Being-in-translation
-
Rita Kothari
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to understand how the convergence of different languages and religious traditions in the Sufi practice prevalent in Sindh reflects moments of hybridity, migrancy and translation. Sufism emerged in Sindh like a migrant text, constantly crossing borders, being carried over, as if in a state of translation. At the same time it refused to become a final target text and to be bound to a textuality identified with a single religion, language or territory. This state of being-in-translation helped create and sustain, for the most part, identities that were neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Sikh in an exclusivist sense.
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to understand how the convergence of different languages and religious traditions in the Sufi practice prevalent in Sindh reflects moments of hybridity, migrancy and translation. Sufism emerged in Sindh like a migrant text, constantly crossing borders, being carried over, as if in a state of translation. At the same time it refused to become a final target text and to be bound to a textuality identified with a single religion, language or territory. This state of being-in-translation helped create and sustain, for the most part, identities that were neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Sikh in an exclusivist sense.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
- Caste in and Recasting language 17
- Translation as resistance 29
- Tellings and renderings in medieval Karnataka 43
- Translating tragedy into Kannada 57
- The afterlives of panditry 75
- Beyond textual acts of translation 95
- Reading Gandhi in two tongues 107
- Being-in-translation 119
- (Mis)Representation of sufism through translation 133
- Translating Indian poetry in the Colonial Period in Korea 145
- A. K. Ramanujan 161
- An etymological exploration of ‘translation’ in Japan 175
- Translating against the grain 195
- Index 213
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Foreword ix
- Introduction 1
- Caste in and Recasting language 17
- Translation as resistance 29
- Tellings and renderings in medieval Karnataka 43
- Translating tragedy into Kannada 57
- The afterlives of panditry 75
- Beyond textual acts of translation 95
- Reading Gandhi in two tongues 107
- Being-in-translation 119
- (Mis)Representation of sufism through translation 133
- Translating Indian poetry in the Colonial Period in Korea 145
- A. K. Ramanujan 161
- An etymological exploration of ‘translation’ in Japan 175
- Translating against the grain 195
- Index 213
