Bulletin

Issue: November/December 2005

Research in Action

La Trobe role in global Sanskritprogram

Two La Trobe University indologists - specialists in Sanskrit texts - are taking part in the largest organised Sanskrit-English translation program ever attempted.

Dr Gregory Bailey and Dr Adam Bowles are the only Australians among 40 of the world's top English-speaking Sanskrit scholars from nine countries engaged by the American-based Clay Sanskrit Library to produce 100 volumes of classical Sanskrit literature over the next five years.

Dr Bailey is a Reader in La Trobe's Asian Studies Program and Dr Bowles is an honorary research associate in Asian Studies who recently completed his PhD under Dr Bailey's supervision.

Dr Bowles is working full time and Dr Bailey part time on the project initiated by the American philanthropist and Sanskrit scholar, John Clay, to increase the number of Sanskrit classics available in English alongside the original Sanskrit texts written in Roman script.

John Clay and his wife Jennifer founded the JCC Foundation which in turn created the Clay Sanskrit Library, engaging Richard Gombrich, Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at Oxford University, as general editor.

The library was created to introduce classic Sanskrit literature to a wide international readership and for use in teaching Sanskrit.

Dr Bailey explained that Sanskrit, one of the great classical languages of India, has a huge volume of literature created from somewhere between 1500 and 1200 BC until the present day.

An Indo-Aryan language, it has a similar position in India today to that of Latin and Greek in Medieval Europe and is widely used in Hindu religious rituals.

'There are something like three million Sanskrit texts, most of which have never been translated into another language.

In fact, there are more classical Sanskrit texts than texts in classical Greek and Latin combined,' Dr Bailey said.

'Sanskrit is now mainly a written language although there would be several million people in India with various degrees of knowledge of the language. It is hard to be specifi c but I would think there would be around 1,000 people in Australia who have some knowledge of Sanskrit.' Several years ago, Professor Gombrich approached Dr Bailey to participate by translating a book of classical Sanskrit poetry. In turn, Dr Bowles was asked to work on a book of one of the best known classical Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata.

He was asked to become one of the 10 full time translators among the 40 translators who come mainly from Britain, USA and Canada. The Mahabharata was compiled between 400 BC and 400 AD and is one of the world's great pieces of classical literature.

Dr Bowles will also translate some epic poems by Kalidasa, described as the Shakespeare of Indian literature. Dr Bowles will translate several books of the epic, whilst Dr Bailey is translating one.

'This is a real attempt to re-invigorate interest in Sanskrit literature in the West,' Dr Bowles said.

'Until the mid 1970s there was great interest in Indian studies, including Sanskrit, but this has been replaced by more utilitarian subjects caused by greater emphasis on economics,' he said.

'In the past there have been eras in which Sanskrit studies were popular in the West, one being in Germany in the early 19th century.' About 20 of the 100 books in the series have already been completed and the remainder will be published between now and 2010.

Dr Bailey is also fi nalising a new book which will publish for the fi rst time in English more than 7,000 verses from the classical Sanskrit Ganesh Purana, a text containing myths about the popular elephant-headed god Ganesh. These 7,000 verses have never before been translated into any European language.