Translating the Divine Woman: Usha Kisore's and M. Sambasivan's translation of Kalidasa's Shyamaladandakam

Shyamaladandakam Kalidasavirachitam. Translating the Divine Woman: A Translation of Kalidasa's Syamala Dandaka. Trans. by Usha Kishore and M. Sambasivan. Rasala: Bangalore, 2015. 96 pp.

Most of us know the poet Kalidasa's work, Shakuntalam. But his work Shyamaladandakam is popular perhaps among musicians and religious folk. Why did Usha Kishore choose to translate this poem? This work is unique in its emphasis on goddess as woman; she is Mahadevi, the great goddess, combining the powers of many Hindu goddesses; most importantly, she can be invoked and be made part of the human female. As Kishore explains in her introduction: "We have translated the Goddess as the divinised form of womanhood." Therefore, the translators address her as "woman" throughout the poem, instead of "goddess" to show that the goddess as woman is a Hindu concept.  In our contemporary context in the West, this transposition creates our feeling of connection with the possibilities available to the woman. "Woman" combines all the qualities ascribed to goddess-as-woman.

The Divine Woman is the daughter of sage Matanga. She is known by various names, Matangi, Uma, Syamala, Kalika, and so on. She is"woman," "muse," "mother," "daughter," "beloved," "maiden," bestowing and fulfilling--thus always acting and communing with her worshipers.

The book is visually beautiful, with each single stanza of the Sanskrit text placed on the left page and the English translation on the opposite page, therefore leaving plenty of white space for the reader to contemplate each verse both in Sanskrit and in English.

The English translation is unique for it tries to capture the essence of the original text while leaning on the poetic possibilities available in English to express the essence of the stanza, its metaphors and imagery.

For example:

"Your alluring eyes
       feigned blooms on tendril brows
arching like the frolicking flowered bow of Kama;

woman,
watering the world with your wined word of wisdom."

The translators pay attention to the alliterative lines, the imagery, and the economy of words of the original text,  At the same time, they make the lines contemporary by their use of line and stanza breaks, other kinds of spacing, English imagery, use the word "woman" instead of "goddess," and verbs such as "watering"and "frolicking" to highlight the stylistic conventions of Sanskrit poetry.

Here is another example that highlights the interesting syntax and line arrangements in the second stanza of the first section:

"Woman,
rapt in the cadence of celestial melody,
its rising notes swaying  your nipa-twined hair around your hips:

O maiden of the mountain."

The word "woman" is a line by itself, drawing attention to the object of the images of her sensuality suggested by the cluster of images--"nipa-twined hair," "celestial melody," "cadence," "rising notes"--transferring our attention from the swaying hair to the swaying hips.

At times, Kishore weaves definitions into the lines, thus eliminating any need for an end note. For example, stanza 5, in section 1, ends with "Rame" in the Sanskrit original, which Kishore translates as "Rama, / goddess of grace," thus accentuating the alliterative beauty of the line. In the following stanza, she does something similar: "susvare" in the Sanskrit original is translated as "woman, / melody manifest," again drawing the reader's attention to the holder of the attribute.

Attentive to sound patterns, nature imagery, mellifluous cadence of the lines, Kishore creates a poem that is pleasurable to read.

Divided into 5 sections, each section offers the reader enough space to ruminate the essence of the meaning of woman: What does woman mean? Who is she? What are her qualities, both physical, psychical, and emotional? How is she connected to nature and the elements? Interestingly, the woman / goddess is associated with water:

"The profound circle of your navel,
darkly ornamented by a ring of fine moss-like hair,
is a lake whirling in eddies."

The navel is suggestive of the umbilical cord which connects us to the source. The lake suggests womb. And woman as water, fluid, ever-flowing, not fixed.

The rapture of invoking her finally highlights her as the icon of verse. She holds the richness of language.She bears the "crystal rosary, book of knowledge, rope, and goad" in her "lotus hands." She is endowed with "sweet speech."

The chapter on Kavya or Sanskrit poetry is a synopsis that is informative, as is the glossary at the end of the book.

Usha Kishore--U.K. Indian poet: Night Sky Between the Stars

Usha Kishore's Night Sky Between the Stars,   exploring stories of goddesses in Hindu mythology, is a powerful testament to female power and energy. She retells the stories of goddesses and places them in the milieu of everyday experiences of women. She writes about women planting trees, laughing, celebrating the birth of baby girls, all this despite misogyny. The baby girl "chuckling in her cradle" becomes the icon of the mother goddess; myth transformed into reality. In fact, Kishore's poems blur the line between myth and reality. For every creative venture to flourish, the universe depends on the goddesses. They are the rain makers--"As rice bowl / after rice bowl dries up in the blistering plains..."--and the truth tellers--"Do the hands that build nations, wreck them beyond repair?"

Invoking Sita and Mira, two goddesses who are separated from their spouses, the poet commands Sita: "Banish him, as he banished you," for Rama has not been her grand savior--"Arms of power / have pierced man's heart / and bled it to stone." Thus Kishore sums up her indictment against patriarchy--it is inscrutable and appears invulnerable.

Kishore manages interesting twists in her explorations, one being "Five Virgins"--Ahalya, Draupadi, Tara, Kunti, Mandodari, "star-crossed women" who "fan fires of revenge." They are fiery stars defying their fate. Kishore shows the underbelly of the myths that are presented traditionally as romantic, female power glossed over in the telling. Kishore's retelling brings the hidden powers of the goddesses-as-women to the foreground. The poet desires "to extol them," not to redeem herself but to enlighten us about their power.

Yet she does not abandon the strength of tradition that lend power to the female voice, as in "Kamakhya." It is the icon of Shakti, the mother goddess, whose yantra or iconography is the yoni or vagina, a triangle. In this concept poem, written in the form of the triangle, Kishore brings to life images of the goddess:  she is "stone.../ incarnadined, fecund," "lush labyrinth of triangles," "fluid spring," "psychic song." Goddess and speaker merge in "My psychic song flows in your veins;" the elements enter the speaker and she is endowed with the richness of the cosmos, thus myth becomes demystified in "laden cloud," "twilight rain," "breath", "fertile hum," and inhabits the speaker composing the words.

In the ekphrastic poems, based on Raja Ravi Varma's paintings, Kishore pursues her quest to understand and reawaken within her and in her poetry the meta-stories of the goddesses. Ahalya's story does not end in her being transformed into stone; she awaits her transformation into "fluid feminine form." Thus Kishore seems to hold on to the hope of a changing patriarchal attitude toward women.  Woman is also part of nature, as we see in the poem addressed to goddess Ganga ("Decent of Ganga"). Woman is not a fixed concept. She is not stone. She is fluid. Kishore asks,"who dares to bind her turbulent waters?" No one can break her spirit!

Kishore's language is flawless; she manages to wed Sanskrit lexicon and imagery with English meter, thus producing lyrical, limpidly flowing verse.

As a lover of Sanskrit poetry and Indian classical music, I am enthralled by Usha Kishore's use of these sources to create beautiful poetry in English. As a feminist, I relish Kishore's delving into Hindu tradition of a living goddess culture to show the path of feminist ideas.

Kishore's poems are a pleasure to read--they are sensual and intellectual at the same time, a rare combination.