Theory and Science in Hindi Translation: Vigyan in Lieu of Shastra

The science would be translated as vigayan in hindi and the word for theory is sidhant. Political science is rajnitik vigyan/shastra and one of its subfield political theory would be named as rajnatik sidhant as the hindi translation of their english counterparts. One would associate science with empirical and explanatory and may be sidhant is closer to principle so closer to normative. How are distinctions in the English language placed in their Hindi translation? 

The translations of the terms could be literal by taking a word in its isolation looking for a equivalent word as stand alone in another language. It is possible that translations also factor the distinctions that envelops a word and is attuned to the process that turns a word into a concept and places it in a theoretical universe. The translated word or the accepted and actual term in one language may also mark the convergence and divergence of one language with another, revealing the contours of the history that brings them together or apart. In doing so, the translated word may also exhibit the different ways of expressing, doing and being in one world from expressing, doing and being in another.

So political theory in its hindi avatar is rajnatik sidhant. A body of political principles. Not a bundle of theories or a set of explanations of political phenomena. Translation from one language to another in its orthodox approach is a search for ‘correspondence’ or ‘eqivalence’. Following this approach of finding meaning and sense from one linguistic universe to another, going by the acceptable and uncontested version in hindi, theory is sidhant, its correspondent term or its equivalent. A clear sense for the equivalent and correspondent term for the explantory and empirical is not articulated in hindi.

Is that how things are placed in the dominant english language vis-à-vis the term theory, seen as a principle or a set of principles? Or, it is its opposite, leaning more on the explanatory then the normative a truer and clearer account of the state of discipline of political science elsewhere if not in India?

Or it is the particular hindi translation of the term that gives an impression that theory is a principle or a set of principles? Sidhant is not about explanations, in order to emphasize the leanings and the meanings of the term involved in a specific language while they are translated. Is this inflexion in the meaning an attribute that arises with translation and not to be found outside it?

What is at stake here? One word is being translated in another language, it is done all the time, with or without the usual disclaimer that it is impossible to translate one word of a language into another word of a other language. If one still persists there would be slippage. A loss in translation is doled as a necessary outcome. The 'loss in translation' as a phrase is trendy. So, what is being lost when we take theory as sidhant?

Translation could also be creative through the elements of conscious by not looking for correspondence or equivalence. Decisively marking its departure, divergence and alterity, word for word, language for language. Is theory as sidhant a marker of a point of departure an imprint of alterity, an announcement of divergence of Hindi with English?

Has the languages and the people who speak them and their entire set of cultural artefacts existed in glorious isolation with each other, the predecessor languages from which the current ones emanated also hadn’t interacted with each other and while doing so, if the languages remained frozen and fixed in time, history wouldn’t have mattered. Analytical clarity, classifications and demarcations need not have to factor historical roots and routes. Translation would be a ‘travel’ from one place to another. For better or for worse that is not the case.

The good translator looking for the correspondence, equivalence or otherwise would be one who is not just a recipient of right stimulus but also capable of a proper response in at least two languages. The particularity of translation from one language into another is framed by the co-response of the translator in two languages. The co aspect also takes us to the community side of the language.

Vigyan the science equivalent in hindi, roughly translated back into english would be a special knowledge. Is the special part of the knowledge lies in it being explanatory or grounded on empirical? Vigyan with its sanskrit roots betrays another meaning in its suggestion of being beyond knowledge. Where is this ‘beyond’ suggestion taking us. To Shastras?

The alternative hindi translation of political science as rajnatik vigyan and rajnatik shastra is an oscillation between the beyond and the special knowledge? With a pronounced tilt towards normative away from the empirical and explanatory?

English and hindi the two languages involved here encountered each other for a sustained encounter through colonialism, though they brushed with each other through their predecessor languages as well. For the official translation and naming the chosen words are, sidhant and vigyan/shastra for theory and science.

The english language has a phrase, the moral of the story, so what is the moral of this story? To tie the moral and the story together follow the approach of the shastras? Find the empirical and explanatory in the story itself? Follow the normative and empirical fuse of the ancient, the speculative, fantastic, imagined and the imaginary. The measure of the science in its hindi translation is to mark its distance from the empirical and explanatory?


How successful has been the science in keeping the story out from the storehouse of science?