Translating Buddhist Verse David Rounds Abstract: The author examines the versification of a passage in the Avatamsaka Sutra, both in the Sanskrit original and the Chinese translation. The author suggests a model for translating Sanskrit and Chinese scriptural verses into English verse so that the English rendering can convey faithfully the intensity of expression of the original and its suitability for chanting.
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salient characteristic of Buddhist scriptural literature is its abundance of verse. These verses are of two kinds. The gāthā, or hymn,1 occurs when there is an overflow of religious feeling at the moment of resolve, gratitude, or accomplishment—when prose becomes inadequate for the expression of intensity. The second kind of scriptural verse, the reiterative verse, or geya,2 serves to restate a teaching or narrative that has just been concluded, when the speaker, as the texts frequently put it, “wishes to restate his meaning.” These reiterations usually abridge the prose that precedes them; the language is considerably more terse and elliptical. Both these kinds of verse, like verse in general, are easier to memorize and to recite than prose, and they are often sung. The question I wish to raise in this brief inquiry is this: confronted with these geyas and gāthās, what is a translator to do? One answer that has guided many translators—whether of Buddhist texts or otherwise—has been simply to translate verses in the source language into prose in the target language. According to a widely accepted convention, translators will begin a new paragraph, capitalizing its first word, for each new line of verse in the source text. In this way the formatting offers a rough visual semblance of the original verse. But that does not mean that the translation actually is in verse. An example may make my meaning plain. In the third roll of the Gandavyuha, India’s great spiritual epic, which comprises the penultimate chapter of the Avatamsaka Sutra, we first meet the youth Sudhana at the very moment he sees through the vanity of ordinary life. He will undertake a journey in search of enlightenment. He tells of his resolve in a gāthā of 100 lines. Here are the first twelve of those lines as rendered by the American
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translator Thomas Cleary in his monumental translation of the entire Avatamsaka Sutra: Moats filled with waters of delight, with high walls of deceit and pride, Its doors the conditions of all beings—that is how the great city of existence is. Shrouded in the great darkness of ignorance, burnt by the fire of lust and hate Ever under the sway of the lord of demons, the abode of the unenlightened. Completely bound by the ropes and chains of craving, made desolate by the wastelands of deceit Blinded by doubt and confusion, standing on the ground of falsehood.3 This is not the place for one translator to quibble with another translator’s choices of words. Cleary’s pioneering work in translating this vast and essential sutra is altogether admirable. My quarrel with this passage and with many others like it is that it is in prose, not in verse—despite the formatting that makes it look like verse. But the Sanskrit original really is in verse, and so is the seventh-century Chinese translation from the Sanskrit.4 A rendering of the same passage, if actually expressed in English verse, might look and sound like this: The three existences are like a town5 Its walls are built of arrogance and pride Its gates the way to various destinies The waters of love’s pleasures clog its moat. Covered by the darkness of delusion, Burning with the fires of greed and hate; A demon-king usurps the city’s rule Its people childishly submit to him. They’re bound up by the cords of greed and love Flattery and deceit control their reins; Their vision’s blocked by heavy veils of doubt Their destiny’s to follow some wrong path. Such a translation preserves the verse qualities of the original by keeping to a fixed pattern of sound—in this case the widely used iambic pentameter, of which more will be said below. The Chinese translation, similarly, is written in jueju (絕句), a sound-pattern of regular verse
