G. U. Pope’s
Translation :
What does it Mean to Thirukkural Studies?
(A Summary)
In order to understand the significance of Pope’s
translation, we need to revisit the structure and import of Thirukkural.
Transcending the veil of didacticism
and the purely convention-driven invocatory chapter, it is a deliberate
literary document seeking to resurrect the glorious pre-vedic Tamil culture.
Its author Thiruvalluvar is a rebel, a revolutionary looking to re-present the
pristine glory of the indigenous Tamil mores and ethos that had been subjected
to invidious assaults and adulterations by alien cultures intruding into the
Tamil land most surreptitiously. Again, it is in this extraordinary piece of
Tamil literature that we find the earliest stratum of classical Tamil
literature and the Tamil mind being reborn.
Look at Thiruvalluvar’s disapproval of :
(i)
The Sanskritic karma theory (verse 37),
(ii)
supremacy of divinity and fate (55, 619, 620),
(iii)
varna system (972, 973),
(iv)
taking alms (222, 1062),
(v)
resorting, to unrighteous ways in desperate
situations (656),
(vi)
Manusmriti’s
belittling of agriculture as a low occupation (1032),
(vii)
gambling
(931-40),
(viii)
drinking
(921-30).
No wonder that Thirukkural is the
object of unreserved, spontaneous admiration by some of the best minds across
cultures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer and Leo Tolstoy.
It is no overstatement that it is
the missionaries and officials of British India of the nascent
days of colonial rule who effectively and irreversibly liberated Indian
languages and literatures from the suffocating confines of regionalism and
vernacularism. These men, trained in modern scholarship and fired by selfless
altruistic zeal, have left their deep, unerasable imprint in the rediscovery of
Indian languages and their genealogical roots. Again, their translations of
Indian classics into European languages opened up a whole new world of
enlightened appreciation and enjoyment of these literatures beyond the shores
of the subcontinent.
At one end, Sir William Jones,
Colebrook and others set up the Asiatic Society of India at Kolkata, the
concerted efforts of which culminated in the discovery of Sanskrit as one of
the principal branches of the Indo-European family, and the international
accessibility of Sanskrit classics in English, German and French translations.
European poets and critics hitherto basking in the classical wealth of Hebrew,
Greek and Latin saw in Sanskrit a refreshingly new air to breathe in, and the
major European universities witnessed a proliferation of Sanskrit studies so
much so that Sanskrit studies came to be misconstrued as Indology.
Inevitably then, South Indian
languages and literatures tended to be obscured in the international forums in
spite of the Dravidian- Tamil culture constituting a weighty component of the
composite culture of India. Particularly, Tamil classics suffered neglect,
indifference and apathy in the hands of the ruling elite. The following words
of G. U. Pope, written in 1810, reflect this state of affairs:
Although the very ancient,
copious and refined Tamil language is inferior to none, it is regarded by most
people as the vernacular of a people living somewhere in a remote district of
Great Britain’s imperial possessions. Neither does our Indian Government nor do
our universities fully recognize the value of Tamil literature and so those who
spend their lives in the study of the great South Indian classics must resemble
men seeking for pearls under water.
While the scholars at the Asiatic
Society held aloft the Indo-Aryan languages, particularly Sanskrit, as the
principal representatives of the linguistic culture of India, there were Ellis,
Caldwell and Pope down South working their way to upholding the claim of Tamil
as the ancient co-sharer of the heritage of India. The outstanding efforts of
these scholars culminated in the discovery of the
Dravidian family of languages
apart from their pioneering industry to render Thirukkural and other classics
into European languages. Not only did they successfully draw international
attention towards Tamil, but they compulsively and emphatically established the
fact of the Dravidian culture as a predominant component of the composite
culture of India.
G.U.Pope’s translation of
Thirukkural, seen in the above context, remains a towering landmark in the 200
year long history of Thirukkural translations. This work (titled The Sacred
Kurral of Thiruvalluva Nayanar with Introduction, Grammar, Translation, Notes,
Lexicon and Concordance) incorporates a weighty introduction, notes on its
prosody and grammar and an extensive bilingual glossary which together are
intended to help its academic learning and research by a wider section of
non-Tamils across languages. More importantly, Pope’s translation has done
single-handedly for Thirukkural what the Asiatic Society did to promote
Sanskrit language and literature beyond the Indian shores. Pope’s
characterization of Thirukkural as “one of the highest and purest expressions
of human thought”, and its author “as a bard of universal man”, besides his
authoritative statement that Thirukkural including its seemingly separable
third part on sexual love is the work of one master bear witness to his
assiduous equipment for the stupendous task on hand.
Now, what does Rev. Dr. G. U.
Pope’s translation mean to Thirukkural studies?
Pope’s is the first complete translation of Thirukkural by a single
author taking the entirety of this extraordinary Tamil classic on to the global
stage as early as 1886.
Pope had a deep understanding of the metrical forms in Tamil which
probably led him into rendering the chosen compositions (Thirukkural, Nɑ̄
ladiyar and Thiruvɑ̄ cakam) in the metrical verse form.
