Aurobindo's Theory of Translation

Aurobindo (1892 – 1950) was a philosopher, poet and also a gifted translator. He had a completely British upbringing and education before he was attracted to the nationalist movement. He was equally proficient in English and Indian (Sanskrit and Bengali) language and literature. He has translated the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita as well as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's Anandamath into English. His theory of translation stems from this experience of translating Indian works into English, as is indicated by the names of those essays: “On Translating Kalidasa”, “On Translating the Bhagavad Gita”, “On Translating the Upanishads”, “Freedom in Translation”, “Importance of Turn of Language in Translation”, “Translation of Prose into Poetry” and “Remarks on Bengali Translations”.

Being a philosopher, Aurobindo was greatly influenced by the cognitive philosophy of ancient India. According to him, translation is a process that involves multiple steps. The translator reads, analyses, and interprets the text. This means that he has to understand the textual nuances before arriving at a suitable equivalent in the target language. This shows that translation is a cognitive process. According to Aurobindo, the human consciousness that operates behind this cognitive process has three levels – nama (name), rupa (form of meaning) and swarupa (essential figure of truth). Gopinathan points out that these three levels are analogous to the three levels of language mentioned by Bhartrhari in his Vakyapadiyam. They are vaikhari (spoken level of language), madhyama (intermediate level between articulation and conception) and pasyanti (the highest level where a thought is at its nebulous stage). Gopinathan argues that Aurobindo develops his concept from these levels and “gives a further psycho-spiritual division of the levels of consciousness at the physical, mental and supra mental levels” (8). The text has to be grasped intuitively at the highest level of swarupa before it can be translated at the other two levels of nama and rupa, or the level of text and meaning. Therefore in translation, “the process of text analysis, comprehension of the literal as well as the suggested meaning, and the process of decision making will also have three levels” (9). There is a constant shifting of these levels in the process of translation. Gopinathan argues that the decision making process in translation starts from the highest level of swarupa . Aurobindo felt that “translation becomes more communicative, especially when the higher meaning of the text is significant” (10).