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widely used by Chinese poets. This loyalty to verse is not without meaning. Just as prose is allied with reasoned thought, verse is allied with intensity and with music. If, in translating, no distinct pattern of sound is established and maintained in the target language, then there is no beat, and if there is no beat in the words, then one cannot sing them or chant them. The aesthetic value of the musicality of the original words is lost. One practical implication of flattening out verse into a toneless prose is that an assembly of worshippers cannot establish a unified recitation of the text. Then the music of the chant, whose purpose is to unite the worshippers in a shared emotional alignment with the meanings of the scripture, collapses instead into an uncoordinated and featureless murmur. In general, verse is created by sorting into patterns a particular set of variables that are inherent in the sound of a language. In Sanskrit, Chinese, and English verse—one is tempted to say, in every language—this sortable element is the syllable. In English verse, syllables are sorted into two classes: those which are stressed, or accented, and those which are unstressed, or unaccented. In the English verse translation quoted above of Sudhana’s verse in the Gandavyuha, every stressed syllable is preceded by one unstressed syllable. This is the iambic meter, preferred by most writers of English verse, because it fits best the natural flow of English speech.6 Here again are the first four lines of Sudhana’s verse, with the iambic meter shown by the underlining of the stressed syllables: The three existences are like a town. Its walls are built of arrogance and pride Its gates the way to various destinies. The waters of love’s pleasures clog its moat. It is not only that the syllables are arranged in patterns here. Of equal importance is the length of the line. In this translation, there are ten syllables per line, five stressed and five unstressed. This is iambic penta meter, the verse line of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays, of Keats’ odes, of Frost’s New England narratives. Further, in the Sanskrit original and in the Chinese translation as well, Sudhana’s 100 lines of verse are sorted into twenty-five four-line units of meaning. English verse also favors this four-line unit, which is called the quatrain; Chinese does the same. We will look first at the sound-patterning choices made by the anonymous Sanskrit poets who set down the Gandavyuha, and then at the choices made by their Chinese translators. In Sanskrit verse, syllables are sorted into two kinds: long and short. I will not burden the reader with Issue 11, October 2012
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the complex grammatical and orthographical conventions that determine whether a syllable is considered to be long or short, but it is useful to know that “long” and “short” are meant literally. A long syllable may be sustained for a period that is several times longer than a short syllable. The result is that Sanskrit verse is suited perfectly to chanting. The requirements of chant have led over the centuries to the invention of scores of sound-patterns, each of them considered to be expressive of a certain mood. Sudhana’s verse is written in the rathoddhata meter, a name which means “standing in one’s chariot”—and perhaps this meter was chosen to express the determination of the young Sudhana as he set forth on his spiritual quest. The rathoddhata meter consists of eleven syllables, five long and six short, in the pattern long short, long short short short, long short long short long, marked as follows: ㅡ︶ㅡ︶︶︶ㅡ︶ㅡ︶ㅡ Here is the first quatrain of Sudhana’s verse in the original Sanskrit. The syllabic pattern of the rathoddhata meter is highlighted, and I have given literal English translations of each Sanskrit word, together with the finished English lines. Note that the second of the four lines is variant, with nine syllables rather than eleven and with three long syllables in the center of the line,suggesting a clashing of weapons with the enemy, which is the ego. Also, I have followed the Chinese translators in placing first the line that begins with the word tat, since that line has an introductory function. Tātpurām tribhavanātmakaṃ mahat ㅡ ︶ㅡ ︶ ︶︶ㅡ ︶ ㅡ ︶ㅡ That city three essential-nature form great The three existences are like a town. Mānadarpaprākāraucchritam ㅡ︶ㅡ ︶ㅡㅡㅡ ︶ㅡ Pride arrogance wall build high Its walls are built of arrogance and pride Sārvasāttvagatidvāramāpitaṃ ㅡ︶ㅡ︶︶︶ ㅡ︶ㅡ︶ㅡ Beings all path door enter Its gates the way to various destinies.
