Astronomical Term in Bhagavat – Not!!!
By Dharmapada Das/Dean Dominic De Lucia
I’ve been paying rapt attention to the ongoing discussions about the book changes made by the BBTI. Haven’t we all?
I am a university-trained translator and I’ve worked as a translator for several years, so allow me to throw in my two cents.
I agree with most of the proofreading changes and I see a need to correct conjugations, agreements, vocabulary, et cetera. And what to speak of some of the stronger comments that are to be found in the books, such as those about the dark races and the female sex. In the courtrooms, some of those comments could see the Hare Krishna movement simply done away with. A case can be made for changes and further proofreading to smooth things over!
Even so, with proofreading changes, new errors tend to creep in, such that there can be less benefits than the number of total changes would suggest. And who knows? Were we to not make changes and leave the books the way they are, the books could end up being classics precisely because of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s quaint style of English. They could end up acquiring a “Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony” mystique about them. Few people are familiar with Beethoven’s symphonies by name, but if you ask someone “Have you ever heard of Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony”? Then many people will answer, “Oh yes, I’ve heard of that one.”
All things said and done, the BBTI editors end up damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
I would like to run an uncomfortable error by the readers that didn’t come about because of change, it is an original error and one that will be uncomfortable if it remains. The error is in the Fifth Canto, Chapter Twenty-two, Text Five. There, the movements of the Sun are expressed and measured according to the time span of a Samvatsara year of twelve months, according to lunar timing and according to seasons. However, the next to the last measurement expresses the Sun’s monthly movement according to stellar calculations; the word-for-word translation mentions the word “stellar”. Aye! And in this stellar measurement, there’s the rub! Stellar is typically a translation of the Sanskrit word nakshatras, of which there are two and a quarter per zodiacal constellation. But what does the text read? “According to stellar calculations, a month equals two and one quarter constellations.”
The text should make use of the word “asterisms” and not “constellation,” because they are not the same, and certainly do not cover the same distance in the zodiac. The stellar groupings of which a constellation is composed are called asterisms, aka nakshatras, or in casual conversation as just plain “stars.” But two and one quarter asterisms are NOT two and one quarter constellations; to call an asterism a constellation is bad astronomical terminology; it is incorrect as well as contradictory. It takes the Sun two and one quarter months to travel two and one quarter constellations or zodiacal signs, but only one month to travel through two and one quarter asterisms or nakshatras. The text gives the asterism speed, so to speak, but employs the term constellation, which directly defines a different speed. This is a serious case of a non sequitur that implies that the Sun takes two and a quarter months to travel the distance of one month. This mistake is truly an embarrassing one for Shrila Prabhupada and his books.
To give an example that might ring a bell with the readers, the International Astronomical Union recognizes eighty-eight constellations. One of them is Orion, The Hunter. However, the three stars that make up Orion’s belt – Alnitak, Anilam and Mintaka - form an asterism within the constellation Orion, they do not form a constellation by themselves, just as the nakshatras are asterisms that constitute the constellational signs of the Zodiac, but are not signs by themselves.
What to do? Should a correction be made? Because the mistake makes the scholarly explanation sound as if it were written by somebody who speaks of lofty astronomical concepts, but doesn’t know what the words mean!
Or should the erroneous term be left in there, as if it were akin to Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony?
In this case, since it is a matter of a technical term and since it was correct in the word-for-word, perhaps a correction could be made by means of a footnote. (i.e., a change which is not a change)