Comparison of translations of Abhijnanasakuntalam.

with acknowledgement from Deepti Sharma

Herde wrote after reading Shakuntala: "A masterpiece that appears once every two thousand years". The story for the play ‘Abhijnanasakuntalam’ appears in the Adi Parva of The Mahabharata, Kalidas adapted the story for this play though he takes significant liberties in his version. Kalidasa is recognizably the greatest poet and dramatist in ancient India when Sanskrit flourished. Abhijnanasakuntalam and Kalidasa's other plays were written for a refined court audience. The dialogue of the upper-class characters was delivered in Sanskrit, the classical language, and that of women and commoners in Prakrit, the common speech. Despite these lofty origins, Kalidasa's plays have remained popular.
As one of the most circulated Sanskrit translations, Kalidas’s
Abhijnanasakuntalam provides a radiant example of the continuous
attraction for the immortal Sanskrit works in the modern West.
In 1789, Sir William Jones (the first to translate Kalidas’s masterpiece) intense search to unearth the ‘gold in Sanskrit’ resulted in this pioneering work of translation and since then a number of translators have attempted to translate this play. This translation not only played an important role in bringing about a renaissance in Indian literature, but also greatly influenced European literary traditions. Among them, the best known translations are Monier Williams’s translation of Sakuntala into prose and verse (1855), M.R.Kalle, Arthur Ryder, K.V.Sundaram, Barbara Miller and that of Chandra Rajan.
In this paper I attempt for a comparative study of the translations of Sakuntala focusing on the translations of Willaim Jones’s ‘Sacontala or The Fatal Ring’ (1789) and Chandra Rajan’s ‘The Recognition of Sakuntala’ (1989). However, my study is not limited to these translations only, I have also attempted to examine briefly the translations of Ryder and Miller as well, particularly the emotive basis of various Shoklas bearing love and eroticism and how far they have pierced into the very spirit, the character, atmosphere and the central sensibility of the drama. And how far these translators could imbibe the atmosphere of hermitage, the pastoral imagery and the sacraments of ancient India, to bring out a living picture of Kalidas’s age. Kalidas is known for his treatment of nature and of its expatiation in similes and imagery. The problems faced by the translators are formidable, particularly while working with English and Sanskrit. With all the tremendous powers that the English language has, it is still not fully capable of coping with the subtlety and hidden dimensions that are found in Sanskrit, it is a difficult language to translate so it is necessary to evaluate how far they are successfully transfered into English.
Preface
To the orientalist of the nineteenth century it was not only a delightful experience but a duty of a westerner to know all about the literary pursuits, the opinions, prejudices, fables, the religious beliefs, metaphysical thinking and amusements reflected in oriental dramas and poetry. It is the contribution of Hones that the Europe could be acquainted to acknowledge and appreciate India as a civilized country as its literature ascends back for more than two thousands years and is not alien in aesthetics of love, beauty and nature for the European mind. Schegal in his lecture on dramatic literature says:
“ Sakuntala not withstanding with colouring of a foreign clime, bears in its general structure a striking resemblance to our romantic drama.” (M.Williams xxi)
Hamboldt observes: “ Kalidas the celebrated author of Sakuntala is a masterly describer of the nature. Tenderness in the expression of feeling and richness of creative fancy, have assigned to him his lofty place among poets of all nations.” (M.Williams xii)
Jones calls Sakuntala the celebrated drama of Shakespeare of India, hundred years back he had already claimed Kalidas as “our illustrious poet this Shakespeare of India.” The impact of ‘Sacontala’ was soon felt in Europe when Edwards London editions appeared in 1790 and 1792. By 1791, Sacontala was translated into German by Forster and by 1792 into Russian by Karamsin. Translations in Danish (1793), French (1803) and Italian (1815) appeared soon after. In particular, Goethe was deeply influenced by the play to the extent that the prologue of Faust was inspired by that of ‘Sacontala’. So inspired was he by the play that he wrote in 1791:

"Wouldst thou the earth and heaven
itself in one soul name combine?
I name thee, O Sakuntala, and all at once is said.”
( Roychaudhuri:75-76)
Monnier Williams, in the introduction of ‘Sakuntala the Lost Ring’(1885) wrote that about a century had elapsed since then great English orientalist, Sir Williams Jones astonished the learned world by the discovery of a universally esteemed drama ‘Sacontala’.
Now two centuries have elapsed with a rally of English translations of Abhijnanasakuntalam. In 1989, Chandra Rajan's translation of Kalidasa's Sakuntala ‘The Recognition of Sakuntala’ appears in the Penguin (India) edition of The Loom of Time, which also includes two of Kalidasa's poems. By this token of recognition it is but evident that throughout the centuries the grandeur of Kalidasa’s poetic art and dramatic craft have attracted many a western and eastern transformations of his art in the languages of the world. Widely translated there were no fewer than forty-six translations in twelve different languages in the century after Sir William Jones' groundbreaking first translation.
“It had an immediate and enthusiastic reception in germany, France and Italy and announced the birth of orientalism.”( 9) Figueira

Significantly when the translation of Jones is compared with Rajan’s translation, both the translators face the problem of complicated imagery ,vocubalary, compactness and order of the subtlety of Kalidas’s poetry. Whether this is the discourse on the character and conduct of the play or the character and function of his translation Jones with a modest attitude measures his power of translation and the beauty of the text in his preface to ‘Sacontala.’
“I then turned it word for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or suppressing any material sentence, disengaged from the stiffness of a foreign idiom, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian drama.” (367)

The nature of the reception of Sakuntala in nineteenth century and 20th century might be different because of trends and patterns of literary expression and tastes have changed but the two translations on the poles of two centuries give to both orientalist and general scholars a comparative view revealing the encounter of European thought and their cultural ethos of east and west. The problem of Indian and non Indian expression hovers over them.
On one pole is the first translator of Sakuntala in English who is a British unprejudiced orientalist and on the other is an Indian translator who tries to amulgamate the Indian idea with the western way of thinking.
Jones first came to hear about Indian ‘Natakas’, during his sojourn in Europe, in 1787. These ‘Natakas’ were then considered to be Brahmanical histories with a mixture of fables and myths. His interest aroused, Jones began to investigate them on his return to Calcutta and was soon convinced that these were popular works far removed from being 'histories'. Jones was given a Bengali recension of ‘Sacontala’. Ramlochan, a Sanskrit teacher at the University of Nadia, helped Jones read the play. Jones has taken pains to learn Sanskrit, simply to understand the national vanity and vigour of ancient India, have access to the authentic cultural tradition and Hindu manners and satisfy his desire to know the real position of India before the western conquest.

Rajan has an edge over Jones in learning Sanskrit language and literature. She explored the fasinating world of Kalidas through her grandfather P. S. Iyer and the teacher Sir Ram Setu at an early age of nine. They pointed out to her varied beauties and subtlelities of the Kalidas’s language and poetic craft. She could easily prepare the ground for translation by selecting the text of Bengali recansion. Kanjilal had facilitated her task of determing the right recansion arguing for its authenticity in his critical edition. ‘Reconstruction of Abhijnanasakuntalam.’ It is critically constructed on the basis of the old manuscripts which were not so easily available to Jones. She also consulted the Devnagri recansion with the commentary of Raghav Bhatt. It is the most authentic interpretation and probably was not available to Jones. Rajan feels that the Bengali text is more satisfying.

Jones after the publication of the translation opines to denote less space for courtship in Act 3:
“It must be for it must be confessed that the whole of Dushmanta's conversation with his buffoon, and great part of his courtship in the hermitage, might be omitted without any injury to the drama.” (372)
Dr Rajan says that it presents the courtship as well as the conflict of Shakuntala’s mind in some detail. The stanza at the end of act three reveals something of the complexity of the king’s character.
To Rajan again it was a window to peep into west with the eyes of eastern cross cultural translation. It is but natural to encounter with the problem of cross cultural translation with the hybrid understanding of colonial and post colonial romantic ideas.
Jones has accepted in the preface that the scholars of diverse philosophical religious trends and inhabitants of the various nations of Europe and India can read and misread the text according to their own sensibility.
“I am convinced that the tastes of men differ as much as their sentiments and passions, and that, in feeling the beauties of art, as in smelling flowers, tasting fruits, viewing prospects, and hearing melody, every individual must be guided by his own sensations and the incommunicable associations of his own ideas.” (371) 
Yet, it will remain a fine study of the confluence of cultural and literary studies, which without coming to a conclusive established interpretation will always remain in flux as Kalidas says the old is not completely gold nor the new is made of a baser metal.
Their amulgamation would dispel the alien sense of diversity from the Indian mind as Rajan says Kalidas uses such phrases as always have a specific significance both in ancient and modern context. ‘Indra’ is called the breaker of dark clouds:
“The breaker of Dark Clouds (dark forces) to let light shine through, suggests in the context that the dark delusion clouding the King’s memory is destroyed through Indra’s power or compassion.” (19)

It has an implication that the concept of translator is not limited to the imposition of a literary, linguistic or cultural currents. The need is to present trends and patterns without any cultural distortion.
In this perspective it becomes necessary to examine the directions of both the translators to understand their sources of inspiration and translated method which can be apprehended to some extent with their own view on the mythology, linguistic, cultural and sociological levels in their transformed pattern without any distortion by English and Indian readers.
The quest is how far it is intelligible to both the readers and how the differences between eastern and western can be mitigated by removing the linguistic and cultural complexities.

