Geldner's RV in English?-- no!

[Asko.Parpola at Helsinki.FI]

>There have been several attempts that I know of. But only trials, no
>sustained effort and certainly no complete translation. Ingalls was
>interetsed toget it translated and tried in his time, to no avail; the
>quality of the translation wasn't good enough.
>
>Motilal had a plan as well and sent me a trial tranlation of some 5 or 10
>hymns some years ago: again, the translation was not correct. He must
>have dropped the plan since.
>
>Of course, I have thought about it was well. There is no one here who
>could do it well. Geldner's German is not easy, sometimes outright
>medieval. And I don't have the time myself.
>
>Should anyone of the esteemed readers have a proposal, please convey it to
>me. (Harvard Oriental Series, 53 Church Street Cambridge MA 02138, USA).
>We have the copyright and I would seriously consider to print a good
>translation, preferably at a cheap rate (paperback).
>
>
>It would be of *great importance* to get Geldner translated since it is
>the only adequate, in fact the only complete translation since Griffith (a
>hundred years ago), as O'Flaherty's translation of a tenth, 108 hymns,
>(in Penguin) is idiosyncratic and unreliable just like her Jaiminiya
>Brahmana or Manu (re-)translations, and as no complete translation is in
>sight,
>
>-- except for T.Elizarenkova's translation into Russian (which -- just like
>L. Renou's incomplete transl. into French seems to rely on Geldner-- I
>have checked hers only here and there, still). Her second vol. (RV 5-8) has
>just come out:
>
>Rigveda. Mandaly V-VIII, Moskva (Rossiiskaya Akademiya Nauk: Literaturnye
>pamyatniki) 1995,  pp. 743, incl. her comm. on the hymns (pp. 526-731), and
>two very useful studies: One on the world view of the Rgvedic Aryans, pp.
>452-486 by T. Eliz., and a study on the "realia" / Woerter
>und Sachen of the RV, pp. 487-525, by T. Eliz. and V. I. Toporov.
>
>Printed in 2500 copies only (unlike the 40,000 of the first vol., in
>Soviet times!), so hurry up to buy it. Price unknown. Address:
>
>Izdatelstvo "Nauka", 117864 GSP-7, Moskva V-485, Profsoyuznaya Ul. 90,
>Russia.
>
>
>
>M. Witzel,  617- 496 8570. fax 496 9571.
>
>
>
>
>
>On Tue, 31 Oct 1995, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
>
>> James A. Santucci, in his _An Outline of Vedic Literature_ (AAR, 1976),
>> p. 3, says that Geldner's German translation of the RV is "being
>> translated into English and will be appearing in print shortly".
>>
>> What happened to this project?  Who was doing it?
>>
>> Dominik Wujastyk
>>
>>
>>
>

I do not think it is a good idea to get Geldner translated into English. As
far as I know, Stanley Insler has long been preparing a complete new
English translation of the Rgveda. He is the man to do this translation.
Stanley's problem, if I have understood him correctly, is to find time from
other duties to complete this very important undertaking.

Asko Parpola

Asko Parpola ------ e-mail Asko.Parpola at Helsinki.Fi
Dept. of Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki