Jiří Jákl(University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg), “Alcohol in pre-Islamic Java: its festive and ritual uses”
Satoshi Ogura(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo), “In Search of Unseen Equivalence: Muḥammad Shāhābādī's Translation Strategy in the Persian Translation of theRājataraṅgiṇīs”
? Jeudi 9 décembre, 13h00-16h00
? En ligne et EHESS, Centre de la Vieille-Charité, salle B, 2 rue de la Charité 13002 Marseille
À propos de l'événement
The use and misuse of alcohol among the Javanese before 1500 CE has remained a little studied topic so far. In my lecture I will discuss secular, festive, and ritual uses of alcohol in pre-Islamic Java between the 8th and 15th centuries CE, and will discuss the influence of Islam on the drinking habits, which was, however, mainly felt only in the 17th century. Before 1500 CE, the Javanese did produce palm wine from at least four types of palm species, they brew rice beer (typically misinterpreted as ‘rice wine’, they also knew several types of fruit wines, sugar cane wine, and since the late 13th century CE they produced distilled liquor, mainly in the form of arrack. I will also demonstrate that high-quality, ´premium´ filtered rice beer was imported to Southeast Asia from the 12th century CE, if not earlier. In the second part of my lecture, I will discuss festive uses of alcohol on weddings, kinship-group gatherings, as well as the ritual use of alcohol among the Tantric Buddhists and the Śaivas. Finally, I will briefly discuss the problem of alcoholism in pre-Islamic Indo-Malay world, and the consequences Islamisation had on the consumption of alcohol in the region.
In 1589, Mullā Shāh Muḥammad Shāhābādī translated a series of Sanskrit metrical chronicles from Kashmir—theRājataraṅgiṇīs of Kalhaṇa, Jonarāja, Śrīvara, and Śuka—into Persian under the royal order of the third Mughal Emperor Akbar.The translation primarily traces and delivers each Sanskrit verse of the originalRājataraṅgiṇīs in Persian proseand shortens the introductory parts of each source. Translating various concepts of Sanskrit culture in the source texts, Shāhābādī employed a wide range of translation strategies, including equivalence theories and the skopos theory. This paper provides the first detailed comparative analysis of Shāhābādī’s Persian translation of theRājataraṅgiṇīs with its counterparts—the Sanskrit source texts—focusing on how he translated political, astronomical, and religious concepts of Sanskrit culture. The major findings of this paper are as follows:
a)When translating the titles of rulers, Shāhābādī generally uses the wordsrāja and sulṭān properly depending on whether a ruler was Muslim or non-Muslim, while names of official ranks are translated into those of Muslim dynasties, in particular, of the Mughal Empire.
b)When translating dates of historical events, he interprets the names of Nakṣatra months as days when the sun passes a particular zodiac sign. Light/dark fortnights are literally translated. The concept oftithi(synodic day) is loaned withoutalteration.
c)He translates general nouns meaning creator and fate as Allāh, while epithetic names and by-names of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva are translated into Ḥaqq or the Real. Subordinate deities are interpreted as creatures, or sometimes conceptualized.
