Translations into Sanskrit

[Peter Wyzlic]

Am Donnerstag, den 19.03.2009, 13:23 +0100 schrieb Sven Sellmer:

> lately I was asked about early translations into Sanskrit and noticed  
> that this is quite an interesting question I know little about. Is  
> anybody aware of articles or books on this topic? In particular, I  
> would be curious to learn about the earliest translations into  
> Sanskrit of texts originally composed in languages others than Middle  
> Indo-Aryan ones (as only these I would consider translations in the  
> full sense).

There is a legend that the Daode jing (or Tao te king if you like) has
been translated into Sanskrit. The legend is found in a 7th century
Buddhist compilation (Ji gujin fodao lunheng, Taisho Nr. 2104). See Paul
Pelliot: "Autour d'une traduction sanscrite to Tao-tö king". In: T'oung
Pao 13 (1912), p. 351-430 (esp. p. 381 seqq.). It is said that the king
of Kamarupa asked the Chinese traveller Li Yibiao to translate Laozi's
work. According to the mentioned work (Ji gujin fodao lunheng), a
committee of Daoist and Buddhist scholars with Xuanzang as one its
prominent members came together to execute this task. Of course, nothing
of this kind survived.

Perhaps the Samudrasangama belongs here, too. This is the Sanskrit
version of Dara Shukoh's Majma ul-Bahrain (written in Persian). It is
said to be composed in Sanskrit by the author himself in 1657, the same
year when the Persian original came out. See e.g. Roma Chaudhuri: A
critical study of Dara Shikuh's Samudra-Sangama. Vol. 1. Calcutta 1954
(vol. 2 contains the text edition by Jatindra Bimal Chaudhuri).

Hope it helps
Peter Wyzlic

-- 
Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften
Abteilung für Indologie
Universität Bonn
Regina-Pacis-Weg 7
D-53113 Bonn