Pope chose the heroic couplet - a pair of rhymed lines in iambic
pentameter – for his Kural rendering. Pope appropriately uses the closed
couplet in which the meaning is grammatically or logically complete, forming a
statement that can stand meaningfully on its own.
Pope’s translation, coming as it
does from the weighty backdrop of his long academic career at the Oxford
University, naturally attracted more attention than the other contemporary
translations of Thirukkural, which gradually tended to transfer rewardingly on
to the Thirukkural text itself. Thus began the Kural’s spread and reputation
beyond the constricted bounds of Tamilnadu.
Pope’s translation does occupy a preeminent place among the English
translations of Thirukkural by the sheer weight of his academic scholarship and
the amazing breath of his knowledge of Tamil language and literature which
compulsively come to the fore also through his other famous metrical
translations of Thiruvɑ̄ cakam and Nɑ̄ ladiyɑ̄ r besides his numerous essays
and articles on the defining facets of Tamil literature, especially the
classical canon, which appeared in the Indian Antiquary and Siddhanta Deepika.
We must also make a significant mention of Pope’s translation of the timeless
Sangam anthology Puranānūru (selected verses) and the great Buddhist Tamil epic
Manimēgalai (incomplete).
Among the translations of Pope,
his Thirukkural rendering easily seems to stand the finest and the best. His
choice of the heroic couplet as the metrical medium, that comes closer to
kuratpɑ̄ metre in Tamil, tends to produce an equivalent effect with regard to
the didactic mood, ethical fervour and epigrammatic or aphoristic tone besides
reproducing the rhythm in many cases. The success of Pope’s craftsmanship
consists mainly in the accomplishment of this equivalent effect which makes
Thirukkural translation Pope’s magnum opus (P.Marudanayagam, p 284) and a
landmark in the history of Thirukkural translations.
Indeed, Pope’s translation does
not only measure up to the golden dictum of Tolkappiyam that translation is to
remake in accord with the source language (1589), but also provide ‘a great
feast of languages’.
Thanks to Pope’s scholarly
understanding of the Kural’s metrical pattern, especially its variety of
rhythms, he is able to identify the tone in every one of the couplets. He gives
the following couplets as examples of the three types of recitative
(ceppalōcai) that Thirukkural employs:
malarmicai ēkinɑ̄ n mɑ̄ ṇaṭi
cērntɑ̄ r
nilamicai nīṭuvɑ̄ l vɑ̄ r (3) (tūṇkicai
- balanced recitative)
tuppɑ̄ rkkut toppɑ̄ iya tuppɑ̄
kkit tuppɑ̄ rkkut
tuppɑ̄ aya tūum maḷai (12)
(olukicai - mixed recitative)
yɑ̄ tɑ̄ num nɑ̄ ṭɑ̄ mal ūrɑ̄ mal
ennoruvan
cɑ̄ ntuṇiyum kallɑ̄ ta vɑ̄ ṟu
(397) (ēnticai - grave recitative)
However, the heroic couplet with its need for rhyming tends
to threaten in certain instances the SL-TL fidelity which is an essential
criterion in vertical-semantic translation as of a classical composition. An
instance:
aṟivinul ellɑ̄ m talaienpa tīya
ceṟuvɑ̄ rkkum ceyyɑ̄ viṭal (203)
Even to those that hate make no return of ill;
So shalt thou wisdom’s highest law, ‘tis said, fulfil.
‘The crown of all wisdom is...’ rather than ‘so shall thou
wisdom’s highest low... fulfil’ may better approximate to the Kural construct.
Perhaps for want of advice and assistance of native scholars
and absence of editorial scrutiny at the far-away Oxford, certain semantic and
stylistic inaccuracies have also crept into the momentous work of Pope. Here is
a glaring instance of such inaccuracy:
aṟattɑ̄ ṟu ituvena vēnṭɑ̄ civikai
poṟuttɑ̄ nōṭu ūrntɑ̄ n iṭai (37)
Needs not in words to dwell on virtue’s fruits; compare
The man in litter borne with them that toiling bear!
There is, again, criticism that
Pope’s translation is in the poetic English of the late Victorian era, has
lesser currency nowadays, and that it does not speak to a modern readership
(Gregory James). Such criticisms border on historical fallacy - a failure to
understand that language is a dynamic social institution that keeps evolving
keeping with the changing needs of each generation of people.
The historical significance of
Pope’s translation must outweigh these of the shortcomings. In conclusion. Pope
and other European missionaries and officials of British India learnt the Tamil
language for their sheer love of this language and its literature, which in
hindsight looks to overshadow their work of evangelization. Otherwise, it would
be difficult to explain the significance of an epoch-making work like
Caldwell’s A Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages or the contributions of
F.W. Ellis, Ziegenbalg, Fr. Joseph Beschi and several others. The works of
these savants, most of which are characterized as labour of love, succeeded in
opening the eyes of the Western world to the inimitable excellence of the
classical canon of the Tamils, which the academia around the world would do
well to turn their attention to.
- The Second International Conference on Thirukkural, Liverpool
