Among pre-Critical editions of Valmiki Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas, Nirnay Sagar is certainly the best. Sattar’s translation is not based on this Critical Edition, but on the Nirnay Sagar one. The Oriental Institute in Baroda (now part of MS University) sifted through these and brought out a seven-volume Critical Edition of the Sanskrit text, as the most ‘authentic’. There are different versions of the Sanskrit text of the Valmiki Ramayana too, broadly divided into a northern and a southern set, with some differences between the two. There are many versions of the Ramayana and Valmiki’s may or may not have been the first. As it stands today, the Sanskrit text of the Valmiki Ramayana has seven kandas (cantos say), with Uttara Kanda as the last. It can mean subsequent and also answer/reply. Many words in Sanskrit have multiple meanings, the precise meaning depending on the context. One can hope to convey some of the beauty if the translation is in one of the Indian vernacular languages, but that’s extremely difficult to do in English. Through that lens, Valmiki is like Kalidasa.) To appreciate Valmiki’s poetry, one has to read the text in Sanskrit. (Vedavyasa doesn’t devote any attention to describing nature. Second, the poetry of the Valmiki Ramayana is sublime. There aren’t too many unabridged translations in English, though-Ralph Griffith, Manmatha Nath Dutt, Robert Goldman and the online Valmikiramayan. There is inevitable subjectivity in what one chooses and what one leaves out. First, her translation is an abridged one and no such translation can hope to capture every nuance. With two qualifications, hers is probably the best current translation (in English) of the Valmiki Ramayana. She has written extensively on the Ramayana as well. ARSHIA SATTAR’S translations are a delight and I am using the word in the plural because she has translated more than the Valmiki Ramayana.

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