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Hinduphobia rampant among Western Indologists

Vishal writes into the group on Hinduphobia that is rampant in indology lists.

The rot is deep right at the top. The moderators of various 'S Asia', 'Indology', 'Asian History' lists are all a bunch of Racists, Hinduphobes, Gungadins or India bashers - Frank Colon, Christian Wedemeyer, Deepak Sarma, Steve Farmer, Dominik Wujastyk etc.

As long as their control is not replaced with empathetic scholars who do not have hatred the Hindus, this phenomenon will not go away.

A better solution is to create one's own parallel lists, publishing houses etc., and therefore creating a series parallel to and better than the Murty Clay Library is a step in the right direction.

For those who do not know, Narayan Murty is a self avowed Leftist. His son and craves the indulgence of Whites and therefore his flippant rejection of the 132 scholars who initiated the petition reminds me of Richard Crasta's book 'Impressing the Whites.'

So far, only 5-6 volumes of the series have come out. Let our scholars show where the flaws are. I have not purchased even one of them. A look at the authors of the volumes published so far (Hawley etc) is itself alarming. When I picked his Sursagar volume of the series at a bookstore, it was just an anthology. What is the point of just publishing an anthology, and not the whole work?

Related post: Prof. Ramasubramanian of IIT Bombay responds to critics 

1 comment:

  1. There is a review of the translation of Telugu mahaakaavya "Manu Charitra" by Allasani Peddana translated as History of Manu, itself rather banal. Why not retain the original title? I am giving below some comments from this review which points outs out scholarly errors in translation and it looks like the translation is below par, probably a winner in Golf but loser elsewhere.I sent this letter to Rajiv Mahoday.
    Review of "Manu Charitra published Murthy/Pollock Group".
    Rajiv Mahoday

    I saw a comment attributed to the younger Murthy that the petition against SP was not warranted without an evidence of incompetence of translations by his group. Now one of our group Mr. Siddartha brings out exactly that: the translation of History of Manu, a Telugu Kavya is not exactly a stellar performance. His comment is in the group discussion.

    Mr Siddartha says,

    "A few jarring examples, I recall immediately are:

    God Brahma is translated as 'the Supreme Lord' or 'the God creator', which at best is an approximation and simply does not convey what the author had in mind. In another phrase, 'Konda Chiluva' is translated as 'Boa Constrictor'. For the uninitiated, There were never any Boa's in India, so please read it as Python.

    A verse 'Ghora Vana Pradesa' is translated as 'God Forsaken Place'. Sorry, this is junk. There is no such concept as 'God Forsaken' in Indian culture. The phrase literally translates to 'A dark and deep forest'.

    I agree as a Telugu speaking person.

    You were correct that before printing all translations must be checked by a third party or just fire Pollock. This is a weapon for the petition.

    By the way Manu Charitra is one of the pancha mahaakaavyas of Telugu literature and has a special place in the hearts of Telugu people. To mistranslate a gem of literary work like a butcher is unforgivable.

    Naveen

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