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Translation of Bhakti Poetry into English: A Case Study ofNarsinh Mehta 263Translating idioms word by word is almost impossible foran idiom, by definition means a group of words whose meaningconsidered as a unit, is different from the meaning of each wordconsidered separately. Certain idioms in Narsinh Mehta's poemshave a function which is not merely semantic, that is, the imagessignified by the idiom are very poetic and hence add to the overallexperience of the poem. For instance, in a poem `doodhe voothyameh, sakarna dhim jaamya re', the refrain is an idiomatic expressionwhich literally means `it was raining milk and sugar was beingheaped' and connotes a feeling of extreme bliss or ecstasy.Nevertheless, the image of sugar and raining milk is important in thepoem, as the experience of Krishna is not just of extreme ecstasy butof extreme sweetness. Krishna is associated with sweetness, he isknown as `madhuradhipati' - the killer of a demon named Madhuand also the lord of sweetness whose everything is sweet. Hence, theimage suggested by the idiom is retained in the translation.`As if it was rapture of rains of milkAnd all the sweetness of sugar was being hoarded inheaps!'Ambiguity arises when there is more than one clearinterpretation. A signifier does not have a single unequivocalsignified in such cases. Ambiguity is not considered as a flaw in aliterary text but is seen as one of the properties that enhanceaesthetic quality of the text.Narsinh's very famous composition, `prem ras paane....'contains an interesting example of ambiguity. In thecomposition, Narsinh says, `tatva nu tupanu tuchh a laage..' inwhich the word `tupanu' is interpreted by the critics in two ways: i)as `tu -panu' as `you-ness' to signify the otherness or separateness ofthe Lord as a lover and as an entity and ii) as the noted criticAnantrai Rawal (1994:96) has observed it indicates the chaffing or