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Translation and Indian Literature:Some ReflectionsAbstractM. AsaduddinThe paper attempts to lay out the role of translation oninterhuman space at various times and places in the world ingeneral and in the Indian situation in particular. Renaissancesin various parts of the world were a function of translationinto those languages. Translation has an undoubted place inthe history of ideas and the history of translation is the historyof human civilization and (mis) understanding.The paper goeson to talk about the Indian situation in particular, bothendotropic (=one Indian language into another) andexotropic(= Indian language into English).It elucidates theoriginary moments of translation in Indian history andconcludes that translation, the impressionable interface that itis of cultural traffic, is a great tool of intercultural synergy.The history of translation is the history of human civilizationand understanding, and sometimes of misunderstanding. Storiestravel from culture to culture, and their transmission throughtranslation takes innumerable forms. The classic case is said to bethat of our own Panchatantra. In an evocative essay, Amitav Ghosh(1994) has the following to say about Panchatantra:“These stories too have no settings to speak of, except thenotion of a forest. Yet the Panchatantra is reckoned bysome to be second only to the Bible in the extent of itsglobal diffusion. Compiled in India early in the firstmillennium, it passed into Arabic through a sixth centuryPersian translation, engendering some of the best knownTranslation Today Vol. 3 Nos. 1 & 2, 2006 © CIIL 2006