The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali present many challenges as anyone who has ever attempted to read them can attest. However, if you also happen to be into reading the original Sanskrit, you will see that understanding the Sutras is merely the tip of the linguistic and semantic iceberg.
Sanskrit itself is already a highly challenging language given its vast range of verb tenses and moods, conjugations and declensions, and something most troublesome when translating the genre of sutras, the grammar often falls away, leaving larges swatches of ambiguity as to how to actually read the text at a basic level.
The form known as "sutras" is based upon the concept of terseness, or, saying as much as possible in as few words as possible. Furthermore, Sanskrit's propensity for compounds allows for one to cut off the vital suffixes which normally would give us clues as to how the words works in the verse, thereby excising the very syntax necessary to understand the text.
Let's take a look at the most well-known sutra, that being 1.2, the definition of Yoga according to Patañjali. The standard translation for YS 1.2 is something along the lines of: "Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff". Right...and what does that actually mean? Let's take a look at the original, and then dissect it a bit to tease out some translations of our own.
Yogash'cittavrittinirodhah:
That is how the sutra would look in Roman script. In the Devanagari, it would also look like one single word. As such, the first challenge in taking apart a sutra is actually to figure out where one word begins and ends, and then start to re-assemble the pieces into a coherent sentence. The problem is that this can often lead to a Frankenstein-like sentence in the target language that makes little or no sense. Or, the translator, hoping that none of his or her readers actually knows Sanskrit (and often neither does the translator...) and the result looks nothing like the original.
So, how do we begin?
Here is a typical notecard that I use when translating:
On the top, you can see the sutra in Devanagari in a single "word" with the pieces of the puzzle split up below.
When we do dissect the sutra, we end up with the following four words: Yogah citta- -vritti- -nirodhah
Then, I begin to define the pieces.
Yogah: yoking/union/joining/connection
Citta: attention/reason/intellect/thinking/mind/memory/consciousness
Vrittti: condition/conduct/behavior/character/flux/fluctuations
Nirodhah: temperance/restraint/cessation/control
For the linguistically inclined, you will immediately notice something is missing, a verb. In Sanskrit, the verb <<as>> or "to be" does not have to appear, and if no verb is there, then that is usually the default, thus we supply "is" for our verb.
Looking at the endings of the words, we can see that two are in the nominative, Yogah and Nirodhah. In mathematics, we have x=y, and that should be commutative, meaning: x=y = y=x. In other words, it does not matter if the x is on the right or the left. In language, however, x=y does not necessarily mean y=x. Let's see how.
Yogah is Nirodhah or Nirodhah is Yogah. Not quite the same. One defines Yogah, the other Nirodhah. Since it is the Yoga Sutras, we probably are safe taking Yogah as the subject to be defined. So, we have Yoga (is) temperance/restraint/cessation/control. We have a start. But, now things can get interesting.
Because Citta and Vritti are in the compound form, they do not have declined endings, meaning, we don't know how they really function on a grammatical/syntactical level. Sanskrit has seven forms of a noun: vocative, nominative, accusative, instrumental, genitive, dative, and locative. By comparison, German has four, English one, and Finnish 15... So, it could be harder, but could be easier.
Taking Citta, or attention/reason/intellect/thinking/mind/memory, we have to make a choice. If we choose the genitive, it is "of the mind", but locative would be "in the mind" and instrumental would be "by the mind", just to name a few.
So, we then take vritti-, or condition/conduct/behavior/character/flux, and that again could be a variety of cases, such as "by conduct" or "of the flux/fluctuations" or "from the condition"... you can see how this becomes exponentially exhaustive.
As a translator and reader then, we have to make choices. Sometimes there are clues in various commentaries about the syntax, but those are not always reliable. There is a strong theory that Patañjali also wrote the commentary attributed to the nebulous "Vyasa", which could shed quite a bit of light on the Sutras, but that is not an absolute certainty.
Suturing the pieces back together then, with the possible definitions, along with the probable cases of the nouns, we get something like this:
And, we can begin to approximate a translation or two, or three that at least makes some sense. My Golden Rule of Translation is: If it makes sense in the original, then it needs to make sense in the target language...but, we also need context to better understand.
And, a few options emerge:
Yoga (is) the temperance of the consciousness within the mind.
Yoga (is) the control of the mind's behaviors.
Yoga (is) the restraint of the fluctuations by the intellect.
or,
Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff....
And, so forth.
However, the final point to be made is that this is not meant to stand alone. We want our bumper sticker Sutras, but the truth is, 1.2 does not make sense until you continue reading to find out what exactly the vritti's are and why is nirodhah the "goal" of Yoga?