Thus Jones implicitly suggest in his preface that western and Indian readers can only be delighted by their reciprosity of understanding and enjoying each other literary manners.
Rajan hasn’t mentioned in acknowledgement, preface and bibliography (except some stray opinion of Jones in the context of Kalidas’s dates) that she has perceived the translation of Jones and was benefited by it at any stage. Rajan doesn’t give any hint of the achievements and limitations of Jones translation but discusses on the matter of translation and the traits of Kalidasa’s text specifically and accepts that:
“We endevour to provide the best approximation to the original not only within the limitations set by our own abilities but more so within those set by the receiving language.” (17)
We now encounter with the matter and methology of translation. Both the languages have different symantic and syntactical structures. According to Figueira:
“Sanskrit verses have very strict and definite metrical forms, complex patterns of assonance and alliteration and qualities of rhythm and musicality, it is difficult to render them directly into another language.” ( )
So Jones to bring appropriateness into the text resorts to prose translations and avoids adding any verified expression. M Williams laments on his occasionally weakened substituting his bold and vivacious phrases.
“His delicate expression of refined love and idea grand in their simplicity his diluted by repetition and amplification.” Pg (23).
Jones to render the Sanskrit text in a modern language in a inter linery version first translates it into Latin because of its close resemblance to Sanskrit language. In his article published in 1786 as entiled ‘The Sanscrit Lanuage’ he writes:

“The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have spring from some common source.” (301)

From Latin he rendered into English word for word :

“I then turned it word for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or suppressing any material sentence, disengaged from the stiffness of a foreign idiom, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian drama.”(367)

Dr Rajan also believes to provide the best of approximation to the original within the limitations set by the receiving language. She enumerates the various points of dissimilaries in the patterns of Sanskrit language which create hurdle in an authentic translation. Its distinctive features are its being highly inflected language:

“The extensive use of compound words and an array of synonyms with slight nuances of meanings that colour the expression of what is being said. The inflexional structure and the use of compound words give the language a tightly knit compactness which is of importance in poetry ; this compactness suffers from some dillusion in translation.” (17)

It is a creditable task for William Jones that with the help of minimum source material of the times he traces the history of Sanskrit drama and darmaturgey though he does not mention the early Sanskrit Drama the ‘Mrichhkatikam’ The Clay Cart which was later on mentioned by M. Williams in his Preface.
3. Title
Clearly the translators perform their job of rendering the title according to their intent and their understanding of the main sensibility of the drama. All the titles may be divided between the emphasis on ring (the thing) and recognition (the person).
Jones Translates ‘The fatal Ring (1789)’, Rajan translates it as ‘Recognition of Sakuntala’ (1989),in between 1789and 1989 some other titles came across summarizing –Sakuntala or the Lost Ring (1855) M. Williams , Shakuntala or the recovered Ring (1894) A. Hjalmar Edgreen, Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection (1984) Barbara Stolen Miller.

The translators have to establish the relative importance of the thing of recognition, the signet ring, the person of recognition and the act of recognition. The dramatist has explicitly suggested at places that ring will play an auspicious part in reinstating the lover in their former position. Their destiny of ‘Chakravak” is a transitory phase.
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“The spell which it raised shall be wholly removed when her lord shall see the ring.” p58
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“Madh.Do not despair : the fatal ring itself an example that the lost may be found. Events which were foredoomed by Heaven must not be lamented.” (6.104) Jones

In place of source text the expression denoting ‘recognition’ Jones replaces the word “see”, and later instead of remember the word is interchanged “recognize”. Rajan retains the very word recognition for “Abhijyan” in Durvasha’s speech and later on in Priyamvada’s speech “he stripped the signet ring with name inscribed on it on her finger as rememberance. Both the usages are according to the order of the text but contrary to the order of Jones. It is most probably due to perogative power of the translator as the ring is not only the reverential sign of recognition as if failed to produce evidence at the right time in the court.

4. Navan angukiea mev
At another stage when Shakuntala sees the ring on Dushyant’s finger she says “ah that fatal ring.” (132).
It appears as it is disastrous, deadly ring that played havoc with their lives and decided the fate of lovers, creating much hue and cry about the fatal proof of their self evident love and marriage. The entire perspective of translation of Abhigyan Sakuntalm by Jones is centred on the sense of ‘fatality.’ Apparently it looks like the title of a gothic novel of a forlorn lover with a perilious magical ring. No doubt at many places King, Clown and Sakuntala call it a fatal ring. Translator attaches himself to its own tragic interpretation relying on the implications of the succeeding sholaks. The epithet fatal seems to have been accepted by Jones as the power of fate which is beyond “controlling everything that happens in a way that human being can’t control”. (Collins p 520.)
Thus Chandra Rajan doesnt see the significance of adding adjectives to fatal ring. Though both the lines in form and content run parallel, but an ironic contrast conveys different senses of both renderings. “No don’t talk like this that the ring itself proves that reunion that are destined to happen can come about in the most unexpected manner.” (253.)
Though in Source Text no word for fatal is used though suggestive indication is there. In other translations the concept of fatal is only suggested and predestined or intended nor preordained.
But Sakuntala also praises the controlling power of fate when she hears that the recovery of the ring has restored his memory. “Its influence has been great, since it brought back the lost confidence of my husband.” (132).
Here the expression (Vishmam) (odd) creates trouble, but positively it means the ring didn’t appear at the right time to give a clear proof of their marriage, but later he did a just thing.
“When I failed in convincing my Lord the thing has succeeded and done just thing”.
Here the suggession of reshaping the destiny of the couple is not evident as the text does’nt give much help in this regard.
The ring is mischievious and untrustworthy in other translations. “The ring was to blame in allowing itself to be lost at the very time”. M. Williams.
Some of the problems can be guessed at from the explanation Miller offers of the play's title in the notes ‘Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection.’ This is not a literal rendering of the Sanskrit compound Abhijnanasakuntalam.
In the title the term ‘Abhigyan’ means regognition, recollection and remembrance. It is also concerned with the sign or token of recognition. The dramatic effect could only be caused by not recognizing Shakuntala by the King under the influence of a curse which could only be dispelled on perceiving the signet ring by the king but as she dropped it while bathing in the river.
The entire action of the drama moves on the wheels of recognition . The signet ring in the role of lost and found plays the major role. But the sequel of recognition does not end here. The more attractive part of the drama is the recognition of the heroine through the cognition of the son. Even in Act 1 she is recognized by the King as his perfect wife, through the recognition as establishment of her caste. Thus the whole play is the sequel of recognition which also carries a philosophical importance in Shavite fate. A more exact translation of the title might be where the entire compound refers to the implied word nataka (drama),and a word like smrta (remembered) may be supplied according to a rule of Sanskrit grammar governing elision in compound verbs.

Mythological allusions
English translators both from west and east sometimes attempt to bring about the whole sequence of mythical allusion in a particular context either through a bunch of words or through improper attributive names of gods. The lack of proper detail and the otherness of myth present only the figurative expression before the reader, mostly western as a mode of simile And not as a symbolized myth; both the translators Jones and Rajan lack this mythical significance

A good deal of the usages in Abhigyan Sakuntalam are in the form of epithets of deities and mythical figure who can be cognized only by devotes and scholars. (Tristotram) 7/3 Ganga, (Neellohit) Shiva7/35, SaptSapti (Sun), Shatkratu (Indra), Purush Kesari (Narshingha) are such usages.Jones is very eager to explain the allegorical significance of these deities. There are characters Marichi, Kashyap, Aditi and Diti in the drama. He speaks about the patterns and allegories in the Preface.
As they are in a play for theatrical performance only the most informed linguistic or scholar audience can understand, but there is some author’s intent or contextual constraints which an ideal reader knows and want to know. So the translator is obliged to retain the form of epithets allied with theistic etymology and expand it to incorporate the name of the deity.
Trisotram or triple streamed Ganga has been translated by various translators incorporating both functional and symbolic representations. Sir Jones translation is the typical example of a transposition of epithets without naming the unexpressed deity. However, Rajan do name the diety and follows it in notes “her home and resting place the firmanent”:

“The path of the wind Pravaha, hallowed
By Visnu’s wide stepping second stride,
And free of all worldly taints:
Its current bears along the Tripple- streamed Ganga.” (4.267)

