welcome back to the deep dive we have a uh a
really unique stack of documents today yeah this
one's different usually we're looking at history
or tech or you know the latest science today
we're looking at a linguistic high wire act that's
a good way to put it and frankly the more i read
about this the more i felt like i was watching
someone try to defuse a bomb While solving a
Rubik's Cube. That is probably the best way to
describe it. It's a massive undertaking. We're
looking at a specific moment in 1945 where two
massive ancient civilizations just collided in
the mind of one man. We're talking about the
translation of the Holy Quran, a text rooted
in, you know, the deserts of Arabia, Semitic
language, strict monotheism into Sanskrit, the
lush liturgical language of Hinduism and Vedic
philosophy. And just to set the stakes here,
this is not like translating French into English.
You aren't just swapping grammar. You are trying
to bridge two completely different operating
systems for reality. You've got the one god of
the desert. Meaning, well, the pantheon of the
subcontinent. Right. And our guide for this is
a fascinating paper by Samuel Kutluturk titled
The Translation of the Holy Quran into Sanskrit.
We're going to focus specifically on one translator,
a man named Gunderal Harker, and his translation
of just the opening chapter, the Surah Al -Fatiha.
Gunderal is the key here. He's our expert witness,
so to speak. So the mission for this deep dive
is to understand how you explain strict, absolute
monotheism. Yeah. Using a vocabulary built for
a pantheistic or, you know, a polytheistic worldview.
Yeah. How do you rewrite the DNA of a religion
using the words of another without, well, breaking
both? Precisely. It is a masterclass in cultural
mediation. It forces us to ask, are these religions
as different as we think? Or is it, at some level,
just a language barrier? Okay, so let's start
with the context because the where and who here
mattered just as much as the what. We're in the
Hyderabad Nizamate. Right, pre -independence
India. This is a crucial background. The Hyderabad
Nizamate was a princely state, effectively its
own country within British India. And it had
this very specific dynamic. A Muslim ruler, the
Nizam, governing a population that was overwhelmingly
Hindu. Which, you know, historically speaking,
sounds like a recipe for tension. It certainly
could be, and often was. But it also created
this... Weirdly fertile ground for intellectual
exchange. The Nizam wanted his administration
to work, and he wanted the culture of the ruling
class to be understood by the populace. So into
this mix steps Gunderao Harkar. And, I mean,
on paper, this guy seems like a walking contradiction.
He really does. Born in 1887. He's a Brahmin,
so he's from the priestly caste in Hinduism,
the guardians of the Vedas. Right. But he isn't
sitting in a temple somewhere. He's a munsifa
civil judge working for the Muslim king. Wow.
So he's a Hindu Brahmin interpreting law for
a Muslim administration. And get this, he wasn't
just some bureaucrat. He was a bona fide polymath.
The sources list his languages, Sanskrit, Telugu,
Marathi, English, Persian, and Arabic. And he
held the title Vakaspati, right, which is master
of eloquence. And Vidyapushana, adorned with
knowledge. I mean, this is someone deeply embedded
in the Hindu intellectual tradition, deeply respected.
Yet he decides to take on the Quran. Now, the
source notes that Muslims had been in India since
the 9th century. Surely there were translations
before 1945. Oh, there were. But they were vernacular
translations. You had translations into Persian,
Urdu, Sindhi. The day -to -day languages. Exactly.
In the 18th century, the scholar Shah Walilo
really pushed for people to understand the text
in their local language. But Sanskrit, Sanskrit
was kind of the final frontier. Why? Was it just
too difficult? It wasn't about difficulty. It
was about sanctity. Sanskrit was... Sort of the
VIP section of languages. It was the exclusive
domain of the Hindu clergy, reserved for the
Vedas and the Upanishads. Using Sanskrit for
a mlechia, or a foreign text, was considered
taboo by Orthodox pundits for a very long time.
