The Untranslatability of ‘Rasa’: Aesthetic Theory and Literary Reception in Kālidāsa’s Sanskrit Drama in English Translation
Keywords:
Sanskrit Poetics, Rasa Theory, Literary Translation, Śṛṅgāra Rasa, Untranslatability, KālidāsaAbstract
Rasa[1] is a classical Indian aesthetic theory that seriously challenges Western paradigms of literary translation. Basing itself on the Nāṭyaśāstra[2], Rasa is not only a stylistic device but also the ontological heart of Sanskrit poetics, having no direct lexical or conceptual counterpart in English. This paper explores the philosophical and linguistic sacrifices that must be made in the cross-cultural transfer of Rasa, using the example of English translations of the canonical drama of Kālidāsa, Abhijñānaśākuntalam. This paper is a diachronic comparative study of the translation strategies and paratextual resources of three of the most important translators: Sir William Jones (1789), Arthur W. Ryder (1914) and Chandra Rajan (1989). Using the paradigms of domestication and foreignization by Lawrence Venuti and the theory of reception by Hans Robert Jauss, the study will follow the evolutionary process of the reception of the work of Kālidāsa in the Anglophone world. It can be seen that early colonial translations systematically tamed ‘Śṛṅgāra Rasa’[3] to suit European neoclassical and romantic sensibilities, and in the process, turned the complex aesthetic philosophy into sentimentalism. Ultimately, this paper states that the untranslatability of Rasa reveals the drawbacks of the equivalence-based translation theories and the need to consider literary translation as a cross-cultural aesthetic negotiation.
[1] aesthetic essence or emotional resonance
[2] a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts
[3] the erotic or romantic mood which embodies romance, attraction, and aesthetic beauty
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