A more essential point is noteworthy that is the untransability of function and word ‘Parivah’ which can only be explained in commentaries. M.R. Kale in his long commentary on the word ‘Parivah’ does’nt give any synonyms in English. Nearly all the translators direct their course like that. They call this ‘the way of the wind’ (Parivah). This they call the path of the wind. (Parivah). M.R.Kale
Hazalmer takes a long course and gives a tentative synonym:
“is named the pathway of the coursing wind which moves the triple Ganges”p270.
In undeviating from the main point in this quatrain are “The triple coursed river”, “The path way of the wind named Parivah”, “Vishnu’s second stride”, “The situation of sky” and “The movement of stars in their proper courses”.
The word ‘Pratitshta’ is missleading. It is generally translated as prestige, dignity, respectability but here it means situated in heaven.
Raghav Bhatt comments >>>

Monnier Williams leave the expression untranslated only reveals heaven as spanned by Vishnu. This is also the case with Hazalmer who neglects it but William Jones provides dignity to this expression. He remoulds the quatrain in translation in his own way.
“ This is the way which leads along the triple river, heaven’s brightest ornament, and causes you luminaries to roll in a circle with diffused beams, it is the couse of a gentle breeze which supports the floating forms of gods; and this path was the second step of Vishnu, when he confounded the proud Vali.” (7.121) Jones


6. “Nitamaskam” is not altogether uncomplicated expression as it has been translated variously on symbolic and denotative levels.. Jones explains various myths and allegories as of the second step of Vishnu when he confounded the proud Vali. He concentrates only on second step of Vishnu and leaves here the phrase Nitamaskam which is translated by Rajan as free of all worldly taints.
There is a mention of Vali’s legend in the original quatrain but he does not lose any important feature of the allusion imported in this translation.
The word “Nitamaskam” might have confounded him also. The word absent in his rendering connoted free from darkness and sin. Rajan delimits it to force all worldly taints. According to Miller it is “freed from the darkness by Vishnu’s second stride. “Dispelling the darkness and worldly sins” are blended in the single expression by Monnier Williams. It is the same path which once was sanctified by the divine impressions of the foot of the Vishnu. (177) One need not be confounded as every translation has own singular charm.

The transformations of the textual myth operates in distant form at various stages. William Jones accepts the limits of such translations in his preface. As to the machinery of the drama is taken from the system of mythology and which it would require a volume to explain. Let us see other myths, Jones explains the myths to provide information about Indian myths and allegories to western readers. Sometimes he speaks of their derivations and sometimes about the story attached to them. There is no good reason to discard them but citing them as part of the text may create confusion while their absence destroys the poeticity of drama.

“Could Aruna dispel the shades of night if the diety with a thousand beams had not placed him before the car of the day?” W jones (7.120)

“Could Aruna dispel darkness if the thousand rayed sun
Did not place him in the forefront as his charioteer?” Loom of time (7.267)
No doubt Saptsapti is an epithet of the Sun but here he is the master of the chariot driven by seven horses and he is not attributed here as a diety with thousands beams. Its proper epithet is Sastrarashmi.

The expression ‘Pinaki’ is a proper name of Shiva with a bow. He is chasing the Daksha’s yagya impersonated as a deer. Shiva is in an enraged mood which does not befit the term Mahesh associated with his beneficient gesture. Rajan though renders it as ‘Pinaki the Lord’, but does not exhibit the function of the allusion either in translation or in glossary.
“ Suta. I seem to see before my very eyes
Pinaki, the lord, chasing the deer.”(1.6.172)

“Dushmanta. I see before me, as it were, the God Mahesha chasing a hart,
with his bow, named Pinaka, braced on his left hand.”(1.1)


If the greek or the western mythology is imposed upon Sanskrit imagery it looks like a paradox of unacceptability is being forced to teach as acceptable. There are allusions of ‘Danu’ or Danav at many places to which Rajan replaces with ‘Titan’ which is greek in origin. In the Encyclopedia of Gods Titans is clearly sated as : “A race of gods. Greek. The secondary group of dities in the pre-hellenic pantheon.” (307)

“The Titans, by the fierce claws of godhead descended lion-like.” (7.3.266)

“The Titans are your arrow’s target by Indra ordained.” (6.34.264)
In the same way:
“O Lord Love! O dolphin-bannered God! I bow before you.” (6.3.248)
Kaamdev the god of love who bears an emblem of fish in his banner has been deviated to a peculiar expression of Dolphin, an emblem of a different culture altogether. It is neither adequate or acceptable in this context. The dictionary equivalent listed for Dolphin is ‘porpoise-like sea animal’ but this dolphin is not at all a fish described in the original text.
Trishanku
Some rendering are adherent only to the literal aspect of the text. But Jones feels that adding a phrase of mythical content, the allusive or allegorical significance and its dramatic beauty could be represented. A few mythical metaphors or allusions are figurative expressions of irony. Here Jones explains the allegory to an extent but Rajan is satisfied only with an ambiguous hint. (‘between mid air is not attached with the myth.’)
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“Madhava (laughingly): Stay suspended between them, both like king Trishanku between heaven and earth, when the pious man said rise and the god of swarg said Fall.” (2.33-34)

“Madhava (laughingly): “Hang in between, suspended in mid-air like Trishanku.” (Rajan 2.197)


7 Prakriti -

A cross cultural translation becomes a more complex phenomena if the various layers of mythical religious allusions and sentiments connotations stem from individual words of source language. For instance the word Prakriti has a number of connotations which are exploited by Kalidas in Abhigyansakuntalam at various stages and contexts and they have been summed up through ambivalence form in its valedictory benediction .
At the end of the play Kashayap asks Dushyant what other blessing can be granted him to be fulfilled. Dushyant says in the altruistic mode:
“Dushmanta. Let Saraswati, the goddess of liberal arts, be adored by all readers of the Veda; and may Shiva, with an azure neck and red locks, eternally potent and self-existing, avert from me the pain of another birth in this perishable world, the seat of crimes and of punishments.” (7.139) Jones

“May the Self- Existent Lord who unites in Himself
The dark and the light,
Whose Infinite Power pervades this Universe
annihilate forever the round of my births.” (7.35.281) Rajan

No doubt the subject or the people is the most appropriate expression in this respect and both William Jones and Rajan are keen to bestow only this favour to their reader. The word Prakriti is a panacea for all that is wanted by the protagonist and his lady love. The play begins with the benediction containing the word Prakriti, earth the natural parent of all. M. Williams translates it as: “The earth by sages called the place of birth of all material essences and things.”

Rajan’s rendering is clear:

“The first Creation of the Creator:
that Bearer of Oblations offered with holy Rites:
That which is proclaimed the universal womb of seeds:
That which fills all forms that breathe
With the breath of life.” (169).

Nature the elemental force is the crux of the play. Dushyant is attracted to Shakuntala as he intuitively likes a life in the lap of nature more than urban society, “the forest vines excel the garden vines in charm.”
Shakuntala is nartured by nature. At the time of her departure the trees of the forest family bless her. Grazing deer drop grass peacock stop dancing. But there is the King resides in the royal palace which according to Sharadvad “is like a house in flame” and the city submerged in pleasures and the result is King’s longing for an empty mirage (Mrigtrishnika). So Dushyant can ask that the King should see in nature “that is ours” beyond materialistic pursuits. All the protagonist in Kalidas dramas and poems beseech their communion with nature. Dilip, Shiva, Gauri, Puru and Yaksha all regain their identity in the lap of nature.
Prakriti also means ‘minister’i. e counciller, the king should remain in constant communion with his councilors and ministers. Had the king cherished this attitude the tragedy would not have occurred, as says Sharangav “ A wilfull act unchecked always causes pain thus does unbridled impulse destroy a person.” ( 240).
There are other connotations of nature: propriety, natural grace and ‘natural behaviour’.
A few other translators have amalgamated such derivations but it is difficult to bring all the images and the specific features of drama in a single word in English. The word ‘nature’ which reminds us of the dictum ‘back to nature’ can help little in this respect. Nature also means the sum total of forces at work in the universe but it is also an ambigious concept. Still in some translations the word ‘nature’ appears in its original sense.
‘May the king serve nature’s good”. (Barbara S. Miller) (176).

