How my stotra
translation Started?
By
P.R.Ramachander
Who I was in 2003?
As a boy of 6 year
old , I remember my Pattiyammai
daily saying Harihari
stotra while attending to all her
work. When I was a young boy , I
remember my father singing in loud voice Sri Krishna Karnamrutham , whenever
he was sick. I always remember
by pattappa and maternal
uncles singing , prayers of Pazhani Muruga .I remember attending
Sengalipuram’s Hari kathas and his request for all of us
to chant Adhithya Hrudayam ,I remember the days when I used to chant entire Devi Mahatmyam with my
periya mama in vridhachalam,I
remember my chanting different and
proper prayers, before every sannidhi in Chidambaram temple
and later in Perur temple.
All the
time , later I used to think , how Hindu lads who do not
know their mother toungue as well
as Sanskrit would pray to their Gods, I remembered how as a lad I
used to
be very curious to know
about the meaning of the prayers that I was chanting.
So when I
retired from service I
decided to collect stotras of
different Gods, type them in English
and if possible translate them in
English .I thought that if I do , I would
be doing great service
to my religion.
What I did in
2003?
From my age of 20
, I used to write
poems in English and I felt that if I translate Stotras
in to English poems , people can
chant those poems
if needed.
In the year
2001, I did only translate some Sanskrit , tamil
and Malayalam proems in to
English without typing the text. Like a mad man I forwarded my silly attempt
to the Peetadhipadhi of Kanchi Kamakoti
peetam and after
week , I received a reply
from Swamy Jayendra Saraswathi
, the then Peetadhipadhi. It contained
words of encouragement and told
that what I have done was great butI need to
type out the text of the stotras in to English
.
At that time ,
I was my son and my new daughter in
law in USA.Seeing what I have done
she said she will make
a web site with my infant attempts . My first web site with my
first translations was ready .It was called http://members.tripod.com/english_stotras/
.Since no text was typed we decided to call it
the English stotras
.I wrote as an introduction
The
followers of Sanatana Dharma loosely translated as the Religion Eternal or
Truth Eternal otherwise known widely as Hinduism sang their prayers to their
God in Sanskrit. Hindus considered this language as Girvani -the language of
Gods. Possibly when this practice started it was the language of the educated
(Prakrit being the common man's language). After thousands of years the Hindus
have reached a stage when only a very small minority understand Sanskrit. For
the past 2-3 centuries the need to sing to their God in the language understood
and spoken by them was felt by the Hindus and consequently mellifluous and
enchanting prayers in many Indian languages evolved.
English is as on today the most popular language understood by the well educated all over India regardless of creeds, castes or language spoken by them. The author who has only working knowledge of Sanskrit has attempted to translate some prayersso that a Hindu can address his Gods in English.
Though every effort has been made to translate , the original sloka in Sanskrit to English ,
some poetic independence has been taken. It is hoped that this would motivate the great pundits of Sanskrit well versed in English to do a much better translation and set them to music so that Hindus can sing to their God in English also.
I then translated few verses of prayers addressed to Vedic Invocation
Ganesha Shiva Vishnu Subramanya Hanuman Lakshmi Saraswathi Parvathy
Krishna Rama Nama Ramayana Bhaja Govindam Annapurnashtakam Guruvayoorapan
This
is how my translation of prayers
started way back in 2003 , ie 17 years back
with blessing of Swamy HH Jayendra Saraswathy of Kama koti peetam
(contd..)
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