Rajiv Malhotra - Sanskrit Non-Translatables: The Importance of Sanskritizing English

Praise for Sanskrit Non-Translatables

This book takes the battle for Sanskrit into the territory of the English-speaking public. It makes a convincing case that English is deficient in its ability to express the profound meanings of the shastras for which Sanskrit words are necessary. By following the authors advice, English will become enriched with key Sanskrit terms that are non-translatable. As English has assimilated non-translatable terms from virtually all major world languages, and takes pride in doing so, there is no reason why it should hesitate to do so for Sanskrit, a Classical language very much alive today. I congratulate the authors for their innovative thinking and bold initiative.

Swami Govindadev Giri,

Trustee and Treasurer, Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra

As an avid student of Rajiv Malhotras combative intellectual journey, I was anticipating this book. In the characteristic Indian Dharma Rakshak Parampara defending Indian civilization over millennia by both shastra and shaastra in the lineage of shaastra exegetes such as Yaska, Adi Shankara, Guru Gorakhnath, Ramanujacarya, Hemacandracarya, Gyaneshwar, the Sikh Gurus, Sri Aurobindo and Swami Vivekananda, Rajiv Malhotra is a one-man army to take on Western thought. After the 19th century honeymoon with Sanskrit-Hindu intellectual heritage, Western thought has had the political agenda of subverting Hinduism and Hindu culture by the Macaulayised assault on its texts and thoughts. Like a seasoned strategist, Malhotra began from the outer circle and has moved into the conceptual garbhagrha of the Western methodology with this book, Sanskrit Non-Translatables. This comes after his earlier works articulating the Hindu Civilization as the alternative ( Being Different), exposing the adversarys agenda of fracturing this alternative ( Breaking India), counterpoising it with Hinduisms deep conceptual

integrity ( Indras Net), dispossessing the adversary of the weapon

they had tried to appropriate ( The Battle for Sanskrit) and now the heart of the matter the counterattack on the studied subversion of the conceptual frame of Hindu civilizational thought by

Christianising the core categories through motivated interpretive translations. This book takes fifty-four indisputably foundational concepts, arranges them in a fourfold typology that moves from terrafirma to terra cognita to the cosmos, and contests the irrationality, the untenability and the design of their widely employed English equivalents. The demolition of this conceptual subversion sets free the autonomy of the Indian thought and mind. With its well-thought out prefatory essays, this is a book that every English-educated Indian must read to further decolonise his mind and stand up to the hegemony of Western thought.

Dr. Kapil Kapoor, Chairman,

Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla

Rajiv Malhotra carries his battle for Sanskrit a step further in this book. Short of having Sanskrit itself as the language of pan-Indian intellectual discourse, we must insist that as long as English continues to play this role, Sanskrit words should be used in English on account of their unique semantic valence so that a whole culture and an entire worldview is not lost in translation.

Prof. Arvind Sharma,

McGill University

Sanskrit Non-Translatables by Rajiv Malhotra and Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji is an important book that provides lucid explanations of the central concepts of Sanatana Dharma, and brings attention to the many errors and distortions that have been introduced by the use of English words that do not quite do justice to the Sanskrit originals.

It makes a powerful case for what it calls the Sanskritization of the English language by introducing key Sanskrit loanwords into English vocabulary and keeping them untranslated. This is a bold and innovative approach that deserves to be pursued in parallel with teaching Sanskrit itself. It is nothing short of spreading Vedic

sanskriti into the English-speaking world by penetrating their minds with powerful Sanskrit terms.

Dr. Subhash Kak,

author of Matter and Mind, The Gods Within, and other books

This is an indispensable book addressing the difficult situation today

that Sanskrit terms pregnant with meaning cannot be translated into any foreign language; yet we have to make them understandable to people of other cultures who want to learn Sanskrit from the point of view of jigisha rather than jijnasa. The authors have worked hard to collect relevant material from various sources to prove that the English translations of many Sanskrit terms are false and misleading.

Dr. Korada Subrahmanyam,

author of Theory of Language: Oriental & Occidental, and other books

This book is an eye-opener and argues a highly original and audacious thesis to enrich the English language by adding Sanskrit words that have no English equivalent. These unique words bring profound meanings discovered by the ancient rishi-s. For English language speakers, it will not only enhance their vocabulary but also introduce them to entirely new concepts for understanding of reality.

Dr. Vijay Bhatkar,

Chancellor, Nalanda University

Sanskrit Non-Translatables

Sanskrit Non-Translatables

The Importance of Sanskritizing English

Rajiv Malhotra and Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji

Foreword by

Nityananda Misra

An imprint of Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.

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Copyright Infinity Foundation, 2020

This edition first published in 2020

ISBN 978-93-90085-48-4

Rajiv Malhotra and Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji asserts the

moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover design: Divya Sharma, Infinity Foundation

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Contents

Foreword

Anuvada, which literally means saying again or restating

( anuvadanam anuvadah), is the Sanskrit word for translation. An anuvada can be from Sanskrit into Sanskrit, from Sanskrit into Indian languages or from Sanskrit into other languages like English. Owing to the highly mathematical and flexible nature of Sanskrit, it is possible to have a perfectly equivalent anuvada from Sanskrit into Sanskrit. The second sutra of Patanjalis