8 Vichintamansa has been translated by S. Radhakrishana long after Jones in the same pertinent phrase. Jones and Radhakrishnan both are close to the text . As “it is an echo of Gita Meditating on me alone”(S. Radhakrishana)

“He on whom thou art meditating, on whom alone thy heart is now fixed, while thou neglectest a pure jem of devotion who demands hospitality, shall forget thee when thou seest him.” (4.57) Jones

Sage. You who do not notice me,
A hoard of holy merit
Standing at the door,
Because you lost in thoughts of one
To the exclusion of all else,
You shall be lost in his thoughts:
Though you goad his memory hard,
He shall fail to remember you.(4.1.215)



The word meditating is most significant as it is ------- by a spiritual union, through the experience of which the devotee or aspirant mentioned in Bhagvadgita attains security from all cares and sorrows. As the lord takes up all burdens and cares of his devotees.
But herein Sakuntala the approach is paradoxical. It is in form of an antithesis related with the theme of the play on a complex way. An intertextual appropriation in modern literary theory based on the absorption and transformation of the echoes of the earlier texts determines the main concept in a different rather parodic or ironical ways. The reader who is acquainted with Gita will recognize this discourse in a different universe of deceit, conceit and fatal irony. He sees in identical frames of Gita and Sakuntala the ironic contrast as in Eliot’s WasteLand in the form as it is of disintegration of human Faith. The translators ability is in vivifying the recurrences of the image in them.


9. Let us see the circular structure of the myth of the oriental omen of pulsating and throbbing of right arm. It occurs in the beginning and recurs in the end. At one place the king feels himself optimistic and at another pessimistic. The structure is contrary to each other but the result is fruitful on both times. Jones translates it as:
“Dushmant: Why O my arm, dost thou flatter me with a vain omen?” (7.124)
‘Vain’ here is a qualifier to omen and thus spoils the bitter irony suggested by the ineffectual throbbing of arm

In the end of the sentence it could retain the poetic subtility of the text as in the expression “beating his luminous wings in Void” if used in vain. In Rajan’s rendering it comes in properly at the end.
“I have no hope for my desire, why does my arm throb in vain.”(167) Miller

But here the adjective ‘fondest wish’ transforms the image of the king into a confusing man , whereas the image should be of a man with a serene and majestic demenour. The adjective is conspicuously absent in the original text and the absence creates the effect of dramatic irony.
Rajan elaborates the idea as an articulation of the king’s intensity of emotions. It should have been better conveyed by suggessions rather than directly conveyed. Thus she moves beyond the text and drops king’s mask of serenity. The situation is somewhat similar in the beginning of the drama when the king hopes some good omen awaits him. So he uses the word ‘Sphurti instead of ‘Spandate, the former means some movement in the subconscious while later is a sign of uneasiness of heart.
At first glance both expressions are similar but keeping in view of the etymological aspect of Sanskrit verbs it requires that the ironic structure may be maintained by looking at both the words in some different perspectives.

Rajan doesn't try to rhyme the verses but does try for a more poetic feel. Her translation
is also one of the more expansive ones, as she tries to convey the entirety of the original Sanskrit expressions. However at some places her translation appears a bit strained. Even when she conveys meaning better than the other versions, the result often sounds a bit off. Ryder, for example, opts for the far too simple when the king wonders, however the use of word ‘Father’ for a sage appears Anglican:
“King: Father Kanva lives a lifelong hermit. Yet you say that your friend is his daughter. how can that be ?” ( 1.40 )
       Rajan is much clearer, but her word-choices make for almost comic effect:
“King: His Holiness Kanva has been known to observe perpetual celibacy; how then can your friend be a daughter begotten by him ?” (1.181)
       In a number of places Rajan's more expansive rendering is helpful for example, in explaining the nature of the curse on Sakuntala at the beginning of the fourth act. At this point her translation is clearly superior to the Miller and Ryder versions. Overall, however, Rajan's touch with language is not felicitous; consider the moment when the king wonders what to do regarding the Sakuntala he no longer recognises. Ryder opted to convey the poetic feel, rather than aim for complete fidelity to the text:
“Not knowing whether I be mad
       or falsehood be in her,
Shall I desert a faithful wife
       or turn adulterer ?” ( 5.99)
       Miller's rendering is even clearer (though without the use of the world "adultery" the tainting the king is worried about may not be as clear to a Western audience not aware of the gravity of this sin):
“Since it's unclear whether I'm deluded
       or she is speaking falsely --
       should I risk abandoning a wife
       or being tainted by another man's ?”( 5.29.143 )
       Rajan gets the gist, but the excess words and punctuation (and the confusing Hamlet-allusion) don't help and hence the results is a tamed-down Anglicised version that sounds comfortably familiar :
“Am I deluded, or, is she false ?
this is the question” (5.32.241)
Barbara Stoler Miller's ‘Sakuntala and The Ring of Recollection’ despite of being a popular text in US is not an ideal translation. With a few inspired touches it does not stand out among the competition.  Sakuntala begins with a remarkable Prologue, in which the director of the play briefly discusses the planned night's entertainment with the lead actress. He's worried about impressing his learned audience, and tells her:
“I find no performance perfect
until the critics are pleased” (1.2.89)
       "Critics" with it's reviewer connotations is an unfortunate choice here; Kalidasa clearly only means he's worried about the opinion of this generally well-informed audience.
        Sakuntala is coming into her own, and one of the first things the king sees is Sakuntala asking one of her friends to loosen the no longer quite form-fitting bark dress she is wearing. As the friend says:
“Blame your youth for swelling your breasts”. ( 1.94 )
Rajan translates this much more successfully:
"blame your own budding youth that’s making your bossom swell.” ." (1. 176)

Miller knows her stuff, and the substance of the play is well-conveyed. But much goes missing especially that sense of poetry. Miller goes for the grounded, straightforward approach, not rhyming the verses, Arthur Ryder, on the other hand, imposes a rhyme on all the verses. Compare, for example, the same passage translate by Miller and Ryder:
       Miller's appears to be close to literal and, in this case, she manages to express the verse fairly elegantly as well ,when the king moons over Sakuntala:
“The divine creator imagined perfection
       and shaped her ideal form in his mind --
       when I recall the beauty his power wrought,
       she shines like a gemstone among my jewels.” ( 2.9.106 )
       Ryder embellishes and twists the words more than necessary, and doesn’t quite capture Kalidasa’s simpler praise but his version is also effective the rhymes and the familiar English expression reads well, rather than forced circumlocutions found so often in translations from the Sanskrit:
“She is God’s vision, of pure thought
       Composed in His creative mind;
His reveries of beauty wrought
       The peerless pearl of womankind.
So plays my fancy when I see
How great is God, how lovely she.” ( )

shakes and ghalib

First let us have a glimpse of some couplets and fragments of sonnets which are parallel if not identical in form and content. Distinct qualities of Urdu poetry are a keen ability to enjoy to the last drops everything that life brings, unsentimental detached observation of man and god and the universe. There is a strong sense of independence and self respect, conviction of originality, and of the value to mankind, upholding his values to the end no matter what other men may think of him. these are the very qualities of Shakespearean sonnets as well. I would like to deal one by one with all of them.

love
Shakespaere in sonnet 46 describes the war between his eyes and heart for having a first glimpse of his beloved.

“Mine eyes and heart are at mortal war
How to divide the conquest of thy sight.” (46)
Galib is also in the same dilemma that his heart and eyes like opponents are engaged in rivalry of emulating each other by glancing and meditating of her image.

“Baham digar hue hai dilo deeda fir rakib
Nazzarh o khyal ka saman kiye hue.”


Heart of Galib now further proceeds in the reproachful by lanes after having demolished his own temple of pride and egotism, but Shakespeare’s heart and eye approach the Court, the heart debares the eye of her right of vision as beloved’d closet canot be pierced by mortal eyes and defendant eyes plead that her appearance lies in her. The verdict determines their moiety one half to each. And thus mine eyes due is thine outward and my hint’s right thine inward love of heat. A league is made and they are no more antagonists each does good turn to other. Heart feast and my love’s picture and eyes is now heart’s guest.
“Between mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other” (47).

Thus the idea continues in the next sonnet. Now in sonnet 132 the eyes and heart are of the lady who is not in love with this infatuated lover but her beautiful black eyes take pity on him and her heart mourns for his desperate mood, now there is an argument, a pun on mourning and morning runs all through the sonnet.

“As those two mourning eyes become thy face.
O, let it then as well beseem thy heart to mourn for me.” (132)

Shakespeare presents this paining of eye and heart or some larger canvas of litigation and tangle of overlapping renaissance conceit “contest and legalistic debate between eye and heart were a common place fancy in Renaissance.”Booth pg 208

Galib’s attitude toward human love is conventional, but he does not idealize his love. Galib presents in new light the stock characters of a Gazal-the lover, his mistress, his unworthy rivals for her love and in the sphere of mysticism he may show a new light in man’s relationship with god. However the Gazals are distict in style and in them the rights of lover are stressed as much as the rights of the mistress, and in this lover’s self respect is asserted.

To every word that I utter you answer , ‘Who are you?
You tell me, is this the way, then I should be spoken to?
Ghalib dallied with several women, accepted the institution of the courtesan without censure, and at the age of 23, had what was the most traumatic love affair of his life. He wrote later of this, though we know little of the girl, who died early. “In the days of my youth, when the blackness of my deeds outdid the blackness of my hair and my heart held the tumult of the love of fair-faced women. Fate poured into my cup too the poison of this pain, and as the bier of my beloved was borne along the road, the dust rose from the road.”

