as initial preparation. This
> combined with the fact that Sh mentions that _both_ karma and dhyAna are
> essential for non-sannyAsis, this can certainly be interpreted as an
> injunction as far as they are concerned. In any case since he studied
> directly under Mahasannidhanam, it would probably be a good idea to ask
> him directly. As I understood from the preface (by Sri Gowrisankar)he is
> also well versed in the mImA.nsA. Perhaps
> it was an oversight.

BTW, I forgot to mention in my previous post. From Sri Subbaramiya's
quotes it should be clear that Sh thought that yoga was a part of
sharvaNa, manana abd nididhyAsana. As per advaitins only karma is not
enjoined in the upanishhads. As per Su yoga seems to follow sannyAsa, at
least in the normal cases. It was a point of discussion among later
advaitins whether the triad of shravaNa, manana and nididhyAsana was
enjoined or merely a suggestion in the upanishhads. I read that as usual
both camps quote Sh as agreeing with them :-). The issue is no less
complicated by the fact that Sh and Su seem to interpret shravaNa,
manana and nididhyAsana somewhat differently. Needless to say, carful
investigation needs to be done in this regard. I myself have not made
any serious investigation regards this and am reluctant to speculate
further. But as far as I can see Sri Subbaramaiya's translation would
seem fine if he thought that upanishhads enjoin shravaNa, manana and
nididhyAsana.

Rama

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