SOURCE: Jha, Ashok Kumar. “Kabir in Tagore's Translation.” Indian Literature 29, no. 3 (May-June 1986): 48-60.

In the following essay, Jha analyzes the influence of Rabindranath Tagore's own poetry on his translations of Kabīr's verse.

As if conscious of the limitation of translating a text, Evelyn Underhill, in her introduction to One Hundred Poems of Kabir, points out that Kabir is able to dramatize his symbols, and that he uses all the senses in communicating his experience. To state in advance to the reader what a text appears to lose in taking to the medium of another person, Underhill takes pains to mention Kabir's use of popular Hindi to his purposes, the closeness of the language of his songs to common life and a poetic use of material from popular Hinduism of his time as he draws upon symbols and images from contemporary life. Tagore's attempt with Underhill at introducing...