Galib states his own attitude in two successive verses of a Gazal, deliberately parallel in their structure, in which he speaks in turn of the cruelty of fair women and the transience of spring, and stresses that without in nay way blinding himself to these realities, it is to their beauty that he surrenders himself:

The fair are cruel. What of it? They are fair.
Sing of their grace, their swaying symmentry.


My heart, this grief and sorrow too is precious; for the day will come.
You will not heave the midnight sigh nor shed your tears at early morn.

In Shakespeare’s sonnets beauty and love are the issues that have been idealized and sometimes proved to be false and deceptive and sometimes used as a basis for the philosophy of love the conflict of body and soul, matter and spirit. The everlasting spirit of poetry is a recurring theme in various sonnets by such juxtaposition of heavenly and earthly glories. The concept takes the form of a satire, apparently giving a semblance of parody but the unreal comparison ends in the idealization of the mistress.

thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou are the fairest and most precious jewel.” (131)

My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is more fair red then her lips red
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
if hairs be wire, black wires grow on her head. (130)

Galib is eager not only to do virtuous deeds but to commit sin as well, partly because he does not classify sin as others classify it, and partly because he wants the experience too, and if what he does is sin , he is more ready to pay the penalty.
Quote “


Shakespeare lives every moment to the full, prepared to face what is to come, but careful to make no optimistic assumptions about it. This sonnet describes Shakespeare’s relationship with the lady probably his mistress. The lovers do not seem to be in love at all and are aware of the mutual hypocrisies they practice with each other. Yet for them this love is as good as the real one since it keeps “the simple truth suppressed”. Shakespeare candid realism is remarkable in the acceptance of his faults and sin of not loving truly .And the comparison provides a fanciful evidence of wit and love.

“Therefore I lie with her, and she with me
and in our faults by lies we flattered be. ”(138)


Thus, the immortalizing power of poetry is the central argument that brings reconciliation between the constancy and inconstant attitude of love and beauty.


The metaphor of music though is a conventional motif , but for both Shakespeare and Galib it is a key for unlocking their heart. Shakespeare has drawn his imagery of the sonnets from his experiences of music, stage, poetic craft, commerce, court , the crown and the emperor, religion and nature. The sonnets have an undercurrent of autobiographical and historical references, imbibed with renaissance attitude.
The sonnet takes two turns, first is the picture of lover standing beside his lady love and expresses his envious appreciation of the lucky wood whose movements sways the string concord while he is standing by her, blushing at the woods boldness. The keys when tickled shifts with the dancing chips. In this way the dead woods remain more fortunate as they receive a touch of his fingers. Both the musical instrument and the poet are resonant one with sound and the other with feeling.

“How oft when thou, my music play’st
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With they sweet fingers,when thou gently sway’st.” (128)

Galib also exploits the simile of instrument of music. Here the lover wishes to be transformed into the wooden key or in the affectionate strings. Shakespeare chooses an instrument probably to exploit the punning mode. He uses the word ‘jack’ i.e though the wooden key touches his beloved’s palm is a worthless thing but if we take the music in a metaphoric sense in which the harmony is achieved by the means of string. The juxtaposition of the poet and the musical instrument creates a new image of the lover who cherishes a complaint against both key and the beloved and then by exploiting a conceit by tickling the string by finger he himself aspires that the fingers would tickle him as well, touching gently making him fortunate like dead wood though there is nothing but a storm of complaints in the heart of the lover. Galib is also inducing her to tickle his senses like the string of the instrument.

“Pur hun mein Shikve se yun raag se jaise baja
ek jara cheriye phir dekhiye kya hota hai”.


On occasions of admiring of love and beauty the complications resulting to a large extent from their conventional structure have been turned into many-sided relationship between the poet and his beloved. Through his many dimensional imagery comes down the amalgamation of the convention , novelty and individual talent . It has resulted in an anti thesis, irony and paradox of poet’s love and its perspective.




Shakespeare and Galib anticipates the turn of thoughts through the method of pun, ambiguity, multi layered word meanings, irony, paradox, wit and conceit. All these methods are often exploited but has been given a new shape in their verse. So their endeavor is to reinvent old methods as new –i.e. in a new light -exploiting again what has already been exploited.

“This narrow imperfect vessel of Gazal is not in conformity with my utterance of love. Some more variations and new found methods are needed for expanding my way of expression.” Both Shakespeare and Galib are in quest for new potential variations in form and poetic ingenuity. The parallelism is striking because both are against monotonous of expression to give some passionate demonstration to their love. Every poet however great he might be, thinks himself imperfect in influencing his reader of implicitly his object of love.
He introduces a method in which the main argument runs on subconscious and conscious level simultaneously unlocking the poet’s heart in his poetry. It allows him the counter movement of his thoughts before the reader is aware of its presence.
“Bakadra sauq nahi zarfe tangnae gazal’
Kuchh aur chahiye vusat meri zuban ke liye.”



Shakespeare is of the view that the poem can only be worthy of appreciation when it possess all that gentle grace and universal qualities which makes the hearer identify with the impressions and emotions of the poet at the time of the composition of the poem.
The fellow poets in such expressions of Shakespeare’s beloved finds that it is their own voice of heart and mind. We look at this sonnet as a consistent resentment of Shakespeare against his patronage and the behaviour of his fellow poets. We do little justice on the relation of poet and reader in the process of emotional communication. The poem is in the real sense a masterpiece with which the reader and the fellow poet identify with the feeling and the argument of the poet. Every poet however great he might be, think sometimes himself imperfect influencing his readers and his object of love. He feels his mode of expression because of being conventioanl is now lacking in inventiveness. His creativity is now suffering from monotonous expression. A poem can only be an exquisite expression if the reader identifies himself with the poet’s view and expression. He feels that it is his own feeling and outlook that has been communicated in this verse. Both Shakespeare and Galib feel the necessity of tradition while exploring the new dimensions of their poetic modes. They feel satisfied by dressing up old similes and metaphors with new symbols and images. Galib says though my soul preoccupation is to sing of your charming and amorous gestures with some novelity but they cant attract attention without the mention of dagger and dart.




“ maqsad hai nazo gamza vale guftagu se kam
Chalta nahin hai dashnao khanzar kahe bager.”

In the same way when he writes the poems of mystic experiences he feels the necessity of suggesting the traditional metaphor of wine to express the exclusive union of man with god. He says however it may be the dialogue on the witness of the absolute truth. It can’t be dually expressed without the help of the flash of wine and its hangover.


“Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variations or quick change? ” ( 76)

Shakespeare also holds a traditional course of poetic craft when he declares that he is not an innovator of his time but he feels that beloved and love are the everlasting themes so like others he would also endevour to dress up old words anew. The sun rises everyday so he is old but when he rises he bring new aspirations and splendour so it it is a new sun. So his old poetry also bears a new garment on her flames. According to Booth “it also has a potential emblem of glorious eternally Phoneix like rejuvination”. (266)


“For as the sun is daily new and old,
so is my love still telling what is told.” (76)

The poet howsoever exquisite is his way of expression might be thinks his mode of utterance imperfect in influencing his reader or more implicitly his object of love. He feels as if his poetry was suffering from monotomy of expression. He yearns to add some new dimensions to his narrow world of poetry as to change the conventional verse techniques. Shakespaeare laments

Why write I still all one, even the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed. (76)


So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent. (76)


He accepts that he has resorted to a technique of the traditional, devoid of any new invention without any variation or change but as it arises from inner most recesses of his heart and mind, we find that every word has an imprint of his personality. He imitated the style of Bedil and felt it was a torment for him to exploit conventional styles. Later on he declared with confidence Galib writes in a letter to A.R Shaiker

Writing in Urdu in Bedil’s style
What a torment, AsadullahKahan.”


At another point galib praises his poetic craft as something a class apart.
Galib ka Andaze Bayan Hai Aur.”


It should be noted that Shakespeare is a great name in the realm of poetry. But at heart he is full of the feelings of the shortcomings of his poetic expression. He is not mistaken it is the primitive urge of every poet for developing new poetic fashion. yet at times he is aware of his superiority above his rival poets.









“While I call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace.”

Galib says it with the same urge of that he should be recognized as an innovator in the realm of poetic craft.


“Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege:
The hardest knife ill used doth lose his edge.”
Here the parallelism is based on the metaphors of pain and pleasure. It proves an wholesome state of mind as wholesome where the sickly appetite and the pain rendering wound, both are pleased and fed with the same expressions and experiences. The nurse,the physic , the surgeon are of the same. G doesn’t want that his wound should be cured.he extends the idea in another couplet where he exploits the conceit of negative as positive ,foe as friend and then redefines him in true colours of false lovers, intolerant to the smarting pain.
“The wound that can be easily stiched by any device,
O my lord write it in the fate of my rival.”
“Jis zakam ki ho sakti ho tadbir rafoo ki
Likh deeyo yarab usse kismat mein udu ki.”


