How was the Ramayana translated into contemporary English?
How was the Ramayana translated into contemporary English?
Learn about a project to translate the Sanskrit epic poem the Ramayana into contemporary English.
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Transcript
ROBERT GOLDMAN: We love the text not only because of its beauty-- the language is very beautiful. The poetry is very lovely. Emotions that are represented in it are very deep and compelling. The characters are very striking and remain in one's imagination forever.
NARRATOR: The written work Professor Robert Goldman speaks so fondly about has been the focus of a 40-year labor of love for him and his wife, Sally. As scholars of the Sanskrit language, the couple just completed the seventh and final volume of a modern English translation of the Ramayana. It's the epic 50,000-lined Hindu poem written 2,500 years ago, India and the Hindu world's most beloved and countlessly retold story of the god Prince Rama.
Exiled from his homeland, Rama braves through an odyssey in search of his wife, Sita. She's been captured by a demon that Rama must overcome before taking his place as ruler of a utopian Hindu kingdom.
GOLDMAN: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Thrilling battles, hyperbolic stories of flying monkeys and people hurling mountains at each other. Ten-headed demons. The significance of the Ramayana is that it has an enormous impact on the religious, moral, social, literary, and political life of India from antiquity to modernity.
NARRATOR: Creating Ramayana's translation was an unexpected odyssey of its own for Goldman, who embarked on the quest while still a pre-med student at Columbia University.
GOLDMAN: Something about Indian cultures fascinated me deeply. So I asked my professors, you know, what else I could take. And they said, you should take Sanskrit.
NARRATOR: Goldman went to India and started reading the Ramayana with his fellow grad students. That's when the idea to create a modern translation of the original version of the poem took hold.
GOLDMAN: That was it. On days we're not teaching, including the weekends, we're often here in the office working from early morning until it's almost-- you get too tired even to read another line.
STUDENT: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
NARRATOR: Alongside teaching students about the Ramayana, the Goldmans directed an international consortium of scholars working on the massive translation. With each volume, the couple held fast to their vision for a Ramayana written in contemporary English, but remaining true to the original.
GOLDMAN: So we read about 10 translations, about 12 commentaries, along with the principal text. We try to see if we can agree on the most accurate translation and what sounds most proper in English.
NARRATOR: Now, with the final seventh volume complete, the Goldmans feel a bittersweet contentment.
GOLDMAN: We would be somewhat regretful to let it go and see the last chapter closed, but I think there will be a tremendous satisfaction to knowing that this is a really major work of world literature, which is very, very little known in the West, to have that available for general readers to try to understand what Indian civilization is all about.
NARRATOR: The written work Professor Robert Goldman speaks so fondly about has been the focus of a 40-year labor of love for him and his wife, Sally. As scholars of the Sanskrit language, the couple just completed the seventh and final volume of a modern English translation of the Ramayana. It's the epic 50,000-lined Hindu poem written 2,500 years ago, India and the Hindu world's most beloved and countlessly retold story of the god Prince Rama.
Exiled from his homeland, Rama braves through an odyssey in search of his wife, Sita. She's been captured by a demon that Rama must overcome before taking his place as ruler of a utopian Hindu kingdom.
GOLDMAN: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Thrilling battles, hyperbolic stories of flying monkeys and people hurling mountains at each other. Ten-headed demons. The significance of the Ramayana is that it has an enormous impact on the religious, moral, social, literary, and political life of India from antiquity to modernity.
NARRATOR: Creating Ramayana's translation was an unexpected odyssey of its own for Goldman, who embarked on the quest while still a pre-med student at Columbia University.
GOLDMAN: Something about Indian cultures fascinated me deeply. So I asked my professors, you know, what else I could take. And they said, you should take Sanskrit.
NARRATOR: Goldman went to India and started reading the Ramayana with his fellow grad students. That's when the idea to create a modern translation of the original version of the poem took hold.
GOLDMAN: That was it. On days we're not teaching, including the weekends, we're often here in the office working from early morning until it's almost-- you get too tired even to read another line.
STUDENT: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
NARRATOR: Alongside teaching students about the Ramayana, the Goldmans directed an international consortium of scholars working on the massive translation. With each volume, the couple held fast to their vision for a Ramayana written in contemporary English, but remaining true to the original.
GOLDMAN: So we read about 10 translations, about 12 commentaries, along with the principal text. We try to see if we can agree on the most accurate translation and what sounds most proper in English.
NARRATOR: Now, with the final seventh volume complete, the Goldmans feel a bittersweet contentment.
GOLDMAN: We would be somewhat regretful to let it go and see the last chapter closed, but I think there will be a tremendous satisfaction to knowing that this is a really major work of world literature, which is very, very little known in the West, to have that available for general readers to try to understand what Indian civilization is all about.