In Nehru's Autobiography we read of a peasant leader- Baba Ramchandra, a Maharashtrian Brahmin- who had been an indentured laborer in Fiji before being externed to India because of his militancy. Ramachandra used his knowledge of the Tulsidas Ramayana to connect to the rural masses of Uttar Pradesh. He organized them and made them politically active and assertive of their own vital interests. Nehru tells us that his first trip into the rural hinterland and his introduction to mass politics was the fruit of Ramchandra's efforts. Sadly, the fellow was religious and, worse yet, wanted the peasants to take the land and become prosperous. Thus, he was very evil and, thanks be to the Dynasty!, has been erased from History. Sadly, some benighted Hindooooos of the Hindi belt still seem attached to Tulsidas. Clearly, such devotion will lead to FASCISM and Homophobia and Rahul Baba not getting to rule, or rather ruin, India the way DEMOCRACY intended. We should all be very grateful that Vikram Seth, who, till recently had to suffer under a Hindu Prime Minister in Britain, has now triumphed over Rishi and Modi and Kejriwal by shitting on Tulsidas. How has he managed this great and vital feat?
Consider Verse 18 of the Hanuman Chalisa
जुग सहस्त्र जोजन पर भानु. लील्यो ताहि मधुर फल जान“juga sahasra jojana para bhaanoo/leelyo taahi madhura phala janoo.” The literal meaning is 'The Sun is at distance from us of 96 million miles. You (leaping to attain it) knew it as a sweet fruit.' Seth translates this as
“Far in the distance, the Sun burned so brightly.
'Like a sweet fruit, you just swallowed it lightly.”
I suppose Seth has deliberately put a sing-song, Babu, accent to this because Hindoooos are stupider than cows. But the thing fails. Why?
Of course, for Hindus, this does not chime with the story we heard as kids- viz. Hanuman swallows the Sun which burns his mouth and Indra hurls a thunderbolt, thus breaking his jaw (Hanuman can mean 'broken jaw') , to release the Sun who, however, does not bear a grudge and later teaches Hanuman the Vedas. Obviously, this is a didactic story aimed at kids stressing the importance of receiving instruction from the teacher in a proper manner rather than seeking immediate gratification or 'guru bin gyan'- i.e. knowledge gained without a Guru.
However, those with true piety, will see that the infant Hanuman, being a perfect amsha of the Lord, has that perfect oikeiosis which undergirds Vatsalya or 'pillai bhakti'. Surya- who later shows 'Guru vatsalya' (the preceptor's tenderly maternal affection in imparting spiritual instruction) to Hanuman- is depicted as, from the first, being a sweet fruit for baby Hanuman rather than burning his throat and causing Indra to intervene. Hindus consider 'Surya namaskar' as Hanuman's gratuitous 'Guru dakshina' (present to the Guru) and, in this couplet, Saint Tulsidas expresses the truth of the Brahma Sutra injunction व्यतिहारः, विशिंषन्ति हीतरवत्, whereby there is reciprocity between the object and subject of pious meditation.
This, egalitarian, reciprocal, 'maryada bhakti' (respectful piety) is the hallmark of Saint Tulsidas. You will look for it in vain in Vikram Seth.
No doubt, Seth will be pleased to hear this. His motive for producing this translation is to attack Modi and Kejriwal and other such fanatical Hindoooos who don't understand that only Rahul Baba is 'suitable boy' to run, or ruin, India.
Returning to Tulsi's oeuvre, as we grow older, we feel it is saturated with pathos because such grace as is 'ready to hand' in childhood, becomes difficult to encounter later in life. Hanuman can't even reach Ceylon with one leap as he had previously reached the Sun. He can't pick up Sita, as he picked up the Sun, and can't return with her so as to reunite her to Lord Ram.
The next couplet in the Chalisa says- Prabhu mudrika meli mukh mahee Since you carried the Lord's Signet Ring in your mouth, Jaladhi langhi gaye achraj nahee it is no wonder that you easily leapt across the ocean.
This is interesting because it highlights Tulsi's characteristic onomatodoxy or 'worship of the name' whereby the name 'Rama' may be greater than what it signifies thus defeating the ontological argument or the need for a Godelian 'absolute proof'. This is a non-occasionalist way of reconciling 'Nirguna' and 'Saguna' worship- i.e. Non-Dualism and Theistic Dualism. My own impression, based on Hindi speaking Communists, or rather their wives, of whom I came to know in Moscow four decades ago, is that there is a similarity between the Russian Orthodox, subaltern, 'Imiaslavie' tradition and the type of devotion displayed by less educated North Indian Hindus who chant the Chalisa.
Tulsi is saying that the Sun burnt Hanuman's mouth but when that same mouth carried the Lord's signet ring, a higher state was attained- perhaps one greater than that of Ram himself! But this is a type of greatness which exceeds even the uttermost limit of our sense of wonder. We might say that devotion to 'the name' or 'sign' is itself signified by a type of information which is the other side of the coin of entropy or Shannon 'surprisal'. In other words, there is some higher 'intension' which resolves intensional paradoxes without arbitrary limitations on Yoneda lemma- i.e. the range of 'interactions' an element is allowed to have.
