In the beginning, there was Usas, the Dawn. The Dawn was the daughter of Heaven. The world awoke worshipping her. That was when the blurry image of the Goddess first engraved itself on the collective Indian psyche.
The Veda reaffirmed the existence of the Goddess with its suktas, the Devisukta and the Srisukta. The images started to come into focus. Then came the puranas: Markandeya Purana and Devi Bhagavata. The image etched itself into the national consciousness. It mesmerized humankind with its effulgence and accessibility. It seemed ready to grant every wish of the devotee. What's stopping us from reaching out to the divinity behind the image?
The Devimahatmya, also known as Durgasaptasati and Candi, is the kind of hymn that will instill in you the conviction that the Goddess pervades the universe which she created and which she protects.
The hymn is traditionally divided into three caritas or segments: Segment 1 comprises Chapter 1, in which the Goddess assumes the form of Mahakali; Segment 2 comprises Chapters 2-4, in which the Goddess becomes Mahalaksmi; and Segment 3 comprises Chapters 5-13, where the Goddess is Mahasarasvati.
The 700 verses of the text constitute chapters 81-93 of the Markandeya Purana, one of the eighteen maha puranas believed to have been composed around the Fifth Century CE. Here they are reproduced from my translation of the Purana.
Translation, by definition, is a self-defeating undertaking. It satisfies neither the creator of the original work nor the translator who forever remains in a state of frustration. The creator finds that his diction is manhandled, his semantics violated, and his nuances totally missed. At the same time, translation is a highly regarded endeavour because, otherwise, the world's cultural heritage remains forever inaccessible to humanity.
The theory perhaps is that a less-than-perfect translation is better than no translation at all.
Whether we define translation as a sociological, communicational, linguistic, or literary activity, the emphasis today seems to be on the 'transference of information from one language to the other.' However, they all involve a social, informational, textual, or a metaphorical bias If our goal is to render a translation that hews as closely as possible to the word choice, phrasing, and style of the original, the result might be a dense and difficult-to-understand text in the target language, because adhering to the grammar and style of one language in another will lead to awkward intellectual contortions. Thus, a 'word-for-word' translation is clearly anathema to all involved.
It appears that, the translation should, to the extent possible, strive to re-create in the readers' minds the aesthetic and emotional experience of the original. That is probably the definition of a successful translation, regardless of the context.
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Upanishads (472)
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Dharmasastras (157)
Goddess (483)
Bhakti (240)
Saints (1449)
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Shiva (359)
Journal (168)
Fiction (55)
Vedanta (349)
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