Ten Principles of Translation

In an analysis of the challenges that Indian literature in its translated form has to face in a globalized market, Vinay Dharwadker comes up with ten principles (“Translating the Millennium: Indian Literature in a Global Market”). He says that the ten principles for translation would ensure better translations that can represent Indian literature confidently in the world market.

1. The translations should be of a quality that can stand the test of the world market. They have to be translated into “international standard English” and not Indian English, and should have prefaces, introductions and glossaries etc that would help the non-native reader.
2. The translation should be reliable. Dharwadker prefers the bhashantara (which is more in keeping with Dryden's concept of metaphrase) rather than rupantara (change of form) or anukarana (imitation or mimicry of original). The bhashantara would be more like a ‘chhaya' or shadow of the original, a rendering of the text in another language.
3. It is better to translate ‘phrase-to-phrase' rather than ‘word-to-word'. A literal translation would make the text very awkward, especially if the translation is between two radically different languages like English and Tamil. Moreover, the sentence is considered the basic unit of meaning even according to ancient Sanskrit aesthetic and grammar rules.
4. The relation between a translation and its original is not of complete equivalence (or word-to-word equivalence) but parallelism. It is often very difficult to translate a word in an Indian language into a word in English; sometimes it might require a group of words or a sentence to convey the meaning.
5. The translation has to convey the original diction, style, voice and tone accurately. Diction means not only the choice and arrangement of words, but also whether the style is high, middle or low. A pompous high diction might not work with contemporary readers even for the translation of epics; Dharwadker advises the middle path. It is up to the translator to capture the effect of the author's style in the translation, like Gregory Rabassa has done for Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The voice and tone are also important. Dharwadker says that the major defect of Tagore translations is that they are atonal.
6. The translation should convey the inner logic of the original. By inner logic is meant the level of meaning that exists beneath the surface of the original. In Sanskrit aesthetic terms it would be bhavartha (implied meaning) and dhvani.
7. A translation of a poem has to be a poem. This is not a simplistic statement, but an observation that reiterates the importance of rendering a poem not just in letter and form but also in spirit. As Paul Valery puts it, the translation has to reproduce the effect of the original on its readers.
8. The reader also has to be ‘translated', besides the text. This can be done with the help of notes and translator's prefaces. The text and reader are caught in a double movement, ending up in languages and cultures that are alien to them. The translation has to bridge the divide of cultures, languages and years between the text and the reader.
9. The translation is not just a window or door to another world, but also a mirror which reflects our image. It shows how we appear to the external world by showing us how our literature functions in another language. Like the mirror, it should show up our advantages as well as disadvantages.
10. One text can have multiple translations as there are different ways to conceptualize a text. Dharwadker says that it is imperative that our texts, especially our epics, have multiple translations so that they can be revealed in all the complexity of nuances.

Dharwadker has come up with a guideline for translators and this is very clearly written to help the translator meet the challenges of the marketplace. But they are also pointers to translation as it is practiced in India , with its shortcomings and other problems.