From: kirit dave <kdave_bnk@yahoo.com>
To: ananda-marga-discourses@googlegroups.com <ananda-marga-discourses@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [Sadguru Shástra] Lord Shiva's Dambaru is Taken Away
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 23:59:02 -0700 (PDT) (Sat, 02:59 EDT)
Sir,
1. You are correct about the errors and Dambru must be
used in place of tambura.
2. Regarding omission of text:
As
publishers, we have to maintain a balance between the printed
language and the spoken language. Printed language is for the whole
world who have no idea of the "traitor group". May be even
many margiis also do not know about the "traitor group". It
would seem confusing and out of place to them. Furthermore, it is an
example and not the part of the point of what Baba is saying.
Removing that portion does not harm the discourse and makes it
clearer. Now having said that, let me tell you that I am NOT in favor
of changing or removing the text from original in general. And in
fact we have to err on the side of keeping the text rather than
removing it. But this particular example illustrates why certain text
is best removed.
3. Did you tell your reader that the
discourse was from the book Baba's Grace? I did not see that very
important information. Do you know the history of that book? Do you
know it was NOT published by the official publication department but
was published in early 70's when the publishing policies and
procedures were not strict or clear, while Baba was in jail? Do you
also know that this book was "banned" for some time during
when dada Pranavananda ji was publication secretary for that reason?
Furthermore, to top it all, do you know that this book is one of the
MOST popular A.M. book among margiis and nonmargiis, evident by the
demand for that book? In my opinion this is the reason this book was
revived again.
4. While I congratulate and thank you for your
efforts in pointing out the errors in the books, do you think you can
serve your own cause more by using more constructive language and try
to stop adversarial, conspiratorial tone? Also if you try to
understand how the error happened, you can yourself understand the
limitations we face... on one hand to publish and bring Baba's
message to the world and on the other hand the difficulties inherent
to this type of work.
5. In order for you to understand the
difficulties in the translation work, try to translate one of Baba's
articles entirely by yourself. Then pass it on to other qualified
people and see what they tell you about the mistakes in your
translation. This will tell you real problem faced in the work.
It is not some kind of conspiracy and ill intent on our part. The
real problems are many varied. To name a few: the material is
intuitional in nature, the English language has its limitations in
expressing the concepts, Baba's language is of very high caliber
literature making it difficult to translate, the translators we have
available are not highly scholarly (perhaps you can volunteer some
time to help with this problem), the funds available are limited and
the total load of work is enormous. It is easy to translate one line
or paragraph and point out the error. And you have valid point about
the sanctity of the books .. who can disagree on that and errors must
be corrected. All you need to do is to point out the error and let me
further tell you there are more errors in the books, and there will
be even more new errors in the books. We are all humans and we should
work together to expediently remove errors from the books.
We
are currently working on the web site that will publish all the known
errors and readers will be able to tell publication department the
errors they find so that they can be corrected.
You should be
careful in criticism and consider the purpose, motivation, efforts
being made, sincerity, matter of judgment call etc. If you are
careful, your efforts will become more constructive and scriptures
will become more genuine which is what we all want.
6. Please
report more errors and we will do our best to correct them within the
frame work of the rules of operations. For example the error you
pointed out regarding dumbru should be corrected in the next
revision. Thank you for that.
Kirit Dave'
