12-01-2006, 11:56 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Mahabharata in Chinese sold out, goes into second edition</b>
Author: Saibal Dasgupta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 22, 2006
Within months of its release, the first-ever Chinese version of the MaÂhabharata sold out last December. The second edition of the six-volume transÂlation of the epic is now under print and would be out in a few weeks.
There is a growing desire in China to learn about India's culture and tradiÂtions. "For a long time, Chinese scholÂars paid too much attention to the West. Now, there is a growing desire to know Indian civilisation and imbibe its wisdom," Huang Baosheng, who headed the five-member team of translators at BeiÂjing University, told TOI.
"The 5,000 sets released in the first ediÂtion were bought not just by libraries Âas happens m the case of most such works - but also by ordinary readers," Huang, who is a teacher at the university's SanÂskrit department, said. The sets are modÂerately priced at 680 yuan (Rs 3,862) each.
Huang and his team worked for over 10 years translating the epic from the Sanskrit edition brought out by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. The institute's version, Huang said, is the best of the epic in Sanskrit.
"The Chinese version has more than 30 illustrations taken from the original. The work has been appreciated by scholars around the world, including those from Harvard, who recently visitÂed us in Beijing."
The Mahabharata's version comes several years after the Ramayana was translated into Chinese. Ji Xianlin, a Sanskrit scholar, secretly translaÂted the epic in 1976.
Huang and most Sanskrit scholars in China are students of the 95-year-old Ji, who is now in hospital near the university. The other scholars involved in the Mahabharata project are Huang's wife Guo Liang Yun, and Ge Weijun, Li Nan and Duan Qin.
"In the beginning, we could not find a publisher as such works hardly earn profit," said Huang. But the team, was bailed out by the biggest government think-tank, the Chinese Academy of SoÂcial Sciences, which published it. "There are a lot of stories and philosophy in the Mahabharata and it is not easy to renÂder them in Chinese. That's why we took so long to translate the epic."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Author: Saibal Dasgupta
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 22, 2006
Within months of its release, the first-ever Chinese version of the MaÂhabharata sold out last December. The second edition of the six-volume transÂlation of the epic is now under print and would be out in a few weeks.
There is a growing desire in China to learn about India's culture and tradiÂtions. "For a long time, Chinese scholÂars paid too much attention to the West. Now, there is a growing desire to know Indian civilisation and imbibe its wisdom," Huang Baosheng, who headed the five-member team of translators at BeiÂjing University, told TOI.
"The 5,000 sets released in the first ediÂtion were bought not just by libraries Âas happens m the case of most such works - but also by ordinary readers," Huang, who is a teacher at the university's SanÂskrit department, said. The sets are modÂerately priced at 680 yuan (Rs 3,862) each.
Huang and his team worked for over 10 years translating the epic from the Sanskrit edition brought out by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. The institute's version, Huang said, is the best of the epic in Sanskrit.
"The Chinese version has more than 30 illustrations taken from the original. The work has been appreciated by scholars around the world, including those from Harvard, who recently visitÂed us in Beijing."
The Mahabharata's version comes several years after the Ramayana was translated into Chinese. Ji Xianlin, a Sanskrit scholar, secretly translaÂted the epic in 1976.
Huang and most Sanskrit scholars in China are students of the 95-year-old Ji, who is now in hospital near the university. The other scholars involved in the Mahabharata project are Huang's wife Guo Liang Yun, and Ge Weijun, Li Nan and Duan Qin.
"In the beginning, we could not find a publisher as such works hardly earn profit," said Huang. But the team, was bailed out by the biggest government think-tank, the Chinese Academy of SoÂcial Sciences, which published it. "There are a lot of stories and philosophy in the Mahabharata and it is not easy to renÂder them in Chinese. That's why we took so long to translate the epic."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->