So Gundero isn't just translating, he's almost
trespassing in a way, or breaking a seal. Or
opening a gate. Okay, so let's get into the text
itself. This is where it gets nerdy. and really
fun he starts obviously with the bismillah in
the name of allah yeah and right out of the gate
he hits a wall how do you translate It's the
ultimate problem. I mean, if you use a word like
Ishvara or Bhagavan, you trigger these immediate
associations with Hindu deities. Sure. You say
Ishvara and a Hindu reader might picture Shiva.
You say Bhagavan. They might think of Krishna
or Vishnu beings with forms and myths and families
and avatars. Which completely defeats the whole
purpose of the Quran's strict formless monotheism.
You can't have the reader picturing a blue -skinned
god when you're trying to describe the unseen.
Exactly. So Gundera bypasses all the popular
guides and goes straight to the philosophical
core. He chooses the word paramatman. Paramatman.
Let's break that down. Okay, so para means supreme
or ultimate. Okay. And atman translates to self,
spirit, or soul. So you get the supreme self
or the supreme spirit. That feels very... abstract.
And that's the point. In Vedantic philosophy,
Paramatman is the formless, absolute reality.
It's the ground of all being. It doesn't have
a face. It doesn't have a statue. It encompasses
everything. So by choosing that word, he's stripping
away all the anthropomorphic baggage. He is aligning
the Islamic definition of God uncreated, formless,
absolute, with the highest abstract concept in
Hinduism. He's saying, look, the all of the Quran
is the same reality as the paramatman of the
Upanishads. That is a massive theological bridge
to build with just one word. It's like he's saying,
we aren't talking about your gods versus my God.
We are talking about the source. Exactly. But
then he immediately runs into the next phrase,
Rab al -Alamin, Lord of the Worlds. And here,
the source says he does something that made me
do a double take. He translates worlds using
the concept of Devas. He does. But wait a minute.
I thought Deva meant God, like a deity. If he
just got rid of the gods to use Paramet Man,
why is he bringing Devas back in? In common parlance,
yes, Deva means God. But Gunderao is playing
4D chess here. Okay. He translates Rab al -Alamin
as the ruler of the world of humans, animals,
and divas. But he clarifies in his commentary
that he is not talking about independent gods.
So what are they then? He goes back to the etymological
root of diva, which is divan meaning to shine
or to be luminous. He argues that in this context,
divas refers to luminous beings. Luminous beings.
That sounds a lot like angels. Exactly. He maps
the Islamic concept of angels, beings of light
who serve God onto the Sanskrit term diva. He
effectively demotes the divas from gods to servants
of the paramatman. That is incredibly bold. He's
redefining his own religious vocabulary to fit
the text. He's telling his readers, you know
those beings you worship. In this system, they're
the staff, not the boss. It is. He's telling
his Hindi readers, in this worldview, the hierarchy
is different. The divas exist, but they are created
beings. It preserves the Islamic hierarchy, God
is supreme, everything else is a creature, while
using words that feel familiar. Okay, moving
on. We have the famous attributes, ar -rahman
and ar -rahim, usually translated as the most
gracious, the most merciful. Now, I'll be honest,
I've always found these hard to distinguish in
English. They just sound like synonyms, you know,
two ways of saying nice. They often do in English,
yeah. But in Islamic theology, there's a very
specific nuance. Rahman is usually understood
as general mercy. It exists for everyone. It's
the mercy of existence itself. Rahim is specific
mercy, often interpreted as mercy for the believers
or mercy that responds to an action. So how does
Gunderao capture that distinction? Because if
English struggles with it, surely Sanskrit has
a million words for mercy. He brings in a heavy
hitter from Hindu philosophy, the concept of
dharma. Dharma. Okay, that's a huge word. Duty,
cosmic law, righteousness, the right way of living.
All of the above. It's the moral fabric of the
universe. Now, for Ahriman, he uses the phrase
Aparakaruna Paravara. Aparakaruna Paravara. I'm
not going to try saying that five times fast.
What does it mean? It translates to the ocean
of boundless compassion. Para implies an ocean.
a shoreless expanse. He explains in his commentary
that this mercy is like the ocean or the rain.
It falls on everyone, regardless of their dharma.
Regardless of their duty, regardless of whether
they're good. Right. It doesn't matter if you're
a king, a thief, a believer, or an atheist. The
sun shines on you. The rain falls on you. You
get to breathe the air. That is Ramat. It is
independent of your actions. It's unconditional.
And Rahim. For Rahim, he uses Karunavat, which
means possessing mercy. But here's the kicker.
He distinguishes it by saying this mercy interacts
with Dharma. It's the mercy that responds to
those who follow the path of righteousness. Ah,
I see. So Raman is the operating system of the
universe. It just runs, no login required. That's
a great way to put it. And Rahim is the user
interface. It responds to your input. It does.
And by anchoring it in Dharma, he makes it instantly
clickable for a Hindu scholar. They understand
that some things are cosmic constants and some
things are karmic results. He's using their own
ethical framework to explain Islamic theology.
Speaking of karma, we have to talk about the
timeline. Because this seems like the place where
the two worldviews would just fundamentally crash
and burn. The collision of time, yes. This is
probably the hardest part. Because Hinduism is
generally cyclical, right? You have Kalpa creation,
destruction, rebirth. It's a wheel. You die,
you come back. Right. And Islam is linear. Creation,
history, judgment day, the end. You can't really
merge those. You can't have a little bit of reincarnation
in Islamic theology. You have to pick a lane.
So what does Gunderao do with the phrase master
of the day of judgment? Does he try to fudge
it? No, he completely respects the source text.
He steps out of the cyclical worldview entirely
for this verse. He translates day of judgment
as punaruthana divasa. Punaruthana divasa. It
literally means the day of rising again, resurrection.
And in his notes, he explicitly describes a cosmic
dissolution. A singularity where the universe
ends. He's very clear. This happens once. But
here's where the deep dive aspect really kicks
in. He uses a specific word to describe God on
that day. Yes. Falaviaka. The giver of fruits.
The giver of fruits. Which sounds kind of pleasant,
like a guy handing out mangoes. But I suspect
it means something else. It does. In Sanskrit
philosophy, falafrut is the technical term for
the result of an action. It's the output of karma.
If you plant a seed, which is an action, it bears
fruit. So God is the one who hands out the karmic
results at the end. Exactly. He's taking the
mechanics of Hindu ethics, cause and effect,
karma and phala, and installing them into the
Islamic linear timeline. He's saying, on that
final day of dissolution, the paramatman becomes
the phaladiaka. That is brilliant. He's using
the logic of karma to explain the mechanism of
judgment day. It removes the arbitrariness. For
a Hindu reader, judgment might sound like a king
just deciding who he likes, but giving the fruit,
that implies justice. You get exactly what you
grew. I love that image. It bridges the gap between
judgment and consequence. It makes the concept
of a final judgment feel less like a courtroom
and more like a harvest. It appeals to the Hindu
sense of cosmic justice perfectly, even though
the timeline itself is completely different.
So we've got the supreme self, the luminous beings.
The ocean of mercy and the giver of fruits. Now
we get to the people. The surah talks about the
straight path, Surat al -Mustakim. Which he translates
as, Supantha, the good path or beautiful path.
And it describes the people on that path as,
those upon whom you bestowed favors. And this
is where the emotional texture changes. He translates
that phrase, those upon whom you bestowed favors,
as Priya. Meaning? Beloveds. That's surprisingly
intimate. The path of the beloveds. It connects
directly to the Bhakti tradition in Hinduism.
You have to remember, Hinduism isn't just dry
philosophy. You have the whole bhakti movement,
the path of loving devotion. It's personal. It's
emotional. By using priya, Gunderao is suggesting
that the favor of the Quran isn't just guidance
or wealth. The favor is being loved by God. It
reframes the whole relationship. It's not just
master and servant. It's lover and beloved. He
calls them exclusive devotees of the supreme.
It just adds this layer of warmth that a dry,
literal translation might miss. But now, OK,
hold on to your hats. We have to go to the dark
side, the end of the surah, the path of those
who earned wrath and those who went astray. Yes.
And this is historically the most difficult part
of the text to translate diplomatically. Yeah.
Traditional Islamic exegesis often identifies
those who earned wrath as the Jews and those
who went astray as the Christians. Right. Does
Gundero keep that interpretation or does he sort
of? scrub it to be polite. He actually keeps
it. He references it in his notes, Yehudi and
Nasara. But, and this is the biggest aha moment
of the entire paper for me, he explains why using
formal Indian logic. Indian logic, you mean like
a specific school of philosophy? Yes, specifically
the Naya school. Naya deals with epistemology,
how we know what we know and how we make errors.
Gundral uses this toolkit to categorize the wrath
and the astray. Okay, walk me through this. How
does Indian logic explain wrath? Gundra defines
the state of wrath using the term atyantapava.
Atyantapava sounds heavy. It means absolute non
-existence. In Aya logic, it refers to something
that is fundamentally absent. So Gundra argues
that this group implies an ontological absence
of knowledge regarding the true path. So it's
not just that they're bad people, it's that the
connection to the truth is broken. Or blocked.
Gone. He suggests that due to historical obstinacy
or baggage, the capacity to receive the truth
has faced a total blockage. It's an absolute
absence. The signal isn't getting through at
all. And the astray, the Christian. For them,
he uses a different logical category. He describes
a state where the capacity for knowledge exists,
but it's deviated. They are engaging with non
-truth. So the receiver works, but it's tuned
to the wrong station. Essentially. He argues
this is a willful deviation or a misunderstanding
rather than the absolute non -existence of the
first group. That is wildly sophisticated. He's
taking theological condemnation and turning it
into an epistemological diagnosis. He's categorizing
error. He's saying here is a type one error,
absence, and here's a type two error, deviation.
It allows a Hindu logician to look at these groups
and say, I understand the structural difference
between them. rather than just seeing them as
bad guys. It really drives home the mission we
talked about at the top. He isn't trying to convert
the reader to Islam, is he? No, and that is so
important. The source emphasizes that Gunderao
and other translators like Dr. Satya de Verma,
who came later, treated the Quran with deep respect,
but also with impartiality. They weren't engaging
in polemics. They were looking for the one behind
the many. Finding the signal in the noise. Exactly.
Dr. Verma, for instance, would quote the Vedas
side by side with the Quran in his commentaries.
Not to say the Vedas are better or the Quran
is better, but to say, look, they are talking
about the same ultimate reality. It challenges
the way we think about religious boundaries.
We usually see them as walls. Gunderao saw them
as what? Different dialects. Different dialects
of the same spiritual language. He showed that
you can express strict Islamic monotheism using
the vocabulary of the Vedas without breaking
either system. He proved the concepts are translatable,
even if the histories are different. It brings
me back to that first word he chose, paramatman.
The supreme self. It makes you wonder about the
sensory experience of religion. If you grew up
praying to Paramatman, does that change the flavor
of the divinity compared to praying to Allah
or God? I think it has to. Words are containers
for history and emotion. Paramatman sort of smells
like sandalwood and sounds like temple bells.
Allah carries the stark, beautiful silence of
the desert and the call to prayer. So when you
wrap the Quranic concept in the Sanskrit word,
you create a fusion flavor, a new way to taste
the divine. And maybe that's the ultimate value
of translation. It forces you to see your own
beliefs through a stranger's eyes. Gunderal Harker
gave us a glimpse of what monotheism looks like
when it wears the robes of the Vedas. A beautiful
thought to end on. From the Hyderabad nizamit
to the supreme self, this has been quite a journey.
It certainly has. Thanks for diving deep with
us. We'll see you on the next one. Stay curious.