Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/33



The object of a translator should ever be to hold the mirror up to his author. That being so, his chief duty is to represent, so far as practicable, the manner in which his author's ideas have been expressed, retaining, if possible, at the sacrifice of idiom and taste, all the peculiarities of his author's imagery and of language as well. In regard to translations from the Sanskrit, nothing is easier than to dish up Hindu ideas so as to make them agreeable to English taste. But the endeavor of the present translator has been to give in the following pages as literal a rendering as possible of the great work of Vyasa. To the purely English reader there is much in the following pages that will strike as ridiculous. Those unacquainted with any language but their own are generally very exclusive in matters of taste. Having no knowledge of models other than what they meet with in their own tongue, the standard they have formed of purity and taste in composition must necessarily be a narrow one. The translator, however, would ill-discharge his duty if for the sake of avoiding ridicule he sacrificed fidelity to the original. He must represent his author as he is, not as he should be to please the narrow taste of those entirely unacquainted with him. Mr. Pickford, in the preface to his English translation of the Maha Vira Charita, ably defends a close adherence to the original even at the sacrifice of idiom and taste against the claims of what has been called "free translation" which means dressing the author in an outlandish garb to please those to whom he is introduced.

In the preface to his classical translation of Bhartrihari's Niti Satakam and Vairagya-Satakam, Mr. C. H. Tawney says, "I am sensible that, in the present attempt, I have retained much local coloring. For instance, the idea of worshipping the feet of a god or great man, though it frequently occurs in Indian literature, will undoubtedly move the laughter of Englishmen unacquainted with Sanskrit, especially if they happen to belong to that class of readers who rivet their attention on the accidental and remain blind to the essential.