Introduction

Continuing our discussion of the translation of religious texts,it is not quite correct to compare the Bible or Quran with the epics in India. The texts of such religious significance for Hinduism are the Vedas which were composed in Sanskrit. There were injunctions not just against the translation, but even the recitation of Vedic mantras by lower caste people who did not know Sanskrit. Here we again see the attempt to jealously preserve scriptural knowledge without allowing it to be accessed by all. Knowledge of Sanskrit was restricted to the educated few which consisted only of upper caste men. Dash and Pattanaik note: “The Vedas, Vedangas, Smrutis, Darshanas, Samhitas and Kavyas written in Sanskrit were meant to have the function of ratifying the worldview of the ruling class and of the Brahmin clergy. The Brahmins used their knowledge of Sanskrit as an irreducible form of power, and translation was not encouraged since it would have diluted the role the texts could have played as a part of such an officially-sponsored ideology” (134). It was believed that the Vedas were of divine origin and translation into an ordinary language would have been similar to defiling it. It was as a revolt against this that we see the rise of Buddhism and Jainism with their languages of Pali and Prakrit respectively. The monopoly of Sanskrit was broken much later, and that too because of different socio-political factors.

However, the Indian epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana cannot be compared to the scriptures in other religions or the Vedas, because they are not the defining texts of Hinduism. At best, they can be said to have stories of religious nature which have passed on to the general public irrespective of religious faith. They are also considered to be literary works worthy of emulation both in terms of the range and breadth of theme and characterization. Both the epics are in Sanskrit and believed to be composed by sages. Translated, retold, and rewritten countless times, these epics have passed into the Indian psyche and become distinctive components of Indian culture and literature.