By Madhava Smullen
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust has already translated ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada’s books into 87 languages. But there are more to go. And today, dedicated servants working for the spiritual publisher in far flung corners of the world still continue to translate his works into their native languages, despite busy family lives and professional careers.
On August 24th this year, for example, Nandapriya Das finished translating the last of seventeen volumes of the Sri Caitanya-caritamrita into the language of his native Georgia, which is spoken by more than five million people.
Nandapriya, an oncologist at one of Scandinavia’s largest hospitals, did most of the work on the train during his morning commute. He has now finished translating all of Srila Prabhupada’s books into Georgian for the first time ever, a monumental feat.
The achievement means a lot to him.
“I joined ISKCON in 1985, when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union and Krishna consciousness was illegal there,” he says. “I was looking for spirituality at a time when believers were outcasts. And I found my answers in Prabhupada’s books. They completely convinced me. And since then, I’ve always been serving his books—all the most ecstatic spiritual experiences in my life have been related to them.”
Nandapriya was asked to translate Prabhupada’s books into Georgian early on, as soon as devotees found out that he was highly educated and had a university degree.
At the time, Nandapriya wasn’t fluent in English and had never thought about translating anything in his life. He didn’t feel qualified to do it. But Krishna set him on his path by arranging that he meet one of his father’s friends, a prominent philologist. Although a strict Christian, the language expert offered to help him translate one of Srila Prabhupada’s books, advising him that this would be the best way to become more fluent in English.
With his friend’s help, Nandapriya improved quickly.
“I pounded away on an ancient typewriter all day long,” he recalls. “It made so much noise that it drove my mother crazy.”
By 1988, Nandapriya had published Easy Journey to Other Planets underground, by himself. But it was in 1990, when he moved to the BBT’s European headquarters at Korsnas Gard in Sweden, that things really picked up.
There, devotees including Nandapriya, his wife Narayani Dasi, Archa-Vigraha Dasi, and the late Devamata Dasi – who sadly passed away in 1999 – translated, edited and produced many of Srila Prabhupada’s books over six years.
These included Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Krishna: The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Teachings of Lord Chaitanya, Science of Self Realization, the first three cantos of Srimad Bhagavatam and many others.
By 1996, they had also translated, but not published, the entire Srimad-Bhagavatam. The books were well received in Georgia.
But soon after that, the Georgian group at BBT Sweden disbanded. Some started families, and had to find ways to support themselves.
Moving to Denmark, Nandapriya Das returned to his profession as an oncologist and radiation therapist, and became well-respected in medical circles.
But he could never forget Srila Prabhupada’s books. In 2004, he began translating the remaining books in his minimal free time with the help of a sympathetic professional philologist and a couple of other devotees, all busy family people.
By 2008, he was embarking on translating the last of Prabhupada’s works, the vast Sri Caitanya-caritamrita.
“I’m in extreme demand at the hospital,” Nandapriya says. “Sometimes I work double shifts, sixteen hours in a row, and get only four or five hours sleep in the whole day. And when I get home, I have three kids and so many responsibilities waiting for me there too. So I worked on Srila Prabhupada’s books on my commute to and from work. I would take the train, open up my computer, and translate for at least one hour every day.”
Sitting in a quiet compartment on the train, Nandapriya found himself completely immersed in the Caitanya-caritamrita. “You go deep into the pastimes when you’re translating – you can almost see all these things before your eyes,” he says. “It was just nectar. It was beautiful. Sometimes I was so excited I’d have to call my wife and go, ‘I just translated this passage, listen to how it sounds!’ It was hard to withdraw and come out of it when my stop came.”
The Caitanya-Caritamrita became Nandapriya’s “life companion,” as he calls it. He would refuse to drive to work, always taking the train so as not to miss the chance to do his daily BBT work.
At last, on August 24th, 2017, the project came to an end. “I was coming home from work when I finished the last words of Caitanya-caritamrita,” he recalls. “I had to disembark my train and wait for another. Nobody was there on the platform. I remember the sun was shining directly at me. And I just cried, for almost half an hour.”
With all of Srila Prabhupada’s books now translated into Georgian, the huge task of completing and producing them for public consumption is still far from over.
Parallel to Nandapriya’s translation work, Rosa Pheikrishvili – his linguistic mentor and an excellent editor — had been re-editing many of the already published Georgian books by Srila Prabhupada to create new, more authentic editions.
“In the early days, we worked to produce books very quickly—not just in Georgian, but in all languages including English,” Nandapriya says. “Later, when we had matured, we looked back on the books and found that the quality had suffered and the books needed to be re-edited.”
When Georgian BBT funds ran out, Nandapriya paid Rosa with his own money. And Rosa, although she never “joined” ISKCON, dedicated the last twenty years of her life to editing Srila Prabhupada’s books.
“She passed away in December 2015, at the age of 87,” Nandapriya says. “Her intelligence was sharp as a razor and her style was excellent until the end. She was working on Adi-lila, chapter 7 just before she died.”
Now Nandapriya and a small group of BBT devotees (Govindapriya Das, Bhakti-bhusan Das and Nityarasa Dasi) must complete Rosa’s editing work. “Then we have to make fidelity checks – in editing, sometimes the meaning can be twisted, so you have to again compare the new Georgian edition sentence by sentence to the original English version,” Nandapriya says. “Then we have to proofread a couple of times, etc. There are many steps.”
Because ISKCON Georgia is small, they cannot currently afford to print new books – so all of Srila Prabhupada’s works will instead be produced in digital form. Two e-books – Sri Isopanisad and Easy Journey to Other Planets – are already available on BBTmedia.com. Bhagavad-gita As It Is is expected to be completed in around four months, followed by the Krsna book and Srila Prabhupada’s one-volume biography. Beyond that, one or two books may be released per year.
Eventually, Nandapriya would like to see physical copies too, although the financial hurdles are difficult. “Whenever we struggle to get funding, I tell my wife, ‘You know what – we get all the mercy!’ I don’t care if I have to spend my own money, I just want to see this happen. One day, I hope I can earn enough to finance all the printing.”
“My dream is to print all of Srila Prabhupada’s books in Georgian and see them distributed and read before I die,” he concludes. “I may not have the time to go to the temple so much anymore, with my job. But with this service, I feel a strong connection to Srila Prabhupada. And I thank him, Pancha-Tattva, Radha Krishna and the whole parampara for allowing me to do this confidential service.”
To download BBT e-books in Georgian, please visit http://bbtmedia.com/en/ebooks/language/Georgian
Source: http://www.dandavats.com/?p=54144
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