Puzzled at
The Alternatives to Nirvana
Huiwen
Zhang
While preparing our Reading Club yesterday
afternoon, I discovered an unfortunate word choice in my Lu Xun translations—“Nirvana,”
for instance:
The
past life has already died. From this death I attain Nirvana, because through this I know it once existed. The
dead life has already decayed. From this decay I attain Nirvana, because through this I know it
is not yet empty.
Thus
each with this warmth bewitches, incites, and tugs the other, with all their
might desiring to cuddle, to kiss, to embrace, so as to gain life’s sinking,
intoxicating Nirvana.
But
if using a sharp-pointed sword, one single strike, piercing the peach-red,
tenuous skin, bright red hot blood will spray arrows and with all its warmth
immediately flood the slaughterer; then, touching him with icy breath, showing
him pale lips, will cause him to lose all his humanity and gain life’s soaring,
climaxing Nirvana; as for the
slaughtered, he himself will be perpetually immersed in life’s soaring,
climaxing Nirvana.
Suddenly,
the great anguish of the smashed bone penetrated heart and marrow, instantly he
sank into Nirvana and Compassion.
The established Chinese translation of Nirvana, an ancient Sanskrit term used
in Indian religions, is nie-pan 涅槃. Even though the message revealed and
concealed in Lu Xun’s Wild Grass resonates
its connotations to a certain degree—the profound peace and imperturbable
stillness of mind, the state of being free from suffering, wish or desire—Lu
Xun’s wording is da-huanxi 大欢喜,
literally supreme joy, supreme delight, supreme
pleasure, or supreme happiness.
There are two things unique about the
wording. First, the adj. da, literally big, large, great, etc. is re-invented by Lu Xun to imitate the
grandiose tone of Buddhist classics in the Chinese translation (that he had
intensively studied); the most representative piece of this now
serious-sincere, now parodic-ironic expression is Better Hell Lost, which opens as follows:
I dreamt of myself lying on the
bed, out in a desolate suburb, next to Hell.
All ghosts’ moaning is invariably low, yet ordered, resonating with
flames’ roaring, oil’s boiling, and steel tridents’ trembling, creating an
intoxicating supreme symphony—an
announcement to the three kingdoms: peace reigns.
There is a great man standing in front of me,
beautiful, merciful, all around his body radiating supreme light; yet I know he is the Devil.
Second, the noun huanxi, in common use joy, rejoice,
delight, pleasure, happiness, cheerfulness,
mirth, bliss, exultation, euphoria,
etc., is re-oriented by Lu Xun to the halo circling content: contentment,
satisfaction, gratification, thankfulness, complacence, tranquility, serenity,
etc.
The combination of both, to make the
problem even more delicate, defines less a feeling or emotion than a spiritual
realm or mental level. It implies an
internal transcendence to a positive extreme that simultaneously ends (end
striving) and re-opens (open to the infinite).
Therefore, I doubt that any of my currently
Top 3 alternatives to Nirvana—supreme joy, euphoria, and mirth—would
transfer the message precisely.
Puzzled…
For the moment, I think that only a footnote holds the answer. It's an inelegant solution, though.
ReplyDeleteEuphoria is probably the closest, because it is technically a state and not an emotion. It also carries the dual meaning of elation and contentment, which captures at least some small degree of the external and internal.
It seems like the first choice is whether to render 大欢喜 as one word or two. Using one word is attractive, since constructions like "perpetually immersed in life’s soaring, climaxing Nirvana" become very long and unwieldy when "Nirvana" is replaced with two words. But using two words has the advantage that the reader can spot the connections between different pieces that employ 大 (assuming that 大 is always translated into the same English word). So for that reason I would like a two-word translation. "Transcendent bliss" is all I have come up with so far.
ReplyDeleteBryce