Review of CSL translations Mahābhārata V, VI

Review Reviewed Work(s): Mahābhārata. Book Five. Preparations for War. Volume One by Kathleen Garbutt and Gurcharan Das: Mahābhārata. Book Five. Preparations for War. Volume Two by Kathleen Garbutt: Mahābhārata. Book Six. Bhīṣma. Volume One. Including the “Bhagavad Gītā” in Context by Alex Cherniak and Ranajit Guha Review by: Peter Bisschop Source: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft , Vol. 164, No. 1 (2014), pp. 276-277 Published by: Harrassowitz Verlag Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.164.1.0276 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Harrassowitz Verlag is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft This content downloaded from 84.26.66.136 on Fri, 30 Jun 2023 06:35:42 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 276 Bücherbesprechungen Kathleen Garbutt: Mahābhārata. Book Five. Preparations for War. Volume One. With a Foreword by Gurcharan Das. New York: New York University Press 2008. 717 S. (Clay Sanskrit Library.) ISBN 978-0-8147-3191-8. $ 22,–. Kathleen Garbutt: Mahābhārata. Book Five. Preparations for War. Volume Two. New York: New York University Press 2008. 755 S. (Clay Sanskrit Library.) ISBN 978-08147-3202-1. $ 22,–. Alex Cherniak: Mahābhārata. Book Six. Bhīṣma. Volume One. Including the “Bhagavad Gītā” in Context. With a Foreword by Ranajit Guha. New York: New York University Press 2008. 610 S. (Clay Sanskrit Library.) ISBN 978-0-8147-1696-2. $ 22,–. The books under review constitute three more volumes of what was to become the magnum opus of the Clay Sanskrit Library (CSL), the full translation of the ‘vulgate’ text of the Mahābhārata. Since writing this review, the CSL has been abolished and so, unfortunately, this ambitious project will not see completion. In comparison with three earlier volumes reviewed for the ZDMG1 by the present writer, the current volumes represent a step forward. While the translations of those three volumes (Book Two, The Great Hall, by Paul Wilmot; Book Three, The Forest, by William J. Johnson; Book Nine, Śalya, Volume One, by Justin Meiland) exhibited great diversity, each translator adopting their own style, diction and conventions, the current volumes present a more consistent approach. More editorial care seems to have been taken in the preparation of these volumes, with relatively few remaining typographical errors. The principle of referencing to the text and numbering of the critical edition is still adopted, but cross-references to corresponding passages in other volumes of the Mahābhārata published in the CSL have been added as well, which makes it easier for those not familiar with the critical edition to identify individual passages. In addition a helpful Concordance of Canto Numbers with the Critical Edition has been added at the end of the introduction to each volume, although ideally one would have a concordance of both canto and verse numbers. On the whole the translations stay close to the text and give a good flavour of the original Sanskrit. This is also reflected, for example, in the fact that different epithets of individual characters are, as a rule, kept and consequently the reader can keep track of more specific features of individual parts of the text. The title of book five, Udyogaparvan, is translated by Garbutt “for convenience” as “Preparations for War”, although one wonders whether van Buitenen did not capture the book’s content better when he translated it as “The Book of the Effort”, for as Garbutt admits “the term udyoga is more neutral and can also refer to the peaceful overtures of the book: embassies” (p. xxvii). Although the book certainly paves the way for the inevitable war to come, its main structure derives from the four embassies sent to, at least formally, prevent it. The most demanding part for the translator is formed by the Sanatsujātīya, the teachings of Sanatsujāta to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, “the Kurus’ equivalent to the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ ” (p. xxxiii). For this part of the text Garbutt has had to resort to the commentaries of Nīlakaṇṭha and Śaṅkara. As a consequence the translation is not literal but frequently introduces material from the commentaries. A striking example of this is the term `ignorance’, which turns up a number of times in the translation, without parallel in the Sanskrit text (cf. MBh 5.42.8; 5.42.12; 5.42.15). The uncritical identification of the commentator Śaṅkara with the famous Advaita thinker (p. 669, n. 42.1) is not backed up by any evidence, while Paul Hacker has given