Publications
Publication details [#57157]
Puri, Maria. 2022. Religious space as a stage for love: translating Sikh scripture as a woman. In Serban, Adriana and Rim Hassen, eds. Women translators of religious texts. Special issue of Parallèles 34 (1): 45–58.
Publication type
Article in Special issue
Publication language
English
Source language
Target language
Person as a subject
Title as subject
Abstract
The sacred book of Sikhism, Ādi Granth, which is known by the faithful as the Guru Granth Sahib, is a compilation of the utterances of the Sikh Gurus and other figures, both Sikh and non-Sikh, whose writings reflect a similar worldview. The first English translation of Ādi Granth was commissioned by the British administration and entrusted to a German scholar, Ernest Trumpp (1877). Since then, almost all translations have been produced by men, with the first English translation of the entire Guru Granth Sahib by Sikh scholar Gopal Singh appearing only in 1960. This article showcases the work and person(a) of Baljit Kaur Tulsi (1915-1997), one of the first women translators of the Sikh sacred texts. The author begins by contextualizing Tulsi’s life and work, then move on to her English rendering of Anand, a sacred composition in the Guru Granth Sahib. She compares the first stanza with that of the translation by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh. Puri concludes that despite having different idiolects and worldviews, the two translators, both of whom are deeply religious, speak first and foremost as women and their woman-centered position is evident in their translations..
Source : Based on abstract in journal