मूढा बुद्धिर्यस्य सः He Who Is Dull-Witted - an academic blog

Do you have any suggestions on which english language translations of the Manusmṛiti and Bhagavad Gita are the most accurate?

Rashtra supporting brahmin friends get very unpleasant whenever they get a glimpse of translated versions that they view as inept or doctrinally incompatible with their versions of hindu tradition.

Do you have any suggestions on which english language translations of the Manusmṛiti and Bhagavad Gita are the most accurate?

Rashtra supporting brahmin friends get very unpleasant whenever they get a glimpse of translated versions that they view as inept or doctrinally incompatible with their versions of hindu tradition.

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Well you've sort of highlighted the issue which is, accurate according to whom? There are a lot of possible interpretations of the Gita at least, and hence varied translations; some may be more or less inline with their doctrinal views of Hinduism, depending on what those views are. There isn't even consensus among the classical Sanskrit commentators, much less modern English language translations!

Anecdotally of the two translations we have been referring to in our Sanskrit language module this year (which is mostly translating the Gita ourselves) the Winthrop Sargeant translation is rather rough and our lecturer has noted several errors made by Sargeant in it, although it includes both devanagari and transliteration of the original as well as glosses, and then the overall translation. The Barbara Stoler-Miller translation is purely in English but is more elegant/idiomatic generaly, but tends to follow Shankara's commentary by and large (which thus follows a particular perspective).

Both have extended commentaries before the translations which may be illuminating though (I really should get around to reading them at some point).

PRSOM. I look forward to this blog. I've been born and raised in a Hindu family but only recently started taking a genuine interest in the religion.

Can I ask how you originally became interested in what is now your specialism?

Your background is fascinating! Can you share a bit more about your current research? What is the purpose of it? Do you have to speak at conferences or give talks often?

As clichéd and dweeby as it sounds, my interest in this stuff is to figure out how to effectively live well, to be on a level more days than I am not, to be happier more than I am not, to be satisfied. So that's the broad motivation. I don' think I'd have stuck it out if I didn't use it and apply it myself. The translation stuff is a little different because it serves a wider research purpose, but I also just enjoy doing it for its own sake. If it is of value to people, then all the better.

But in terms of general research I mostly look at how to best interpret classical thinkers and then how these interpretations should impact our thinking in other ways, like in terms of our ethics, or metaphysics (I don't have much time for the vast majority metaphysics, as it happens, even aesthetics. I suppose for me it's about marrying up how the world seems to work with how our minds seem to work and working out which sort of equilibrium is the best for being happy.

Cheesy, but the basis of Indian thought is largely 'how I can be better' and 'how can I be happier'. it takes you on weird and wonderful tangents, with the Hindus (mostly) claiming that liberation is found in the absolute godhead, and some Buddhists saying look, it's about how you engage with the world, there is no more than this, here, now.

One of my R&Rs is a piece about why (most) Buddhists deny that there is a permanent, unchanging 'reality' or cosmic soul (ātman-Brahman) underpinning either ourselves or the world, and what psychological work that does in their quest for 'liberation' from the trappings of day-to-day life. I have another on the go responding to a thinker that I think has misconstrued a major Buddhist philosopher and then wrongly used his arguments to claim the opposite of what the Buddhist thinker in question was really getting at.

I do talks semi-often, but I'm not a huge fan of academic conferences where we stoke each other's egos or get into adversarial point scoring. I like doing public stuff where you can just throw out a new perspective to people, and I especially like working with kids on the 'big' questions. They are usually more insightful than the adults. Luckily my job role does not really rely on research or conference participation, so I can take a laid back approach to it. I do a lot of 'guest' stuff for other universities talking to their 3rd year or grad students.

What’s your current stance on how in Buddhism negating the idea of a permanent unchanging reality helps create a liberating approach to everyday life? Or is your argument still in progress?

Also touching on what you said about the conferences, do you find aspects of academia toxic or what would you forewarn budding academics of about the ‘culture’ in your experience?

I find the metaphysics particularly fascinating. Have you done much reading/research on the so-called Indian yogis and their practice of things like kriya yoga which they claim is found in the vedas?? I believe the basic idea is that there is a self (unlike Buddhism) but that this self is the one unified spirit and that the body is just a tool that is used. Reading on this seems to frequently crop up the idea of silencing the mind and practise constant self-enquiry (i.e. who am I? Who is it that is thinking this thought? and so on) and that gradually the ego is dissolved and one loses identification with the body and instead identifies with cosmic consciousness. I don’t know what this school of thought is called exactly but I do know that it was practised by relatively well-known yogis of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar, Lahiri Mahasaya and the like. Just wondering if your research and reading has touched on these topics??