[INDOLOGY] Sad News

Tue Oct 27 18:29:18 UTC 2020

Dear Colleagues,

We are very sad to report the death of Will Johnson. Will’s work as a translator of Sanskrit, and as a scholar of Hindu and Jain traditions, speaks for itself. However, his extraordinary personal qualities were known only to those that had the pleasure and privilege of his company. We were fortunate to be in this category. All who knew him valued his innate gentleness, his infectious laugh and his delightful combination of deep generosity to others with a certain arch humour and a wryly detached demeanour. For young academics, as we were when we joined Cardiff University, Will’s attitude was a tonic; he managed to communicate complete commitment to his discipline and his students while seeming to have his foundations somehow elsewhere, and in firmer ground.

It is hard not to think that this ground was his artistic nature. Will was a poet first and a scholar second. This did not detract from the quality of his scholarship – far from it. Yet he seemed at his fullest and most complete when he was creating something other than scholarship (in its most obvious sense). This was true of his poetry (and he published a very powerful volume, My Speaking Tongue, during his retirement in the face of the Motor Neurone Disease that eventually took his life), of the adaptations – by him or others – of his translations of Sanskrit plays, or his translations themselves. It was as if impeccable scholarship was, in the face of all this, a happy knack. 

In closing, his own advice, given in poetry, seems most apposite:

…But if you’ll forgive
the indiscretion, take this note:
work from the uncut text alone, try not
to corpse until your lines run dry, exit
with a flourish to the vacant gods,
and only then bring up the lamps and board
the train for Dublin, Moscow, and
beyond this gauze, the endless, moonlit steppe.

We include a brief overview of his career drawn from our tribute article to Will on the occasion of his retirement some years ago.

Our thoughts and best wishes go to Will’s wonderful family.

James Hegarty and Simon Brodbeck

Will Johnson: Indologist and Translator

Will Johnson was born on 4 November 1951 and grew up in Warwickshire. After a period of working in the theatre he entered the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex as a mature student, and he received his BA in Religious Studies with first-class honours in 1984. From there he moved to the University of Oxford, receiving his MPhil in Classical Indian Religion in 1987, and his DPhil in 1990 with a thesis entitled ‘The Problem of Bondage in Selected Early Jaina Texts’, completed under the supervision of Richard Gombrich. From 1991 to 1992 he was the Michael Coulson Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, and in 1992 he was appointed as Lecturer in Religious Studies at what was then the University of Wales College, Cardiff. He was promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer in 1997, and to the rank of Reader in 2009.

During his academic career he was active as an external examiner for several different universities, as well as being a member of numerous panels, editorial boards, working groups, and professional bodies, and a consultant for several publishers. Within Cardiff University he was an impeccably amiable colleague who served as a member of the Senate for four years, and as acting Head of School (later Department) on four different occasions. A member of the Centre for the History of Religion in Asia since its launch in 2009, he was particularly active as editor of the centre’s online open-access journal, Asian Literature and Translation. He taught across the spectrum of South Asian religions and belles lettres, including language teaching in Sanskrit and Prakrit, and supervised two MPhils and three PhDs.

His research publications include substantial contributions on aspects of Jain religion and philosophy, translations of several Sanskrit classics (with meditations on translation), and reference works (including reviews). These publications influence and facilitate various groups of scholars, and guide students, and entertain and enrich the wider reading public; and they will continue to for many years.

Will Johnson: a Bibliography

The list presented here is not definitive with regard to published work, and omits a good deal of unpublished work. 

