‘A puzzle-solving activity’: NS Gundur on translating DR Nagaraj’s seminal work on Allama Prabhu

Now for the task of the translator. Instead of proposing my theory of translation adopted in my translation of DR Nagaraj’s Allama Prabhu and the Shaiva Imagination, I would like to narrate the way this translation progressed – for, as Nietzsche has it, all theory is autobiography (or, more accurately, autobiographical). Before that, a short detour into the history of translating the vachanakaras and Allama is in order.

Translating Nagaraj, translating Allama Prabhu

The translation of vachanas began with European officers in the subcontinent. It continued in works by Indian scholars like Fa Gu Halakatti. With these precedents, AK Ramanujan’s translation of vachanas in Speaking of Siva (1973) was a breakthrough which introduced vachanas to a global audience. Following Ramanujan, many attempts have been made to translate the vachanas. As far as Allama is concerned, there are three exclusive works of translation. More recently, there has been a surge in translating premodern Kannada texts: for example, classics like Kavirajamarga, Vaddaradhane, Gadayuddha, Harischandra Kavya, and Kumaravyasa Bharatha have been published in English translation.

As part of this, two anthologies of medieval Kannada literature include English translations of the vachanas. While these translations have brought literary works in Kannada to English, the present book is the translation of a theoretical and scholarly work. This...

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