Abstract:

            When it comes to ancient works in less accessible languages, their various translations and reception of the same over time can be highly useful in understanding how at times obscure texts can live on find resonance across time and space. This article undertakes a comparative study of multiple English and Hindi translations of Nandikeswara's 2^nd to 11^th century A.D. work Abhinaya Darpana, one of the earliest Sanskrit manuals on Indian classical performing arts. The work has a rich history of translation, and first attained public attention owing to the 1917 English translation by Ananda Coomaraswamy and Gopala Kristnayya Duggirala, done from the Nagari transcript of the second edition of a Telugu translation published in 1887 which is now considered to be lost.This lead to the first critical edition with Sanskrit and English text in 1934 by Dr. Manomohan Ghosh, which was repeatedly revised till 1975. While the 1917 edition, published in Cambridge, had an aim of inspiring European theatre practitioners, today Abhinaya Darpana has become an important text for Indian Classical Dance theory and practice, with several translations available in English and various Indian languages. One interesting example is Puru Dadheech's work, in which the Hindi interpretation has been set in a fixed metre and rhyme scheme which can be recited to beat by students of classical dance to aid retention. Through an analysis of some English and Hindi translations of a text on performance like Abhinaya Darpana with respect to shifting contexts like cultural and historical conditions of production, the target readership and influence of earlier translations, this article tries to understand how translation can help shape performance traditions.