1988. ‘Theravāda Buddhism in South-East Asia.’ In Friedhelm Hardy, ed., The World’s Religions: the Religions of Asia, pp. 194–206. London: Routledge.
1992. Fifteen entries in Ian Harris, Stuart Mews, Paul Morris, and John Shepherd, eds, Contemporary Religions: a World Guide (‘Bisapanthis’, p. 104; ‘Buddhist Society of India’, pp. 111–12; ‘Buddhists in India’, p. 113; ‘Chittagong Buddhist Association’, p. 125; ‘Digambara Jainas’, pp. 140–41; ‘Irani Zoroastrians’, p. 175; ‘Jainas’, pp. 184–85; ‘Murtipujakas’, p. 240; ‘Parsis’, p. 275; ‘Srimad Rajchandra’, p. 333; ‘Sthanakavasis’, p. 334; ‘Svetambara Jainas’, p. 339; ‘Taranapanthis’, p. 346; ‘Terapanthis’, p. 347; ‘Zoroastrians’, p. 385). Longman Current Affairs. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited.
1994 (trans.). The Bhagavad Gita. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted 2004, 2008.
1995. ‘The Religious Function of Jaina Philosophy: Anekāntavāda Reconsidered.’ Religion 25.1, pp. 41–50. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.1995.0006 <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1006%2Freli.1995.0006&data=04%7C01%7CHegartyJ%40cardiff.ac.uk%7C6670cde186864f01f4d208d87a842606%7Cbdb74b3095684856bdbf06759778fcbc%7C1%7C0%7C637394055280039578%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=D2HftLYOvH2%2F4Ek%2FJ5sBkt9BVqCOcMHVugQ2VNL7JFo%3D&reserved=0>
1995. Harmless Souls: Karmic Bondage and Religious Change in Early Jainism with Special Reference to Umāsvāti and Kundakunda. Lala Sundar Lal Jain Research Series. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1997. ‘Transcending the World? Freedom (Mokṣa) and the Bhagavadgītā.’ In Julius Lipner, ed., The Fruits of Our Desiring: an Enquiry into the Ethics of the Bhagavadgītā for Our Times. Essays from the Inaugural Conference of the Dharam Hinduja Institute of Indic Research, Cambridge University, pp. 92–104. Calgary: Bayeux Arts.
1998 (trans.). The Sauptikaparvan of the Mahābhārata: the Massacre at Night. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1999. ‘Kundakunda: Two Standpoints and the Socio-Religious Function of Anekāntavāda.’ In Narendra K. Wagle and Olle Qvarnström, eds, Approaches to Jaina Studies: Philosophy, Logic, Rituals and Symbols, pp. 101–12. South Asian Studies Papers. Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for South Asian Studies.
2000. ‘Knowledge and Practice in the Jaina Religious Tradition.’ In Joseph T. O’Connell, ed., Jain Doctrine and Practice: Academic Perspectives, pp. 18–49. South Asian Studies Papers. Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for South Asian Studies.
2001 (trans.). Kālidāsa: the Recognition of Śakuntalā, a Play in Seven Acts. Śakuntalā in the Mahābhārata (Mahābhārata 1.62–9). Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted 2008. 
2002. Review of Religious Doctrines in the Mahābhārata, by Nicholas Sutton. Religion 32.2, pp. 159–60. https://doi.org/10.1006/reli.2001.0354 <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1006%2Freli.2001.0354&data=04%7C01%7CHegartyJ%40cardiff.ac.uk%7C6670cde186864f01f4d208d87a842606%7Cbdb74b3095684856bdbf06759778fcbc%7C1%7C0%7C637394055280049533%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=RVC48hs9DCcz4U2MANekIz2WCVsxRJlgQvUR0951s48%3D&reserved=0> 
2003. ‘The “Jina Experience”: a Different Approach to Jaina Image Worship.’ In Olle Qvarnström, ed., Jainism and Early Buddhism: Essays in Honor of Padmanabh S. Jaini, Part I, pp. 217–30. Fremont, California: Asian Humanities Press. 
2005. ‘Making Sanskritic or Making Strange? How Should We Translate Classical Hindu Texts?’ In Lynne Long, ed., Translation and Religion: Holy Untranslatable?, pp. 65–74. Topics in Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. 
2005 (trans.). Mahābhārata Book Three: the Forest. Volume Four. Clay Sanskrit Library. New York: New York University Press / JJC Foundation. Includes ‘The Story of Rāma’, ‘The Glorification of the Faithful Wife’, ‘The Robbing of the Earrings’, and ‘About the Drilling Sticks’. 
2006. ‘Are Jaina Ethics Really Universal?’ International Journal of Jaina Studies 2.4, pp. 1–18. 
2008. Review of Interpretations of the Bhagavad-Gītā and Images of the Hindu Tradition: the Song of the Lord, by Catherine A. Robinson. Religions of South Asia 2.1, pp. 91–92. 
2008. Review of Gender and Narrative in the Mahābhārata, ed. Simon Brodbeck and Brian Black. Journal of Hindu Studies 1.1–2, pp. 153–55. 
2009. A Dictionary of Hinduism. Oxford Reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pbk edn 2010. 
2013. ‘Playing Around with Śakuntalā: Translating Sanskrit Drama for Performance.’ Asian Literature and Translation 1.2, pp. 1–10. 
2014. ‘Jainism: From Ontology to Taxonomy in the Jaina Colonisation of the Universe.’ In Jessica Frazier, ed., Categorisation in Indian Philosophy: Thinking Inside the Box, pp. 133–46. Dialogues in South Asian Traditions: Religion, Philosophy, Literature and History. Farnham: Ashgate. 
Unpublished (trans.). The Master Madam. Translation of Bhagavadajjukam. Performed at the Eastmoors Community Centre, Cardiff, on 29 and 30 March 2012. 
Unpublished (trans.). The Story of Nala. Stage script adapted from Mahābhārata 3.50–78. 

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