In other words, I am all for finding the one or two sutras which speak to someone, but again, with the nota bene that they are part of a larger whole, and do need some context to ultimately make sense.
Sanskrit itself is already a highly challenging language given its vast range of verb tenses and moods, conjugations and declensions, and something most troublesome when translating the genre of sutras, the grammar often falls away, leaving larges swatches of ambiguity as to how to actually read the text at a basic level.
The form known as "sutras" is based upon the concept of terseness, or, saying as much as possible in as few words as possible. Furthermore, Sanskrit's propensity for compounds allows for one to cut off the vital suffixes which normally would give us clues as to how the words works in the verse, thereby excising the very syntax necessary to understand the text.
Let's take a look at the most well-known sutra, that being 1.2, the definition of Yoga according to Patañjali. The standard translation for YS 1.2 is something along the lines of: "Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff". Right...and what does that actually mean? Let's take a look at the original, and then dissect it a bit to tease out some translations of our own.
Yogash'cittavrittinirodhah:
That is how the sutra would look in Roman script. In the Devanagari, it would also look like one single word. As such, the first challenge in taking apart a sutra is actually to figure out where one word begins and ends, and then start to re-assemble the pieces into a coherent sentence. The problem is that this can often lead to a Frankenstein-like sentence in the target language that makes little or no sense. Or, the translator, hoping that none of his or her readers actually knows Sanskrit (and often neither does the translator...) and the result looks nothing like the original.
So, how do we begin?
Here is a typical notecard that I use when translating:
On the top, you can see the sutra in Devanagari in a single "word" with the pieces of the puzzle split up below.
When we do dissect the sutra, we end up with the following four words: Yogah citta- -vritti- -nirodhah
Then, I begin to define the pieces.
Yogah: yoking/union/joining/connection
Citta: attention/reason/intellect/thinking/mind/memory/consciousness
Vrittti: condition/conduct/behavior/character/flux/fluctuations
Nirodhah: temperance/restraint/cessation/control
For the linguistically inclined, you will immediately notice something is missing, a verb. In Sanskrit, the verb <<as>> or "to be" does not have to appear, and if no verb is there, then that is usually the default, thus we supply "is" for our verb.
Looking at the endings of the words, we can see that two are in the nominative, Yogah and Nirodhah. In mathematics, we have x=y, and that should be commutative, meaning: x=y = y=x. In other words, it does not matter if the x is on the right or the left. In language, however, x=y does not necessarily mean y=x. Let's see how.
Yogah is Nirodhah or Nirodhah is Yogah. Not quite the same. One defines Yogah, the other Nirodhah. Since it is the Yoga Sutras, we probably are safe taking Yogah as the subject to be defined. So, we have Yoga (is) temperance/restraint/cessation/control. We have a start. But, now things can get interesting.
Because Citta and Vritti are in the compound form, they do not have declined endings, meaning, we don't know how they really function on a grammatical/syntactical level. Sanskrit has seven forms of a noun: vocative, nominative, accusative, instrumental, genitive, dative, and locative. By comparison, German has four, English one, and Finnish 15... So, it could be harder, but could be easier.
Taking Citta, or attention/reason/intellect/thinking/mind/memory, we have to make a choice. If we choose the genitive, it is "of the mind", but locative would be "in the mind" and instrumental would be "by the mind", just to name a few.
So, we then take vritti-, or condition/conduct/behavior/character/flux, and that again could be a variety of cases, such as "by conduct" or "of the flux/fluctuations" or "from the condition"... you can see how this becomes exponentially exhaustive.
As a translator and reader then, we have to make choices. Sometimes there are clues in various commentaries about the syntax, but those are not always reliable. There is a strong theory that Patañjali also wrote the commentary attributed to the nebulous "Vyasa", which could shed quite a bit of light on the Sutras, but that is not an absolute certainty.
Suturing the pieces back together then, with the possible definitions, along with the probable cases of the nouns, we get something like this:
And, we can begin to approximate a translation or two, or three that at least makes some sense. My Golden Rule of Translation is: If it makes sense in the original, then it needs to make sense in the target language...but, we also need context to better understand.
And, a few options emerge:
Yoga (is) the temperance of the consciousness within the mind.
Yoga (is) the control of the mind's behaviors.
Yoga (is) the restraint of the fluctuations by the intellect.
or,
Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind stuff....
And, so forth.
However, the final point to be made is that this is not meant to stand alone. We want our bumper sticker Sutras, but the truth is, 1.2 does not make sense until you continue reading to find out what exactly the vritti's are and why is nirodhah the "goal" of Yoga?
In other words, I am all for finding the one or two sutras which speak to someone, but again, with the nota bene that they are part of a larger whole, and do need some context to ultimately make sense.
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