Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 1. On His Poetry and Poetic Method
On Poems Published in Ahana and Other Poems

On Two Translations of The Vedantin’s Prayer [1]

You have made a very fine and true rendering of the Vedantin’s Prayer. Perhaps so hard and rocky a person as the Vedantin, who is very much of a converted Titan, would not have thought of such a sweet and luxurious word as কুসুমি [kusumi] in the midst of his ascent and struggle, but these few alterations do not make any real difference to the spirit. There is a quite sufficient nobility and power in your translation. With that, it seems to me as literal as it can be.

6 May 1932