ABSTRACT
In the Indian literary tradition, translation, adaptation, rewriting and transformation are sanctioned practices of literary creation. Unlike the Western tradition in which even translation is a ‘fall’ from the origin and a condition of ‘exile’, the Indian literary tradition recognizes these practices as legitimate modes of alterity. The Indian theory of literary growth and evolution through translation and adaptation is best seen in terms of a banyan tree, as a ‘natural process of organic, ramifying, vegetative growth and renewal, comparable perhaps with the process by which an ancient banyan tree sends down branches which in turn take root all around it and comprise an intertwining family of trees: quot rami tot abores’ (Trivedi and Bassnett 1999: 10). Adaptation and revision of a literary text are thus neither parasitic nor transgressive but rather a familiar norm. The words used for literary creation, representation and translation in Sanskrit literary theory, which represents the main source of most Indian literatures, anukriti, anukaran and anuvada, all share the same root anu (to come after), underlining not just a fundamental equivalence of the three processes, but also the view that the very act of literary creation is a rescription, an imitation. Newness in this tradition enters via appropriation and retelling. In the medieval period, with the emergence of the regional languages, Sanskrit epics were freely adapted, rewritten and even subverted to suit local concerns. This practice of creative freedom to reinvent within a hallowed tradition was seminal to literary and cultural growth.
