Blissful Hearings and Seeings: Rig Veda 1.89.8: Translations

Refer to the last post titled "Blissful Hearings and Seeings: Rig Veda 1.89.8 & Taittiriya Aranyaka" where we provided an overview of RV 1.89.8. We noted how RL Kashyap's work translates RV 1.89.8:

Verse

भद्रं कर्णेभिः शृणुयाम देवाः ।

भद्रं पश्येमाक्षभिर्यजत्राः ।

स्थिरैरङ्गैस्तुष्टुवांसस्तनूभिर्व्यशेम देवहितं यदायुः ॥

Transliteration

bhadraṃ karṇebhiḥ śṛṇuyāma devāḥ |

bhadraṃ paśyemākṣabhir yajatrāḥ |

sthirair aṅgais tuṣṭuvāṃsas tanūbhir vyaśema devahitaṃ yad āyuḥ ||

Translation

RL Kashyap's commentary on TA translates it thus:

"O Gods, may we hear (only) what is blissful;

may we behold with our eyes what is blissful.

Praising you with bodies having firm limbs,

may we enjoy the God-given span of life."

This post compares the view of HH Wilson with RL Kashyap. We'll discuss Sayana later. For now, let's deal with Wilson., whose translation of the verse reads as below:

"Let us hear, gods, with our ears, what is good; objects of sacrifice, let us see with our eyes what is good; let us, engaged in your praises, enjoy, with firm limb and (sound) bodies, the term of life granted by the gods."

Let us have see these two translations side by side:

Kashyap	Wilson
O Gods, may we hear (only) what is blissful; may we behold with our eyes what is blissful. Praising you with bodies having firm limbs, may we enjoy the God-given span of life	Let us hear, gods, with our ears, what is good; objects of sacrifice, let us see with our eyes what is good; let us, engaged in your praises, enjoy, with firm limb and (sound) bodies, the term of life granted by the god

A comparison of Kashyap and Wilson, thanks to ChatGPT, does not reveal a substantial difference in the English meaning of the verse, except for certain places. This table classifies the translation as identical (when both translations are the same), similar (when there is not much difference in the meaning in translation) and not similar (where there is a substantial difference):

Sanskrit	Wilson	R. L. Kashyap	Assessment
bhadram	what is good	what is blissful	Not similar. Kashyap’s stress is more on the spirituality aspect while Wilson’s attribution of meaning is more neutral: “good”.
karṇebhiḥ	with our ears	with our ears	Identical
śṛṇuyāma	let us hear	may we hear	Identical
devāḥ	gods	O Gods	Similar
bhadram	what is good	what is blissful	Not similar. Kashyap’s stress is more on the spirituality aspect while Wilson’s attribution of meaning is more neutral: “good”.
paśyema	let us see	may we behold	Not similar- “see” is more neutral unlike Kashyap's “behold”, which tilts towards a spiritual interpretation
akṣabhiḥ	with our eyes	with our eyes	Identical
yajatrāḥ	objects of sacrifice	worshipful ones	Not similar- “see” is more neutral unlike Kashyap's “behold”, which tilts towards a spiritual interpretation
sthiraiḥ aṅgaiḥ	with firm limbs	with bodies having firm limbs	Similar
tuṣṭuvāṃsaḥ	engaged in your praises	praising you	Identical
tanūbhiḥ	with bodies	with bodies	Identical
vyaśema	let us enjoy	may we enjoy	Similar
devahitam	granted by the gods	God-given	Similar
yad āyuḥ	the term of life	the span of life	Similar

As would be apparent, the translations differ substantially when it comes to construing the words, bhadram, paśyema, and yajatrāḥ. It is well known that Wilson focussed on Sāyaṇācārya (14th century commentator of the Vedas) while RL Kashyap followed Aurobindo's spiritual approach to the Vedas as opposed to the textual one. To illustrate, Kashyap dedicated the first volume of the commentary on Yajur Veda Samhita to Aurobindo. In the preface to his work, he explicitly stated: "My aim is to bring out the spiritual and psychological wisdom contained in the 1346 mantra-s of this  kāṇḍa. The main source for my work is the essays of Sri Aurobindo on the inner Yajña in the Veda and his translations of the Rig Veda mantra-s."

References:

HH Wilson, Rig Veda Sanhita, Vol. I (1850) (reprinted 1925) (link for 1.89.8)

RL Kashyap, Taittiriya Aranyaka: Krishna Yajur Veda - Text in Devanagari Translation and Notes Vol. I (2016)