ABSTRACT

The present study analyzes the relationship between translation and multilingualism through a reading of Jnāneswari (1290 AD) and Kristapurāṇa (1616 AD). Jnāneswar's Bhavarthadeepika, or Jnāneswari, is a translation of the Sanskrit Bhagvad Gita into Marathi. Jnāneswar's “audacious” translation took considerable liberties with the Sanskrit source text and retold it in the framework of Marathi culture, thereby inaugurating the tradition of Marathi saint literature. Three centuries later, the Catholic missionary Thomas Stephens SJ (1549–1619) composed Kristapurāṇa in the same tradition of Marathi saint poetry. Kristapurāṇa may be read as the earliest retelling of the Christian Bible in a South Asian language. The article juxtaposes Jnāneswari and Kristapurāṇa to examine the manner in which translations drew on and contributed to the literary multilingualism in the region. In doing so, the article also critically reflects on early South Asian approaches to translation as “retelling”, as delineated in these two texts.

摘要

本研究通过阅读Jnāneswari（公元 1290 年）和Kristapurāṇa（公元 1616 年）来分析翻译和多语言之间的关系。Jnāneswar 的Bhavarthadeepika或Jnāneswari是将梵文Bhagvad Gita翻译成马拉地语。Jnāneswar 的“大胆”翻译对梵文源文本采取了相当大的自由度，并在马拉地文化的框架内对其进行了重述，从而开创了马拉地圣人文学的传统。三个世纪后，天主教传教士 Thomas Stephens SJ（1549-1619 年）以相同的马拉地圣诗传统创作了Kristapurāṇa。克里斯塔普拉可以被解读为南亚语言最早的基督教圣经复述。这篇文章将Jnāneswari和Kristapurāṇa并列在一起，以研究翻译借鉴并促进该地区文学多语言的方式。在这样做的过程中，文章还批判性地反思了南亚早期的翻译方法，即这两篇文章中所描述的“复述”。