This is the context in which Hindus like me receive the next couplet-
Durgam kaj jagat ke jete/ Sugam anugraha tumhre tete 'The burden of all difficult tasks of the world become light with your kind grace.'
Seth translates this as- 'All the world's tasks, so confused and contorted/ Thanks to your grace, are untangled and sorted'. This is horrible. A task may have a simple 'intension'- e.g. take a message to the Princess held prisoner by the ogre. We may say the 'extension' of the task- i.e. the sequence of actions by which the task can be completed- is very difficult to discover. Thus it is not the task which is confused but the path by which it is to be accomplished which is obscure or contorted. Seth has lazily elided this distinction and thus avoided illuminating the meaning to Hindus or Hindi speakers of this couplet.
Durgam, like Durga, means difficult to approach. It takes a long time to reach such a place because the path is so difficult. A task is not a place but it is difficult to put oneself in the 'head-space' to tackle certain tasks. The Hindu belief (more particularly for Saivites or Smartas) is that, just as co-evolved processes tame complexity, so too does marriage. Indeed, we would say both Kalidasa's and Tulsidasa's first Guru was their own beautiful and intelligent wives to properly return to whom they had to take an arduous literary path only illumined by Theistic devotion. Thus, in the very lucidity and canonical simplicity they achieve. they show more they can say about how, when Shiva and Shakti (Durga) are joined, everything becomes easy. Hanuman, of course, is celibate but as the 'signet-bearer' he connects Ram and Sita and in this way opens an easy door to transcendental grace. The next couplet reinforces this interpretation by referring to Hanuman as the door-keeper of the Lord.
When a Hindi speaking Hindu translates a hymn into English it makes sense to add in details or background information which the non-Hindu English reader (i.e. the vast majority) would not have. The problem is that the Hindi speaker Hindu might have no great love for Hinduism or may simply be too stupid or lazy to seek to do justice to the subject.
I suppose, any poet, spending an hour or two could come up with a translation she would think better than that of some other poet of similar talent and level of philological knowledge. This does not mean there can't be a canonical translation. But that would take more than an hour or two to compose. I suppose Seth did not spend much more time than I did on the following. But, I'm not publishing a dedicated translation of Tulsi.
That in infancy you could leap so high up Heaven's tree
The Sun was the mango which fed you deliciously
So soft in your mouth the signet of who gives Thunder to the Law
Over Palk, your lesser leap breaks, of all Wonder, yet the jaw
The world's tasks were as trackless paths or promises difficult to keep
Did not your Grace find it easy to leap at Faith's leap
I suppose I could polish this up but the truth is I find Tulsi rather cerebral and, in any case, I'm crap at math and so don't know what the mathematical representation of Tulsi's 'onomatodoxy' might look like. In other words, I don't even know what the relevant model theoretic 'open problem' might be. But there must be plenty of Hindi speakers who are earning good money in IT and who keep an eye on relevant developments in category theory, quantum information and so forth, who must have a better idea of this. Perhaps Seth's shite book will motivate one or two of them to offer us something better. I'm kidding. Hindi speakers are as stupid as shit. Look at Seth!
While at Stanford, Vikram chose poetic mentors and worked methodically to become quite a good craftsman of light verse. But poetry is not verse. One needs a Guru- the word means 'heavy'- in order to progress in poetry, Seth did enjoy a 16 year Guru-dasha because he had devotedly followed certain preceptors. But devotion to Guru is different from the diligent copying of a teacher. The fruit of Guru bhakti is not limited by time. Tulsi had such devotion to the Guru that he is eternally viewable as the re-incarnation of Valmiki. Seth, by contrast, is his own Saturn Why is this tome of his so fucking terrible? I suppose the answer is he thinks it is his duty to shit on Hinduism. When I was a kid, the correct answer to an UPSC question on Tulsi Das would be to say 'Maryada Bhakti means Brahmin supremacy. Brahmins are very evil. They are peddling 'opium of masses'. Did you know Vajpayee is a Brahmin? He is CIA agent.' I suppose Seth (a Khattri) retains that bigoted view.
He says '“I dedicate this translation to Bhaskar (from A Suitable Boy),
the name 'Bhaskar' means 'Sun'. But the Sun is so devoted to its duty that it becomes the obvious choice of preceptor for Lord Hanuman. When Hindus, like Modi, do Surya Namaskar (which I don't because I'm as fat as fuck) they recall this. Seth and his Bhaskar merely do 'downward dog'.
who learned the poem
no doubt, Seth would call the Lord's Prayer a ditty
before he was five, but who spent his fifties fighting the chauvinism and intolerance to which this and many other well-beloved religious texts and rituals have been put.
Did Bhaskar go to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban? No. He was too busy protesting against the Government of India's decision to ban the Satanic Verses- right?
Nothing could be further from the humanity and inclusivity of the best of Hinduism than the self-aggrandisement and wilful cruelty of those who use the religion in which—in the lottery of life— they happen to be born, in order to attack or demean others.”
Seth is seeking to attack and demean Hindus. The fact that he was born a Hindu is the fault of the 'lottery of life'. He has taken his revenge by shitting on Tulsidas. Tunbridge Wells must be so proud.
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