Sir William Jones

The East India Company had consolidated its power over India by the 18th century. After securing political power, it sought to expand its cultural dominion also. This was not merely out of intellectual curiosity, but from a practical need to rule the colony better. In matters of daily administration they had to deal with natives who spoke only the native language, for which the colonizers had to know the native language as well. They also needed to make sure that the native interpreters were not misleading them in crucial matters. Hence began the interest in native languages and texts. Sir William Jones was one of the many officers who were studying, and translating texts from Sanskrit, Persian and other Indian languages into English. Jones became interested in Sakuntala after one of his native advisers recommended the play to him. He read the Bengali version (Kalidasa's play has four recensions or versions – Eastern or Bengali, Southern, Kashmiri and Devanagari) and was captivated. He first translated it into Latin and then re-translated it as Sacontala or The Fatal Ring.

Jones's Preface to the translation is an explanation of why he undertook to translate the play, and a statement of his admiration for Kalidasa and the Sanskrit tradition. As Romila Thapar puts it, the two problems he faced as a translator were “one, translating it [Sakuntalam] into a foreign idiom although the translation was not the most felicitous; and second, his wish to convince readers of the greatness of Indian civilisation” (199). He is all praise for the tradition of Sanskrit drama and Kalidasa whom he describes as “the Shakespeare of India”. But he has a different opinion about the structure of the play. His opinion was that the play could be reduced to five acts instead of the original seven. Romila Thapar observes that he felt this stemmed from a misunderstanding of Indian culture. One act that Jones felt unnecessary was the one that had the conversation between Dushyanta and Madhavya the court jester. Jones fails to understand that this is much more than a comic interlude and actually is intended to bring out the character of Dushyanta. The other passages were the ones dealing with the love between Dushyanta and Sakuntala, which Jones felt to be too erotic for his European readers. The mention of the ‘heavy hips' of Sakuntala was toned down to ‘elegant limbs' by Jones. Obviously the sringara rasa of Kalidasa was not understood or appreciated by Jones. What is more important is that Jones's translation was sanitized and made appropriate for the receptor culture. So, despite the praise he had for Kalidasa, Jones felt apologetic about the explicitness of the text. In some way it was an admission of the primitiveness of the colonized country. As Thapar puts it: “Thus the colonized are viewed as civilised, but their civilisation may take some unpalatable forms, and these can be corrected or deleted” (201).