To take delight in pain is a morbid state of mind. The customary device of joining pleasure and pain in the form of reconciliation of opposites is exploited both by Sha and G. they explore the moods of love in unusal modes and situations . here is an indication of describing a positive sane mood of infatuation with a negative amazing expression. The poet connets pleasure and pain in an unezxpected relation.
“My love is a fever
please.” (147).
Shakespeare feels the pleasure of his fever of love as it prolongs his infatuation in the form of illness. G also says that synomn of pleasure is pain. His love is in form of a wound that gives him pleasure when he feels a smarting pain of the pricking of the stiching needle. The stiching means the sweet pain of pain caused by the touch of the needle.
People aspire for heaven simply to get rich and life full of love and pleasure. Their preachers present a charming picture of heaven. Both Shakespeare and Galib feel that a paradise is that it si not different from the abode and the blissful company of lady. But if it is simply an abode of lust it is hell and better be enjoined with paradise for moderation. And should avoid extreme
Pg 129 sonnet
Galib also presumes the same situation of paradise and in its quest he thinks better to shun extreme. He says My lord better join hell with paradise it will then provide a larger place for excursion.
Quote
A serious concept is presented humourously again he says “we know the reality of heaven but it is simply a good fond fancy for keeping oneself happy. but he aspires may be the praise of pardise be true then it may be like her beloved’s abode. Shakespeare says it is
“a joy proposed behind
A serious concept is here a dream. ” (129)
In another sonnet Shakespeare develops the concept of heaven in a peculiar way. According to him it is not an abode of charming angel a fiendish angel may be there better let them remain friendly with each other. One angel in the other’s paradise or in other’s hell. This is a moderate situation free from extremes nearer to what is proposed by galib and formally envisaged by Shakespeare






Time and immortality through verse

The main theme of the sonnets is the transience of youth and beauty and the role of his poetry to confer immortality on youth and beauty. Love, time and their mutability- as well as conflict-` result in the struggle between the spiritual and physical love, reason and passion. There is a conflict between the symbols of youth and beauty and the destructive forces of war and nature and this anti thesis based on the paradox of black and bright brings in the idea that ‘in black ink my love may still shine bright.’

In sonnet 18 the poet compares the young man to a summer day and proceeds to the correlation between the course of nature and the course of his eternal verse. Both the counter statements are juxtaposed by the symbolic meaning of summer, the seasons of youth.
“But the eternal summer shall not fade.
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.”
“So long as men can breathe ,or eyes can see,
So long live this, and this gives life to thee.” (18)


Galib’s creative genius firmly withstands the assault of time, deceptiveness, faithfulness, betrayal, despair and depression. It has given him an understanding in human psyche which goes forward and backwards in dimensions within credibility. To capture this incredibility the poet resorts to puns, the contrast and the paradoxes which are based on the play of words.
quote




Classical allusions
Quote aadam

One of the major important points is linked with his use of religious (muslim) and biblical allusions which both the poets profoundly exploits to speak of his love as boundless in time and space.

In sonnet 1 the word “increase” has clear biblical echoes of god’s command to his creatures to increase and multiply. The language is of natural fertility –increase implies natural fruitfulness and this suggestion is picked up by many words and images in the poem such as rose, riper, abundance, fresh, spring and bud.The biblical and natural connotations reinforce each other- it is both right and natural for the addresses to produce a tender heir. The sonnet begins, so to speak, in the desire for an Eden where beauty's rose will never die.
“From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die.”

The allusions from classical myths help in contrasting the two spirits of good and evil, angels and devil, hell and heaven are amalgamated in a single spirit.
53. Allusion of Helen and Adonis -Helen is the symbol of inconstant love and Adonis is the symbol of constant love both are juxtaposed in the image of the young man.

When too many arguments are at constant flux and conflict they can be reunited by mingling various shades of meaning in a single word. There remains an implied contrast and unity in such expression through the paradoxical situations the readers mind moves from one point to another and then seeks an alliance between them.
For instance in sonnet 53 there are three meaning of shadow in the quatrain they are silhoutee picture reflection symbol or ghost.

“What is your substance,whereof are you made,
Tht million of strange shadows on you tend?” (53)

There are similar ambiguities in regard to ‘substance, tires,blessed shape and counterfeit’ all art of beauty suggests the use of cosmetics.

The double use of ‘state’ in 29 sonnet brings out the contrast between the poet’s outcaste state and the state of joy described in the 3rd quatrain. The poet reveals his depression in the image of a lark at break of day who sings hyms at heaven’s gate.
“when in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcaste state.” (29)


Massive anagrammatic, metaphorical and punning word play.
This is possibly a self-addressed sonnet about the counterpoint between outward beauty and hidden vices. sweets dost thou thy sins enclose sums up the sonnet’s presentation of apparently sweet words that veil vices.
Quote galib


O, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,

“I am full of vices that are disguised by my graces that seduces others’ view of me.” Virtual euphoria at his own paradox. Mansion conveys the enormity of the vices as well as the space in which they are able to be disguised. Mansion is a euphemism for the human body and may contain a pun on "man".
Life went on, and so did the loom of history. Mughal power slowly dwindled. British power they were securely installed as the rulers of India, with their capital at Calcutta. Delhi felt the reverberations of their rule, and Ghalib registered these. He was a part of his city and of his times There is still something to be said for Ghalib’s insistence that a bureaucracy that overlooks the standing of a poet does so at its own historic risk. Ghalib is an invaluable chronicler of this turbulent period. The structure of Delhi crumbled as if in an earthquake.
He wrote:
“An ocean of blood churns around me-
Alas! Were these all!
The future will show
What more remains for me to see”.
In this dissatisfied mood, he wrote:
In eternity without beginning,
My star has reached the zenith of acceptance;
But in this world the renown of my verses will be
after me.

Similarly in the sonnets there are numerous references to contemporary events . as in sonnet 25 shakespeare complains of his own lack of public honour and fortunes at times.
“The The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled” (25)

This sonnet is refered by Shakespearean critics as the precious confirmatory evidence for the dating of the sonnets. All Elizabethan scholars recognize that ‘mortal moon’ refers to Queen Elizabeth and the Lopez conspiracy .There is also a referance to the end of a long religious war in france which lasted during the lifetime of shakespeare.
“the mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
and the sad augurs mock their own presage:
Incertanities now crown themselvers assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.” (107)

In one of the sonnets Shakespeare’s eyes play the role of a painter who draws the painting upon his heart and thus:

“Mine eye hath played the Painter and hath stelled
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart”(24)

There is a far fetched conceit that his beloved would see through the window of her eyes this painting and thus a reciprocal process of peeping into each others eyes would begin. The imagery is suggested in G to be indelibly carved by a pen. Shakespeare has used the word steel for a painter’s pen and thus a mosaic of blood from the canvas of heart flows. galib’s image though not far fetched but emerges out of the same wit in Shakespeare’s sonnet. G says the steel of my eye lashes is drawing a blosooming garden on the fringe of my garment with the blood of my heart. Though the expression does not literally reveal the idea what “good turn eye for eyes have done” in Shakespeare.

“Phir bhar raha hai khamah mizgan bakhoonae dil
Saze chaman tarazie daman kiye hue”

Galib suggests with the connotation of the painting of garden which beseeches itself to be glanced by the eyes of his beloved. It is the beloved eyes that can grace his art as he says in this succeeding couplet : “I cherish a longing for seeing my beloved’s dagger like eye lashes sharpened by the use of collorium.”ie a suggession of reciprocal peeping into each others eyes.






Na kardah gunahon ki bhi hasart ki mile dada
Yarab agar in kardah gunahon ki saza hai.

ghalib v s shakepeare

With due acknowledgement frm dr d.sharma

Comparison of translations of Abhigyaana-Shaakuntalam.
Intro
Herde wrote after reading Shakuntala: "A masterpiece that appears once every two thousand years". The story for the play ‘Abhigyaana-Shaakuntalam’ appears in the Adi Parva of The Mahabharata . Kalidas adapted the story for this play though he takes significant liberties in his version. Kalidasa is recognizably the greatest poet and dramatist in Ancient India when Sanskrit flourished. Abhijnanasakuntalam and Kalidasa's other plays were written for a refined court audience. The dialogue of the upper-class characters was delivered in Sanskrit, the classical language, and that of women and commoners in Prakrit, the common speech. Despite these lofty origins, Kalidasa's plays have remained popular. He achieves a unique harmony in weaving a fabric of human life with threads of human frailties and tragedies.
In 1789, the first translation of Shakuntala was made by Sir William Jones into English and since then a number of translators have attempted to translate this play. This translation not only played an important role in bringing about a renaissance in Indian literature, but also greatly influenced European literary traditions. Among them, the best known translations are Monier Williams’s translation of Shakuntala into prose and verse (1855), M.R.Kalle, Arthur Ryder, K.V.Sundaram, Barbara Miller and that of Chandra Rajan.
In this paper I attempt to do a comparative study of the translations of Shakuntala focusing on the translations of Willaim Jones’s ‘Sacontala or The Fatal Ring’ (1789) and Chandra Rajan’s Shakuntala (1989). However, my study is not limited to these translations only but I have also attempted to examine briefly the translations of M. Williams, Ryder and Miller as well, particularly the emotive basis of various Shoklas bearing love and eroticism and how far they have pierced into the very spirit, the character, atmosphere and the central sensibility.

