This is a brief report on the progress of Philip Lutgendorf's masterly translation of the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas, which continues here with two volumes bearing Ayodhyākāṇḍ, the second of the seven books or chapters that constitute Tulsi's Awadhi Ramayana. Matters of layout and general approach having been discussed in a review of the two Bālkāṇḍ volumes (BSOAS 80/1, 2017, pp. 165–7), this new review will comment briefly on some details of the translation process, and on the choice of materials included in the short introductory sections.

The translations read exceptionally well and are highly articulate. Like most translators of Tulsi, Lutgendorf frequently “helps” the poet to a more formal diction by using predominantly Latinate verbs in a verse such as “Fate proclaimed one thing but ordained another, / conceived one plan but revealed another!” (48.1, Vol. 3, p. 85). The original here is overwhelmingly vernacular: kā sunāi bidhi kāha sunāvā; kā dekhāi caha kāha dekhāvā. This is not to criticize the translation choices, but rather to point up the wiry muscle of Tulsi's diction, which relies so heavily on a set of simple verbs that play a large part in making the text so widely accessible. Verbs such as dekh-, děkhā-, sun-, kah-, kar- and so forth were as much his stock in trade in the late sixteenth century as they are in colloquial Hindi today.

Again in common with other translators, Lutgendorf shows surprisingly little interest in conveying the derogatory implication of perfective verbs in -si, a most articulate weapon in Tulsi's arsenal. This is a small detail that plays a large part in the Ayodhyākāṇḍ narrative. For example, at the key moment at which Manthara perverts Queen Kaikeyi's mind, Tulsi has this quatrain: kahi kahi koṭika kapaṭa kahānī; dhīraja dharahu prabodhisi rānī. kīnhesi kaṭhina paṛhāi kupāṭhū; jimi na navaï phiri ukaṭha kukāṭhū (emphasis added). This is rendered, sans Tulsi's specific emphasis, as: “Then, with a million deceitful tales, / she instructed the queen to take courage. / With wicked instruction she hardened her / and made her as unbending as a dead tree trunk.” (Ayodhyākāṇḍ 20.2, Vol. 3, pp. 36–7). The rhetorical spin of prabodhisi and kīnhesi might usefully have been relayed through the use of well-chosen adverbs; for, as noted by Baburam Saksena (The Evolution of Awadhi. 2nd edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971, p. 244), “In Tulsīdās this form of the participle always implies a contempt for its subject”. Though the function of this form (for which compare the somewhat similar use of baiṭhnā in modern Hindi compound verbs) is thus well documented, it is rarely brought across into English.

These small points hardly detract from the overall achievement of these translations, and at every turn we find examples of felicitous expression and pellucid reflection of the original. Lutgendorf's compelling but partially overlapping introductions, which supply helpful background information and insightful analysis, attempt a compromise between general representations of Tulsi and his work (as appropriate for a stand-alone volume), and cumulative specific contextualization of the individual volume's narrative contexts (as appropriate for each volume separately, as part of the growing set). The five-page “Note on the text and translation”, however, remains standard through the four volumes published so far, and the owner of the completed set will presumably have to be content with seven iterations of this selfsame analysis (rather than, say, a cumulative discussion of the matter). When there is so much to be said on the subject, and when Lutgendorf is so clearly the person to say it, this seems a wasted opportunity.

There is some inconsistency in those two old chestnuts of transliteration from Devanagari, the showing of inherent “a” and the representation of vowel nasality (as in the belt-and-braces kā̃ṃjī, Vol. 4, p. 308). A discussion of the two words byākula and bikala (Vol. 3, p. xiv) has them as “two variants on a Sanskrit adjective” while they are in reality separate words reflecting Sanskrit vyākula and vikala respectively. These small nods towards editorial matters are mentioned with the eagerly awaited forthcoming volumes in mind.