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Nanditōyaparikhāvarōpitam ㅡ︶ㅡ︶︶︶ㅡ︶ㅡ︶ㅡ Joy water enclosing moat dammed up The waters of love’s pleasures clog its moat. Such chants can still be heard, of course, in Hindu temples, and their influence can also be heard in the rituals chanted in monasteries in the Theravada Buddhist traditions of South and Southeast Asia. The Theravada’s scriptural language, Pali, is closely related to Sanskrit, and in recent decades monks in English-speaking countries have made good progress in applying the patterns of chanted Pali verse to a new English-language chanted liturgy. I have not yet heard chanting like this in Mahayana monasteries, but the Sanskrit patterns of long and short syllables could be set loose and applied freely to translations of important ritual texts. Such translations could be the means for musical coordination in group chanting. Here, for example, is the first sentence of the well-known Sutra on the Heart of Prajna Paramita,8 with a quickly improvised pattern of long and short syllables. The long syllables are underlined: When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was practicing the profound prajna paramita, he illuminated the five skandhas and saw that they are all empty, and so he crossed beyond all suffering and difficulty.9 Chinese is traditionally considered a monosyllabic language, which is to say that each word consists of one syllable only, and in writing, each word has its own ideograph, or character. These absolutes do not always apply to modern spoken Chinese, but they continue to be essential to a discussion of Chinese verse. In the third century c.e., Buddhist texts began pouring into China from India and from the desert cities along the Silk Road. It cannot have taken long for the pioneering translators to conclude that Chinese could not accommodate the fluidity of the Sanskrit verse line. It was impossible from the start, for there was no material to build with, since Chinese vowels are neither long nor short. Undaunted, the Chinese translated Sanskrit verses into verse-forms from their own flourishing traditions. For Sudhana’s verse the Chinese, translators chose the jueju 絕句 style, which favored quatrains of either five or seven characters per line. It was popular among poets of the Tang dynasty (618–907), during which our text was translated. Here are the first four lines of Sudhana’s verse, in the Chinese translation: 三有為城廓 憍慢為垣牆 Issue 11, October 2012
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諸趣為門戶 愛水為池塹 Even readers who know no Chinese can identify immediately the salient characteristics of this verse. The line-length is fixed at five characters, and therefore five syllables, per line. The lines themselves are organized into units of four lines, like the English quatrain. If one looks closely, one can see that the third character in each of the lines is the same. Repetition of the third character is not required, but this middle character must, in terms of its meaning, relate the first two characters of the line to the last two. Moreover, the rhythm of the line is very close to the English iambic pentameter, because both the English lines and the Chinese lines have five strong beats. The absence of unstressed syllables in the Chinese does not greatly alter the rhythm. Here are our three sample quatrains once again, together with some approximation of the sound of each character according to the pinyin transliteration system. Below the pinyin lines are literal translations, with one English word for each Chinese character; and last, the finished translation into English iambic pentameter, with the stressed syllables underlined. 1. 三有為城廓 san you wei cheng kuo three have pivot-word town large The three existences are like a town 憍慢為垣牆 jiao man wei yuan qiang arrogance pride pivot-word ramparts walls Its walls are built of arrogance and pride 諸趣為門戶 ju chu wei men hu sign-of-plural destinies pivot-word gate door Its gates the way to various destinies.
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愛水為池塹 ai shui wei chi qian Love water pivot-word pool moat The waters of love’s pleasures clog its moat.
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2. 愚癡闇所覆 yu chi an suo fu Foolish stupid darkness sign-of-passive cover Covered by the darkness of delusion, 貪恚火熾然 tan hui huo chi ran greed rage fire blaze burn Burning with the fires of greed and hate; 魔王作君主 mo wang zuo jun zhu demon king does noble lord A demon-king usurps the city’s rule 童蒙依止住 tong meng yi zhi zhu child ignorant rely stop stay Its people childishly submit to him. 3. 貪愛為徽纏 tan ai wei hui chan greed love become cord bound They’re bound up by the cords of greed and love
諂誑為轡勒 chan kuang wei pei le flattery deceit become reins compel Flattery and deceit control the reins
疑惑蔽其眼 ai huo bi qi yan obstacle doubt cover their eyes Their vision’s blocked by heavy veils of doubt 趣入諸邪道 qu ru ju xie dao destiny enter sign-of-plural wrong path Their destiny’s to follow some wrong path.