Kalidas is known for his treatment of nature and of its expatiation in similes and imagery.
Another important aspect which my paper closely attempts to enumerate is to see how far these translators could imbibe the atmosphere of hermitage, the pastoral imagery and the sacraments of ancient India, to bring out a living picture of Kalidas’s age. The problems faced by the translators are formidable, particularly while working with English and Sanskrit. With all the tremendous powers that the English language has, it is still not fully capable of coping with the subtlety and hidden dimensions that are found in Sanskrit, it is a difficult language to translate so it is necessary to evaluate how far they are successfully transferred into English.


To the orientalist of the nineteenth century it was not only a delightful experience but a duty of a westerner to know all about the literary pursuits, the opinions, prejudices, fables, the religious beliefs, metaphysical thinking and amusements reflected in their dramas and poetry. It is the contribution of Hones that the Europe could be acquainted to acknowledge and appreciate India as a civilized country as its literature ascends back for more than two thousands years and is not alien in aesthetics of love, beauty and nature for the European mind. Schegal in his lecture on dramatic literature says:
“ Shakuntala not withstanding with colouring of a foreign clime, bears in its general structure a striking resemblance to our romantic drama.” (M.Williams xxi)
Hamboldt observes: “ Kalidas the celebrated author of Shakuntala is a masterly describer of the nature. Tenderness in the expression of feeling and richness of creative fancy, have assigned to him his lofty place among poets of all nations.” (M.Williams xii)
The impact of ‘Sacontala’ was soon felt in Europe when Edwards London editions appeared in 1790 and 1792. By 1791, Sacontala was translated into German by Forster and by 1792 into Russian by Karamsin. Translations in Danish (1793), French (1803) and Italian (1815) appeared soon after. In particular, Goethe was deeply influenced by the play to the extent that the prologue of Faust was inspired by that of ‘Sacontala’. So inspired was he by the play that he wrote in 1791:

"Wouldst thou the earth and heaven
itself in one soul name combine?
I name thee, O Sakuntala, and all at once is said.”
( Roychaudhuri:75-76)
Jones in a letter addressed to Sir Joseph Banks in 1791 wrote:
" I can assure you that the translation is as literal
as possible; but I am not sure, that my own
errors or inattention may not have occasional mistakes". (Jones, Letters 2:894; quoted Pachori 89)



Jones calls Shakuntala the celebrated drama of Shakespeare of India, hundred years back Jones had already claimed him as “our illustrious poet this Shakespeare of India.” Jones first came to hear about Indian ‘Natakas’, during his sojourn in Europe, in 1787. These ‘Natakas’ were then considered to be Brahmanical histories with a mixture of fables and myths. His interest aroused, Jones began to investigate them on his return to Calcutta and was soon convinced that these were popular works far removed from being 'histories'. Jones was given a Bengali recension of ‘Sacontala’. Ramlochan, a Sanskrit teacher at the University of Nadia, helped Jones read the play and in 1789, Joseph Cooper published the English translation of ‘Sacontala’.
About a century had elapsed, writes Monnier Williams in 1885 in the introduction of ‘Shakuntala the Lost Ring’: “Since then great English orientalist , Sir Williams Jones astonished the learned world by the discovery of a universally esteemed drama ‘Sacontala’, now two centuries have elapsed with a rally of English translations of Shakuntal . In 1989 Chandra Rajan's translation of Kalidasa's Sakuntala ‘The Recognition of Shakuntala’ appears in the Penguin (India) edition of The Loom of Time, which also includes two of Kalidasa's poems. By this token of recognition it is but evident that throughout the centuries the grandeur of Kalidasa’s poetic art and dramatic craft have attracted many a western and eastern transformations of his art in the languages of the world. Widely translated there were no fewer than forty-six translations in twelve different languages in the century after Sir William Jones' groundbreaking first translation.
“It had an immediate and enthusiastic reception in germany, France and Italy and announced the birth of orientalism.”( 9) Figueira

Significantly when the translation of Jones compared is with Rajan’s translation the problem of complicating imagery , the vocubalary , the compact and order of the subtlety of Kalidas’s poetry, the direct and indirect analogy is faced with other translators by the both under review translators. Whether this is the discourse on the character and conduct of the play and the character and function of his translation Jones with a modest attitude measures his power of translation and the beauty of the text in his preface to ‘Sacontala.’
“I am convinced that the tastes of men differ as much as their sentiments and passions, and that, in feeling the beauties of art, as in smelling flowers, tasting fruits, viewing prospects, and hearing melody, every individual must be guided by his own sensations and the incommunicable associations of his own ideas.” (371) 
Sometimes Kalidas interestingly play on words the subtlety of mythological expression, words obliquely suggesting the simile remain beyond there understanding of the image. The problem of Indian and non Indian expression hovers over them. Jones without emphasizing upon the achievement and limitation of his translation modestly says:
“I then turned it word for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or suppressing any material sentence, disengaged from the stiffness of a foreign idiom, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian drama.” (367)
Commenting on one of the translated passages of Jones ‘Sacontala’ Figueira writes:
“ As is often the case in translation , the compact nature of the Sanskrit original is lost in Jones’s version … and repetitive through additions that do not particularly elucidate the meaning.” (51-52)
The nature of the reception of Shakuntala in nineteenth century and 20th century might be different because of trends and patterns of literary expression and tastes have changed but the two translations on the poles of two centuries give to both orientalist and general scholars a comparative view revealing the encounter of European thought and their cultural ethos of east and west. On one pole is the first translator of Shakuntala in English who is a British unprejudiced orientalist and on the other is an Indian translator who tries to amulgamate the Indian idea with the western way of thinking. He has taken pains to learn Sanskrit a task so foreign to his professional studies simply to understand the national vanity and vigour of ancient India and have access to the authentic cultural tradition and Hindu manners and his curiosity and eager desire to know the real position of India before the western conquest . To Rajan again it was a window to peep into west with the eyes of eastern cross cultural translation. It is but natural to encounter with the problem of cross cultural translation with the hybrid understanding of colonial and post colonial romantic ideas. As Jones has accepted that the scholars of diverse philosophical religious trends and inhabitants the various nations of Europe and India can read and misread the text according to their own sensibility it will remain a fine study of confluence cultural and literary studies which without coming to a conclusive established interpretation will always remain in flux as Kalidas says the old is not completely gold nor the new is made of a baser metal. Their amulgamation would dispel the alien sense of diversity from the Indian mind as Rajan says Kalidas uses such phrases as always have a specific significance both in ancient and modern context ‘Indra’ is called the breaker of dark clouds. It suggests in the context:
“The breaker of Dark Clouds (drak forces) to let light shine through,suggests in the context that the dark delusion clouding the King’s memory is destroyed through Indra’s power or compassion.” (19)
It has an implication that the concept of translator is not limited to the imposition of a literary linguistic or cultural currents to impose and project cultural needs upon another trends and patterns with any cultural distortion. In this perspective it is more curious to take the directions of both the translators to understand the sources of inspiration and their translated method which can be apprehended to some extent with their own view on the linguistic cultural mythology cultural and sociological levels in their transformed pattern without any distortion by English and Indian readers. How far it is intelligible to both the readers and how the differences between eastern and western can be mitigated by removing the linguistic and cultural complexities. Thus Jones implicitly suggested in his preface that western and Indian readers can only be delighted by their reciprosity of understanding and enjoying each other literary manners.
Chandra Rajan hasn’t mentioned in acknowledgement, preface and bibliography (except some stray opinion of Jones in the context of Kalidas’s dates) that she has perceived the translation of Jones and was benefited by it at any stage. Rajan doesn’t give any hint of the achievements and limitations of Jones translation but discusses on the matter of translation and the traits of Kalidasa’s text specifically and accepts the endevour to provide the best approximation to the “We endevour to provide the best approximation to the original not only within the limitations set by our own abilities but more so within those set by the receiving language.” Rajan p(17)
Dr Rajan has an edge over Jones in learning Sanskrit language and literature. She explored the fasinating world of Kalidas through her grandfather P. S. Iyer and the teacher Sir Ram Setu at an early age of nine. They pointed out to her varied beauties and subtetilites of the Kalidas’s language and poetic craft. She could easily prepare the ground for translation by selecting the text of Bengali recansion. Kanjilal had facilitated her task of determing the righjt recansion arguing for its authenticity in his critical editiuon. “Reconstruction of Abhigyan Shakuntalam’. It is critically constructed on the basis of the old manuscripts which were not so easily available to Jones. She also consulted the Devnagri recansion with the commentary of Raghav Bhatt. It is the most authentic interpretation of as which was not available it appears to Jones. She feels that Bengali text is more satisfying. William Jones also sought Bengali recansion being in Calcutta at that time. Jones after the publication of the translation opines to denote less space for courtship in Act 3:
“It must be for it must be confessed that the whole of Dushmanta's conversation with his buffoon, and great part of his courtship in the hermitage, might be omitted without any injury to the drama.” (372)
Dr Rajan says that it presents the courtship as well as the conflict of Shakuntala’s mind in some detail. The stanza at the end of act three reveals something of the complexity of the king’s character.
We now encounter with the matter and methology of translation. Both the languages have different symantic and syntactical structures. According to Figueira:
“Sanskrit verses have very strict and definite metrical forms, complex patterns of assonance and alliteration and qualities of rhythm and musicality, it is difficult to render them directly into another language.” ( )
So Jones to bring appropriateness into the text resorts to prose translations and avoids adding any verified expression. M Williams laments on his occasionally weakened substituting his bold and vivacious phrases.
“His delicate expression of refined love and idea grand in their simplicity his diluted by repetition and amplification.” Pg (23).
Dr Jones to render the Sanskrit text in a modern language in a inter linery version first translates it into Latin because of its close resemblance to Sanskrit language. In his article published in 1786 as entiled ‘The Sanscrit Lanuage’ he writes:

