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Translator’s Note
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35 Translator’s Note In preparing this translation, I have consulted a number of editions of the Devi Gita, some published as parts of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana and others printed as separate and independent texts. I finally chose the Venkatesvara edition (Bombay, n.d.) of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana, the current vulgate, for my base text, as it is relatively free of typographical errors. But most important, it includes the only readily available Sanskrit commentary, that of Nilakantha the Shaiva, a Maharashtrian with Advaita inclinations probably living in the last half of the eighteenth century. I have frequently utilized Nilakantha’s interpretive insights in explaining obscure or confusing terms, and am indebted to him for his numerous citations of parallel passages in older Sanskrit works. Comparison of these older passages with their often noncontextualized and elliptical presentation in the Devi Gita provided much needed framework and background for a reasonably accurate rendering of the text. The first published English translation of the Devi Gita (as part of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana [vol. 26 of the Sacred Books of the Hindus], 1921– 23), also relied heavily on Nilakantha. Indeed, the Hindu translator, Hari Prasanna Chatterji, on several occasions included parts of Nilakantha’s commentary in the translation, a practice not uncommon among Indian translators at the time. For reasons of 36 The Song of the Goddess historical accuracy, such a methodology is in itself problematic enough. And given Nilakantha’s Advaitin perspective, such a procedure makes especially difficult any attempt to come to terms with those parts of the text that express a viewpoint in tension with the Advaita worldview. While I have made judicious use of Nilakantha’s frequently perceptive observations, I have kept his commentary as such out of the translation. The Sanskrit text of the Devi Gita is composed mostly of verses known as shlokas, consisting of four quarters of eight syllables each. The exceptions all seem to be where the author of the Devi Gita quotes from or paraphrases non-shloka texts such as the Upanishads. Within the shlokas, there are two lines, each of two quarters. The two lines of a verse tend to represent integrated semantic subunits, with many exceptions. I have rendered all stanzas (including the nonshloka passages) into free verse of two lines each. The lines of the translation generally correspond quite strictly to the lines of the original text, the exceptions being made to avoid awkward word order in English, as where the grammatical subject of a verse occurs only in the second line, or in another verse entirely. Little attempt was made to follow the order of quarters within a line. The Sanskrit style of the text is at times highly compressed and elliptical. I have expanded the translation of such elliptical passages for the sake of clarity , but without bracketing the supplied terms or phrases in order to retain a more friendly looking and readable text. Most such additions to the literal text are minor, for instance, supplying the specific referent of a pronoun. [54.205.238.173] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 10:59 GMT) 37 Translator’s Note Proper names have usually been left untranslated , and the various names of most deities normalized to the forms best known to an English audience (for example, Shankara—the god, not the teacher—has been rendered as Shiva). The major exception pertains to the Goddess, as her many names and various epithets reveal the complexity of her character and the diverse aspects of her nature. Even here, I have felt compelled to make two important exceptions. Shakti (“energy,” “power”) and Maya (“magical creative power,” “illusion,” “power of delusion”) constitute essential features of the Goddess. But they are also extremely complex and multivalent philosophical concepts that in most instances defy easy translation without gross oversimplification. One of the most difficult interpretive challenges relates to the androcentric language of the text. While its theology is “feminine,” conceiving the absolute primarily in terms of a supreme female deity, the Devi Gita is hardly “feminist.” Its conception of the compassionate World Mother wholly dedicated to the well-being of her children, its luscious imagery of Bhuvaneshvari’s feminine charms bordering on the voluptuous and erotic, may suggest to contemporary readers that these are expressions of the male author’s culturally conditioned fantasies about the “ideal” woman. Especially is his sociology androcentric, as in his traditional admonition that the text of the Devi Gita is to be revealed only to quali...