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Before closing, I will say a few words about the seven-character variation of the jueju style. This line is long enough to require short pauses, or caesura, which may mark meaning-groups rather than actual pauses in time. In the seven-character jueju, the caesuras fall after the second and after the fourth syllable, so that the syllabic pattern is 2 + 2 + 3. The two initial pairs create opportunities for parallelism, either in grammar or meaning—a literary device much cherished in the Chinese literati tradition. It so happens that the English equivalent of this seven-character line is already well lodged in our English-language ear: it is the line of seven stressed syllables interspersed between seven unstressed syllables, in which so many Protestant hymns and Christmas carols are sung. This is iambic heptameter. A caesura, marked here by the forward slash, comes after the fourth beat, just as it does in Chinese: A mighty fortress is our God,/ a bulwark never failing.10 Good King Wenceslas looked out,/ on the feast of Stephen.11 The English iambic heptameter line is particularly kind to the translator, because its unusual length allows for many options in searching for the right words. I will conclude with a brief example of Chinese seven-character jueju verse, with a translation into English iambic heptameter. The verse is the second quatrain of an eighteen-line gāthā from the Surangama Sutra.12 It is spoken, with that overflow of intensity which is proper to verse, by another Buddhist hero, the Venerable Ananda, who was Buddha Shakyamuni’s cousin and attendant. Ananda proclaims his gratitude and his resolution to undertake the enlightenment quest. I vow to reach enlightenment, and as a Dharma-king Return to rescue beings countless as the Ganges sands This deep resolve I offer in the myriad Buddha-lands By this may I repay the kindness shown me by the Buddha. 1. 願今/得果/成寶王 yuan jin de guo cheng bao wang wish now obtain result accomplish precious king I vow to reach/ enlightenment,/ and as a Dharma-king 2. 還度/如是/恆沙眾 huan du/ ru shi/ heng sha zhong
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still rescue like this Ganges sand multitude Return to rescue/ beings countless/ as the Ganges sands 3. 將此/深心/奉塵剎 jiang ci shen xin feng chen cha sign-of-future this deep thought offer many-as-dustmotes Buddha land This deep resolve/ I offer in/ the myriad Buddha-lands 4. 是則/名為/報佛恩 shi ze ming wei bao fo en is this called as repay Buddha kind By this may I /repay the kindness/ shown me by the Buddha. A younger generation of Buddhist scholars and practitioners has now taken up the task of translating the vast Buddhist canon into European languages. It is my hope that these translators will understand better than their elders how important it is to translate verse into verse. To these younger practioners of the noble art of translation, I suggest reading poetry—aloud, if possible—pre-modern poetry, in whatever languages you work in, in order to gradually embed the traditional rhythms into your ears. Notes 1. Chinese 偈頌 ji song, one of the twelve traditional divisions of the Buddhist canon. 2. Chinese 重頌 zhong song. 3. Thomas Cleary (trans.), The Flower Ornament Scripture (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1993). 4. The Avatamsaka Sutra was translated from the Sanskrit into Chinese three times. The latest, and the one considered in this study, was made under the leadership the Buddhist monk Śikṣānanda around 699, in 80 scrolls and with 40 chapters, of which the Gandavyuha is the thirty-ninth. 5. In Buddhist cosmology the “three existences” are, first, the realms of desire, in which humans dwell; the realm of form, inhabited by gods; and the ethereal realms of formlessness. The “destinies” are the levels of rebirth. 6. An objection to the argument presented here might be that I have been talking all along about regular verse and that I have not considered the alternative of free verse. My response would be that since its invention by Walt Whitman and Arthur Rimbaud, much fine poetry has been written in free verse, but to translate a Buddhist scripture or any other pre-modern text into free verse is to introduce a powerful anachronism. Besides, “free” is a misleading term; a more accurate name would be “variable” verse. What is variable is the rhythmic pattern of the syllables and the length of the lines. The musicality of free verse is therefore
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David Rounds different than the musicality of regular verse, but all the other characteristics of verse—its intensity, its use of rhythmic patterns, its economy of expression—are no less present in free verse than in regular verse. I believe it is harder, not easier, to translate regular verse into free verse than it is to translate regular verse into regular verse. In any case, translators who use free verse are in danger of slipping gradually, and without intending it, into prose. As for rhyme, in translation it should be avoided, because, at least in English, it is inevitable that one will add or subtract meanings in order to allow for the rhyme. 7. Note the widely used variant at the beginning of the last two lines. The first syllable is accented, followed by two unaccented syllables. Another common variant consists of two stressed syllables followed by two unstressed. Yet another is to add an unstressed syllable at the end of a line. 8. The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra (Talmage, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 1981). 9. Jagadananda Das. “Chanting Sanskrit verses in Gaudiya Vaishnavism.” http:// www.gaudiya.com. I would like to thank my colleague Barbara Waugh for her guidance in describing and decoding Sanskrit versification. 10. One of Martin Luther’s hymns, published in the original German in 1529. This popular translation into English was made by Frederick H. Hedge in 1853. 11. The good king was a tenth-century Bohemian, but this carol in his praise, written by John Mason Neale in 1853, is Victorian. 12. The Surangama Sutra: A New Translation (Talmage, CA: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 2009), 137. The Sanskrit original is lost; for general information about this sutra, see the introduction to the volume just cited.
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