“The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have spring from some common source.” (301)

From Latin he rendered into English word for word :

“I then turned it word for word into English, and afterwards, without adding or suppressing any material sentence, disengaged from the stiffness of a foreign idiom, and prepared the faithful translation of the Indian drama.”(367)

Dr Rajan also believes to provide the best of approximation to the original within the limitations set by the receiving language. She enumerates the various points of dissimilaries in the patterns of Sanskrit language which create hurdle in an authentic translation. Its distinctive features are its being higly inflected language:




“The extensive use of compound words and an array of synonyms with slight nuances of meanings that colour the expression of what is being said. The inflexional structure and the use of compound words give the language a tightly knit compactness which is of importance in poetry ; this compactness suffers from some dillusion in translation.” (17)

It is a creditable task for William Jones that with the help of minimum source material of the times he traces the history of Sanskrit drama and darmaturgey though he does not mention the early Sanskrit Drama the ‘Mrichhkatikam’ The Clay Cart which was later on mentioned by M. Williams in his Preface.


Figueira in her book “ Translating the Orient” addresses the specific problems encountered in cross-cultural translation ,what particularly interests her is the "free play" approach the early translators took:
“The discovery of Sanskrit literature, exemplified by the reception of the Sakuntala, provided translators with a screen upon which to both project and conceal specific cultural, psychological, and religious concerns. With so few pedagogical tools available, it was difficult to assimilate in any more than a rudimentary fashion this new and different literature. Later linguistic refinement overcame the distortions made by the first generation of Sanskritists and led to a loss of the "free play" which had characterized”
The translator is not less eminent in the theatrical world of Kalidas that conveys in great measure the poetic beauty, the system of mythology the reincarnation of allegorical personages in a familiar prose style through later translators inspite of calling it excellent , adapted to meet the requirements of modern times was made in a prose in which the bold phraseology of Kalidas has been occasionally weakened. His delicate expression of refined love and ideas grant in their simplicity diluted by repetition in amplification.
















Rajan doesn't try to rhyme the verses but does try for a more poetic feel . Her translation is also one of the more expansive ones, as she tries to convey the entirety of the original Sanskrit expressions.However at some places her translation appears a bit strained. Even when she conveys meaning better than the other versions, the result often sounds a bit off. Ryder, for example, opts for the far too simple when the king wonders:
“Father Kanva lives a lifelong hermit. Yet you say that your friend is his daughter. how can that be ?” ( )
       Rajan is much clearer, but her word-choices make for almost comic effect:
“His Holiness Kanva has been known to observe perpetual celibacy; how then can your friend be a daughter begotten by him ?” ( )
       In a number of places Rajan's more expansive rendering is helpful for example, in explaining the nature of the curse on Sakuntala at the beginning of the fourth act. At this point her translation is clearly superior to the Miller and Ryder versions. Overall, however, Rajan's touch with language is not felicitous; the version simply doesn't read that well. Consider the moment when the king wonders what to do regarding the Sakuntala he no longer recognises. Ryder offers the simple and straightforward:
“Not knowing whether I be mad
       or falsehood be in her,
Shall I desert a faithful wife
       or turn adulterer ?” ( )
       Miller's rendering is even clearer (though without the use of the world "adultery" the tainting the king is worried about may not be as clear to a Western audience not aware of the gravity of this sin):
“Since it's unclear whether I'm deluded
       or she is speaking falsely --
       should I risk abandoning a wife
       or being tainted by another man's ?”( )
       Rajan gets the gist, but the excess words and punctuation (and the confusing Hamlet-allusion) don't help :
“Am I deluded, or, is she false ?
this is the question: should I incur
the blame of forsaking my own wife,
or the stain of adultery, alas,
with the wife of another ?” ( )

Barbara Stoler Miller's, published along with translations of Kalidasa's two other dramas as Theater of Memory.  It is not, however, ideal. Miller's translation is solid, with a few inspired touches, but it does not stand out among the competition.       
Sakuntala is a play in seven acts. It begins with a remarkable Prologue, in which the director of the play briefly discusses the planned night's entertainment with the lead actress. He's worried about impressing his learned audience, and tells her:
“I find no performance perfect
until the critics are pleased;
the better trained we are
the more we doubt ourselves.” ( )
       "Critics" with it's reviewer connotations is an unfortunate choice here; Kalidasa clearly only means he's worried about the opinion of this generally well-informed audience.
        Sakuntala is coming into her own, and one of the first things the king sees is Sakuntala asking one of her friends to loosen the no longer quite form-fitting bark dress she is wearing. As the friend says:
“Blame your youth for swelling your breasts”. ( )
Ryder translates this much more successfully:
"You had better blame your own budding charms for that." ( )

Much of the power of the play is as a character study of Sakuntala, as Kalidasa shows her in these different circumstances. Her love, her despair, her anger are all impressively displayed. Much of this and indeed, the success of much of the rest of the play depends on the poetry of the play, and while there are some very successful bits, Miller's translation does fall short. Sanskrit is a difficult language to translate in any case, the nominal compounds and the Sanskrit verses with their own complex rules are also very difficult to convey.
Miller knows her stuff, and the substance of the play is well-conveyed. But much goes missing especially that sense of poetry. Miller goes for the grounded, straightforward approach, not rhyming the verses, Ryder, on the other hand, imposes a rhyme on all the verses. Enough of the original comes through to get a decent sense of the play's qualities, but it rarely reaches the transcendent heights the original is reputed to have.



Arthur Ryder's early 20th century translation of Kalidasa's Sakuntala is one of the more enduring and frequently reprinted ones, despite a wealth of competition. Abhigyan Shakuntalam is a drama filled with poetry, and Ryder opted to convey the poetic feel, rather than aim for complete fidelity to the text.
       As Ryder writes from within the English tradition and hence the results is a tamed-down Anglicised version that sounds comfortably familiar but loses many of the Indian-Sanskrit aspects in the process. It does, however, make the play approachable. And it does convey some of the poetry of the play, a light touch and feel that is markedly absent from most of the other translations.
       Sometimes he seems to stray away from the text too much, but the effect remains. Compare, for example, the same passage translated by Miller and Ryder:
       Miller's appears to be close to literal and, in this case, she manages to express the verse fairly elegantly as well ,when the king moons over Sakuntala:
“The divine creator imagined perfection
       and shaped her ideal form in his mind --
       when I recall the beauty his power wrought,
       she shines like a gemstone among my jewels.” ( )
       Ryder embellishes and twists the words more than necessary, and doesn’t quite capture Kalidasa’s simpler praise but his version is also effective:
“She is God’s vision, of pure thought
       Composed in His creative mind;
His reveries of beauty wrought
       The peerless pearl of womankind.
So plays my fancy when I see
How great is God, how lovely she.” ( )
There is actually considerable agreement between the Miller and Ryder versions less so the Rajan version. Ryder version is simple, reads well, the rhymes and the familiar English expression rather than forced circumlocutions found so often in translations from the Sanskrit make it an easy and good reading.