Love or Leave Bhartuharis Dilemma

Author(s): Ashok Aklujkar
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan

Page 25

3 THT-94.25
in $3.5, it may refer to the sense 'I am someone special; I can attract this man if I wish' felt to exist in young women. Miller (1967:87 = 1990:72) introduces it with the word "seduction" in her translation
of 116. 19. In addition to the select examples given here, there are stanzas
in which the dilemma finds a somewhat indirect expression; e.g. in
stanzas 147 and 183 quoted in 83.5 and $3.4, respectively. 20. The pronoun vayam here may also be rendered in the plural. 21. What the idiom tapas tap makes possible in Sanskrit (build up
ascetic heat try refraining from objects of comfort, to accumulate spiritual energy by staying away from sensual pleasures') seems impossible to render in English in such a literal or semi-literal way that the contrast with the following use of tap (be heated, be subjected to suffering') can be brought out. Hence, I have offred a translation concentrating on what tapas, the austerities, are supposed to accomplish,
namely the eradication of the ordinary worldly pleasure-seeking self. 22. This probably means 'I did not win the immortality or victory
over death that I was seeking. I had to give up the effort. The latter half could also be speaking of impending death with a past tense in view of the certainty of death: "Consider it certain that I
will go away. I am as good as dead." 23. Miller's (1967:113 = 1990:85) translation puzzles me. It runs thus:
"We savored no pleasure, so we are consumed. We practiced no penance, so we are afflicted. We did not elude time, so we are pursued. We did not wither craving, So we are the wizened."
Gopinath (1896:228) is much closer to the original in syntax, as well as in bringing out the intended contrasts, but his is not a readiable translation.
Somewhere between my rendering and Miller's rendering falls the following translation by Cort (1983:21):
"Thinking I enjoyed the pleasures of life, I myself was enjoyed by life. Thinking I didn't need to hurn off my sins, I myself was burnt up. Thinking that I passed the time,