Название: The Rise of Wisdom Moon
Автор: Krishna mishra
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Старинная литература: прочее
Серия: Clay Sanskrit Library
isbn: 9781479852642
isbn:
In Sanskrit, vowels may be short or long and are written differently accordingly. We follow the general convention that a vowel with no mark above it is short. Other books mark a long vowel either with a bar called a macron (a) or with a circumflex (a). Our system uses the __________
ix
csl conventions
macron, except that for initial vowels in sandhi we use a circumflex to indicate that originally the vowel was short, or the shorter of two possibilities (e rather than ai, o rather than au).
When we print initial a, before sandhi that vowel was a
i or e, i
u or o, u
ai, e
au, o
a, a
i, i
u, u
e, i
o, u
ai, ai
au, au
’, before sandhi there was a vowel a
When a final short vowel (a, i, or u) has merged into a following vowel, we print ’ at the end of the word, and when a final long vowel (a, i, or u) has merged into a following vowel we print ” at the end of the word. The vast majority of these cases will concern a final a or a. See, for instance, the following examples:
What before sandhi was atra asti is represented as atr’ asti
atra aste atr’ aste
kanya asti kany” asti
kanya aste kany” aste
atra iti atr’ eti
kanya iti kany” eti
kanya ipsita kany” epsita
Finally, three other points concerning the initial letter of the second word:
(1) A word that before sandhi begins with r (vowel), after sandhi begins with r followed by a consonant: yatha” rtu represents pre-sandhi yatha rtu.
(2) When before sandhi the previous word ends in t and the following word begins with s, after sandhi the last letter of the previous word is c ________
xii
csl conventions
and the following word begins with ch: syac chastravit represents presandhi syat sastravit.
(3) Where a word begins with h and the previous word ends with a double consonant, this is our simplified spelling to show the pre-sandhi form: tad hasati is commonly written as tad dhasati, but we write tadd hasati so that the original initial letter is obvious.
compounds
We also punctuate the division of compounds (samasa), simply by inserting a thin vertical line between words. There are words where the decision whether to regard them as compounds is arbitrary. Our principle has been to try to guide readers to the correct dictionary entries.
Exemplar of CSL Style
Where the Devanagari script reads:
Others would print:
We print:
And in English:
May Ganesha’s domed forehead protect you! Streaked with vermilion dust, it seems to be emitting the spreading rays of the rising sun to pacify the teeming darkness of obstructions.
(“Nava·sahasanka and the Serpent Princess” i.3)
xiii
csl conventions
Drama
Classical Sanskrit literature is in fact itself bilingual, notably in drama. There women and characters of low rank speak one of several Prakrit dialects, an “unrefined” (prakrta) vernacular as opposed to the “refined” (samskrta) language. Editors commonly provide such speeches with a Sanskrit paraphrase, their “shadow” (chaya). We mark Prakrit speeches with [opening and closing] square brackets, and supply the Sanskrit chaya in endnotes. Some stage directions are original to the author but we follow the custom that sometimes editors supplement these; we print them in italics (and within brackets, in mid-text)
xiv
FOREWORD
This new translation of Krishna·mishra’s “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” will be, I believe, welcomed by all lovers of Sanskrit literature and especially by admirers of this marvelous drama. Matthew Kapstein brings out the work’s literary qualities in a manner the earlier translators could not, all the more for the modern literary sensibility. Some of his renderings of Sanskrit proper names are particularly ingenious.
“The Rise of Wisdom Moon” belongs to a literary genre that requires from readers both philosophical knowledge and literary sensibility in order to be able to appreciate it. The work cannot be reduced to a merely philosophical treatise, so compelling is its literary and dramatic effect. The cast of characters, each representing a power of sensible, erotic, intellectual and spiritual life, is at first confounding, but soon, as one identifies each power’s characteristic, familiar role, the entire story of conflict, struggle, and eventual resolution coheres in its depiction of man’s inner life, and is comparable in this respect to Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit.” For while Hegel’s is a philosophical treatise cast, rather severely, as a dramatization, Krishna·mishra’s is ostensibly a drama meant to be staged, but is also explicitly philosophical.
Matthew Kapstein highlights, as contrasted with earlier translators and writers on the text, its literary quality and wishes to underplay its philosophical nature. The irony lies precisely here, in the work’s literary style. This irony ________
xv
foreword
of style, I would suggest, is particularly suited to conveying the philosophy it does convey in this case, that is, Advaita Vedanta. This is so because, looked at closely, Advaita Vedanta contains a deep irony: knowledge, or pure consciousness, СКАЧАТЬ