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  • Stephen Mitchell

    Did it ever occur to you that a lot of indian litterature is being derived from Foreigners themselves when the religion/culture/tradition hinduism its birthplace is India. I do not know what to believe anymore and so do my relatives, collegues, acquintances and fellow indian strangers. For instance an author by the name of "Stephen Mitchell" - by no means am I giving him credentials - published a book titled the "Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation" while putting some decor on the book cover that resembles an indian cloth (orange, red obviously) so as to attract his target audiences which are the new generation Indians. That same author wrote a book titled "Tao Te Ching: A New English Version."

    Do you see the irony in this for one Indians are lead to believe the knowledge of someone that never really fully understood the Bhagavad Gita because the language Sanskrit which the original was written, is tremedously distinct from other languages therefore the book and its meaning has not been fully articulated in the english language thus creating a new tradition were people are unaware of the difference, the new generation of indians are dumb pursuing a wrongfully inscribed Bhagavad Gita and people become stupid as a cause of this. Second authors come with many translations for instance there are more than nine translations each of them unique from the others which carry on different messages, for the new generations they ponder "which one truthfully represents the Bhagavad Gita?" Thirdly Stephen Mitchell the author and translater of this indian/european book has also authored another book as mentioned above which had been derived from a completely different cultural and traditional background and has a different approach to the values of morallity, he did that numerous times each with different cultures. The difference is philosophic in nature and one who knows a great deal about India will also know that it has a distinct and elaborate philosophy. One would think of this mere author as omniscient from writting this book when in doubt his words in the book initiated a change in hinduism. The author is not a sage nor is he a scripter and there are dozens of others like him that mimic what was said, done and completed in other cultures all for the mere pleasure of money and being famous. A law should condemn this act of folly - this foolish behaviour, however he has his own law protecting him - the one in his country.

    Oh yes did I mention the book is 221 pages long. It replaces God by Lord, God is used in hindu texts translated in english and defines a different definition from Lord. What is up with that?

    According to answers.com the corporate entity mentions "Different authors offer a wealth of diverse views which, when taken as a corpus of literature, present a fittingly varicolored idea of the possible interpretations of the religion and philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita." Yes it might seem like that but it is in no way practical to the new generations of Hindu's.

    Therefore I kindly ask which side are you on?

  • #2
    The Indian mythology is vast and diverse.It may have some things similar (after all God is one) but it has its own identity.
    IndiaBook Sr Editor and Reviewer
    IndiaBook is like my child whom I want to nuture till perfection.It is a dream of success which will be made reality soon.

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    • #3
      This life is more that picking sides.
      Think of it more as, what you belive, because you can't get to the place, on the faith of another beliver you have to follow the narrow path to reach enlightenment.

      Have a nice day....

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      • #4
        literature is an area, where nobody can penalize anybody. its essense lies in criticism. it is not only the the western literature that is taking up on translation. the real originality of the original work is naturally lost when it is translated and this is unavoidable, because there can't possibly be an equivalent for a particular word. certain expressions cannot be expressed exactly. so certain modification is essential. so, when that is done, we, as native readers of the original work should not feel cheated and disappointed.

        on the contrary, we must feel happy and priviledged that indian tradition and its ancient culture is so captivating that it has inspired a foreigner to interpret/ translate it in order to bring it to light in a foreign language to embelish its beauty and worth among the foreigners.

        omni, take it on the positive stride, please. please try to see how much the writer would have been inspired by the text to have taken the pains in translating it.

        when a writer writes or when a reader reads a text, the real cultural dimension one hails from is forgotten and he/ she enters the dimensions set by the context/ text and emerges out of it after having written through / read through and starts to think of the work written/ read in their cultural dimensions. and this is a critical theory of literature. this is how the psyche of the writer and readre works. literature would not grow if people from a particular culture stuck to theirs and wrote about theirs. world literature and common wealth literature would not have come into existence if writers preferred to sleep in their shells. neither would they have emerged if readers did not appreciate them.

        i may be wrong, but they critical theories of literature with which a writer abides when he creates a piece of literature cant be wrong. a writer writes with complete fairness and his work will not be chosen for publication if it does not furnish the rules of fairness to the original text specially when it is a translation. this is the law of literature.

        Priyadarshani Jai Prakash.
        Last edited by Guest; 10-27-2005, 04:29 PM.

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        • #5
          Orginal ideas are mere venerations of past ideas but they can be innovations. Literature in being a work of the finest piece would be to innovate an idea not to replicate. If we are able to replcate freely then please everybody download at your pleasure and forget this copyrighting nonesense because it is pure bull.

          However sugarloaf_n_spice the worst form of replication of a piece is a replication that does not intent to disclose its real source "up front". The money obtained from the filth could have benefitted extremely a forgotten poor man's wish of joy who once produced a quality work.
          Last edited by Omni; 04-09-2006, 09:15 AM.

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          • #6
            Omni we read god ram as rama in english. We call ramayan, ramayana and mahabharat, mahabharata..

            We simply say or atleast believe that a oxford pass out is a champ or a hollywood actor is better then bollywoods..

            We choose to drink coke when we all know that many indian fruit drinks are better or alteast less harmful.

            We choose to eat pizza for 200 bucks and we find a samosa of 10 rs too expensive..

            Simply fad. Because it comes from west.. I am not saying that pizza is not delicious or coke should be banned... But its the truth that people out there in the west have made more money and have better cities adn infrastructure and unconsciously we start believing that whatever they do is allright.

            The example you quoted is yet another example. They write on our religious scriptures and people who would never be intereseted in bhagwat gita otherwise will suddenly become interested in it..

            This is the misery of our society... We very readily accept cokes and dominoes and pizza huts and kentuckys from them but we take too long to build roads and railways and towns of their standards. We take too lonng to learn to protect our property, our brands , our wages.

            Have u ever paide 200 bucks for a family size dosa?? Did u ever pay 100 bucks for a plate of pani puri??

            you pay it happily for a burger or pizza .. of course if its supplied by a american brand and if that money goes to US of A. (status symbol?? huh??)
            Lots of you will laugh at me. But think it over. Isnt it the truth. We r paying our hard earned millions to americans just coz we r caught in a fad. Thats we ... Indians meri jaan

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            • #7
              aah yes! the examples mentioned are classics, the wave of corporate american businesses outsourcing its companies to gain more profits all the while in the attempt of poisoning foreign atmosphere with its ego centric lies.

              The west is seen as materialistic, unpatient and egotistic, I may give you some books to read, I may also show you some events or articles in this matter but really really look around and judge for yourselves. The west does does not deserve priveleges as they do not return priveleges back, they do not acquire positive outcomes being given these priveleges.

              Back to the issue of Mitchell and his book of new translations. The west cannot do this take an eastern thought and translated into western thought. Also they have incorporated some of the ideas into their Bible. In a few years I believve if this continues that Indians will forget about their acheivements, a stop must be made not a year from now but now.
              Last edited by Omni; 06-11-2006, 05:08 PM.

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