good arguments against it (Kleine Schriften, pp. 53–54). On the whole, alhough there are individual problems here and there, Garbutt’s translation of book five manages to stay fairly close to the text without sacrificing readability. The first volume is headed by a remarkable foreword by Gurcharan Das, who argues for the Mahābhārata’s relevance for the 1 ZDMG 159 (2009), pp. 239–241. This content downloaded from 84.26.66.136 on Fri, 30 Jun 2023 06:35:42 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 277 Bücherbesprechungen problems of our age: “The epic’s world of moral haziness and uncertainty is closer to our experience as ordinary human beings—its dizzyingly plural perspectives a nice antidote to the narrow and rigid positions that surround us in the hypertrophied post-9/11 world” (p. xxiii). Alex Cherniak’s translation covers the first sixty-four chapters of the Bhīṣmaparvan and thus presents the Bhagavadgītā “in context”. The whole CSL translation of the Bhīṣmaparvan takes up two volumes, with the second volume also translated by Cherniak. The introduction is mainly concerned with the teachings of the Bhagavadgītā; there is relatively little analyis of the Bhīṣmaparvan itself. As in the case of Garbutt’s translation inevitably one may find aspects to disagree with, but in general the translation makes for good reading. The translation of MBh 6.9.77 “A father, mother, sons, the sky and the heavens regard all living beings without distinction, bull of a man” ( pitā mātā ca putrāś ca khaṃ dyauś ca narapuṅgava| bhūmir bhavati bhūtānāṃ samyag acchidradarśanā||) is certainly wrong and in any case incomplete. In MBh 6.14.4 Kinjawadekar’s reading ārtiṃ parām āviśati manaḥ is rejected in favour of the critical edition’s ārtiḥ parā māviśati yataḥ, but the translation (“My heart is stricken with deep grief”) rather seems to reflect Kinjawadekar’s reading. There are a few errors due to typesetting: in the speaker indications of the translation the first half of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s name is initially missing; on p. 19 the words “a rain deity” should be omitted (it seems to have crept in from the footnote on p. 10). Peter Bisschop, Leiden William D. Davies: A Grammar of Madurese. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter 2010. XV, 586 S. (Mouton Grammar Library 50.) ISBN 978-3-11-022443-6. € 169,95. Maduresisch gehört innerhalb der austronesischen Sprachfamilie zum westlichen malayopolynesischen Zweig. Mit fast sieben Millionen Sprechern ist Maduresisch zwar die viertgrößte Sprache Indonesiens, verhältnismäßig ist sie aber immer noch untererforscht. Mit diesem Buch hat William D. Davies jetzt die erste umfassende Grammatik des Dialekts von Bangkalan in West-Madura vorgelegt. Seine Grammatik ist keine Einführung ins Maduresische, sondern vielmehr zum gezielten Nachschlagen geeignet, wobei dem Leser jedoch keine besonderen linguistischen Vorkenntnisse einer speziellen Grammatiktheorie abverlangt werden. Allerdings würde eine gewisse Vertrautheit mit den eng verwandten Sprachen nicht schaden: Aus gutem Grund verweist Davies häufig auf vergleichbare Beispiele aus der indonesischen, javanischen, sundanesischen und balinesischen Sprache. Das verwendete Vokabular wird Indonesisten meistens gut vertraut sein, z. B. pote (indonesisch putih „weiß“), roma (indonesisch rumah „Haus“), mored (indonesisch murid „Schüler“), geddang (javanisch gedhang „Banane“) oder senneng (indonesisch senang; javanisch seneng „zufrieden, froh“). Die Gliederung folgt der üblichen sprachwissenschaftlichen Systematik, also Phonologie, Morphologie und Syntax. Davies gibt eine Beschreibung des Maduresischen als zeitgenössische Umgangssprache, die vorwiegend mündlich kommuniziert wird. Die schriftlichen Belege, die im Schlusskapitel „Texts“ aufgenommen worden sind (S. 491–568), stellen Transkriptionen oraler Erzähltexte dar. Überraschenderweise ist jedoch wenig über Interjektionen zu finden, obwohl sie eine wichtige Aufgabe als Gesprächswörter erfüllen (S. 90–92; 164–165). Bekanntlich, wie hier auch von Davies festgestellt, hat sich die Nationalsprache Indonesisch in den letzten Dekaden sehr stark auf die Entwicklung der Regionalsprachen ausgewirkt (S. 488–489). Obwohl er in seiner Darstellung der Grammatik meistens nicht näher darauf eingeht, lassen sich öfters deutliche Spuren von Interferenz erkennen. Vergleichen wir die folgenden Beispiele der Verwendung des Komparativs (S. 171), fallen die Übereinstimmungen sogleich ins Auge: This content downloaded from 84.26.66.136 on Fri, 30 Jun 2023 06:35:42 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms