In what is slated to be Sahitya Akademi’s biggest translation project, India’s National Academy of Letters has decided to translate Malayalam book, Brahmarshi Sree Narayana Guru , authored by late T. Bhaskaran into 23 languages including English.
A formal communication in this regard was issued by Secretary of Sahitya Akademi A. Krishna Murthy on September 8.
The book, published by the Akademi in 2009, is a monograph on Sree Narayana Guru in eighteen chapters. It is in this book that Sree Narayana Guru was first addressed as “Brahmarshi”. Quoting the Upanishads, the author stated, “One who has realized Brahman is Brahman by itself and one who has realised truth is Rishi.” Sree Narayana Guru had attained both Brahman and Rishi, Bhaskaran explains in the book.
The matter was raised by MP P.T. Thomas in the Lok Sabha and it is on this basis that the Akademi decided to translate the book into various languages.
The English translation will be done by A.J. Thomas, Hindi by H. Balasubramoniam, Tamil by Vijayakumar Kunnissery, Kannada by Parvathi G. Aithal, Bodo by Phukan Chandra Basumatary, Kashmiri by M.H. Safar, Odiya by Sangram Jena, Sindhi by Mohan Gehani, Telugu by L.R. Swamy and Bengali by Sankar Basu. The process is on to select translators for the other languages.
Born on August 20, 1929 at Irinjalakkuda, Bhaskaran authored 28 books, edited three and translated two. He was awarded Ph.D by the University of Kerala in 1972 for his thesis “Malayalam poetics with special reference to Krishnagadha”.
Bhaskaran was also a Sanskrit scholar, and taught in several colleges including Maharaja's College, Ernakulam and University College, Thiruvananthapuram. He retired in 1989 as Director of the Orient Research Institute and Manuscripts Library attached to the University of Kerala. He was also Syndicate member of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit. He passed away on August 12, 2010.
