[To THE EDITOR OF TEE " Spzentrors."] SIR,—Your correspondent who
writes concerning the late Mr. Max A. Macauliffe mentions Dr. Trumpp and his inefficient translation of the " Grauth Sahib." It may not be generally known that the chief cause of this man's failure was the fact that on arrival at Amritsar, where the Sikh priests had assembled to assist him, be smoked in the presence of the sacred volume. Tobacco being to the Sikhs an abomination (termed by them "world's filth "), these men fled in consterna- tion, and the missionary could get no further assistance from orthodox Sikhs. A lucha, or man of loose character, untrustworthy and unorthodox, consented to help him, and in
this way Dr. Trumpp worked for about a year. He only com- pleted four rags (or measures) out of the thirty-seven that make up the volume. His English is in places unintelligible. The following hymn by Kabir, though possibly obscure, deserves a somewhat better treatment of its mystical intention. than that accorded it by Dr. Trumpp. I give Mr. Macauliffe's. version first, and secondly that of the missionary :—
"Reason went to the soul to order a body to be woven. Let a full piece of nine yards, ten yards, and twenty-one yards be woven.
Let there be sixty threads, nine joinings, and seventy-two cross threads added: The soul then cometh, leaving its last abode."
• • • "Nine yards, ten yards, twenty-one yards, one body is stretched out.
Seven yards, nine sections, seventy-two woofs are, moreover, added (to it).
(The woman) goes to get it (=the seed) woven (in) a month. When the house is given up, the weaver goes."
Or again (Mr. Maeauliffe) :—
"The sun and moon, 0 Lord, are Thy lamp ; the firmament Thy salver; the orbs of the star the pearls enchased in it; the perfume of the sandal is Thine incense ; the wind is Thy fan; all the forests are Thy flowers, 0 Lord of Light!"
(Dr. Trumpp) :— "The dish is made of the sky; the sun and moon are the lamps ; the orbs of the stars are, so to say, the pearls.
The wind is incense-grinding; the wind swings the fly-brush; the whole blooming wood is the flames (of the lamps)."
The hymn is by Guru Nanak.
Dr. Trumpp was a Swabian by birth, who had gone out to India as a missionary in Sindh. His work appeared in 1877.
Previous page
