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Power of silence

Photo: Sandeep Saxena

WORDS OF WISDOM Acharya Mahaprajna.

“That which silence said lasted

That which words said were swept away”

Pithy, pregnant and poignant.

Acharya Mahaprajna verses come in the garb of a haiku and the soul of a hermit. With the “The Sun Will Rise Again” published by Penguin, Sudhamahi Regunathan brings the Acharya’s poems to a wider audience. She has translated from Hindi a clutch of poems the spiritual head of the Terapanth Jain community penned about 50 to 60 years ago. As a monk, the Acharya spent the past 75 years walking the expanse of this country. What he saw, felt and realised has trickled into his other identities – that of a poet, writer, playwright and philosopher. The Acharya’s poems are shorn of pretence or leaden religiosity. Seemingly simple, they let thoughts simmer and lead you to windows hitherto closed. “The Acharya says more with what is not said. He speaks more with his silence,” says Sudhamahi. In a world of excesses, this may seem an anomaly. But words that make Acharya’s verse vouch, he is not a man given to hyperboles. Poems like “There are many who have eyes, But few are those who see” never miss the point but say much more than it actually says. “The Jain monks are associated with severe penance. But there is a delicacy and elegance in the Acharya’s words which bowled me over,” says Sudhamahi.

The translator deciphers three recurring motives in the monk’s poems. “There is an idea of restraint. What you don’t see has a mystery to it,” she says. According to Sudhamahi, anekanta, the central concept of Jainism that allows opposites to co-exist, is reflected in the Acharya’s poems. “Unless you see beauty you don’t know ugliness, unless you know darkness, you don’t value light,” she says.

Sudhamahi Regunathan.

“The sky and the earth

If they become one

Where will we live?” asks the Acharya. He delicately celebrates differences and contrasts. Sudhamahi says the idea of non-violence, not merely physical but also verbal, shadows these poems. “He never makes a big statement, he makes these suggestions,” she says.

The 88-year-old Acharya’s verse breaks the warps set by warp. He comments on politics and science but the verse don’t reveal they were written half a century ago. “Those who read these poems would love it. It is so suited to our times. He is a classic,” says Sudhamahi, member secretary, Foundation of Unity of Religion and Enlightened Citizenship.

Sudhamahi has translated other works of the Acharya who has written over a 100 books in Hindi, Sanskrit and Prakrit. She asserts she is not a religious person but “charmed by all religions.” If the Acharya’s “felicity for words” drew her to the poems, translating them tested her. “To get the right word is always a struggle. The challenge is to create the ambience,” she says. Surprisingly, Sudhamahi translated the bulk of “The Sun Will Rise Again” in a single night. Sitting on her suitcase in a dilapidated hotel room in Ratlam, to keep sleep at bay, she pulled out a copy of the original and began translation. The title “Suraj Phir Nikalega” kept her going as she too yearned for the sun to rise again to get out of the hotel.

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