Sacrilege of publishing the sacred texts

AN investigation into an incident of sacrilege in which the pages of Guru Granth Sahib were found in a drain led the police to its publisher, who was detained. Who publishes holy books? Who controls the publication of religious texts? Answers vary in different religious traditions. Guru Granth Sahib is published by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee at Gurdwara Ramsar Sahib in Amritsar. This is where the first swaroop or copy of the Adi Granth was handwritten. Now, a modern printing press does the job there. During the printing, rules dictate that the people involved must be baptised Sikhs and must wash their hands before working on each page. Pages earmarked for discarding due to wrong spellings or any printing error, are collected and ardas (prayer) performed, after which they are consigned to the flames. Rules have also been laid down for transporting the scripture. The authority of the SGPC, vested in it by the Akal Takht, was not recognised in 2014, when Guru Granth Sahib, was allegedly published in China, and distributed to other countries. This was seen as an act of sacrilege. While there is a history of private publishers printing the sacred book of the Sikhs, now the SGPC has a monopoly in this matter. 

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In the revealed religions, where the “word” holds the sway; the “book” is found to be the controlling factor.  Take the case of the Bible. The printing industry came into being primarily to promote the Bible. The print copies proliferated religious texts limited till then to few beautifully illustrated manuscripts. Johann Gutenberg, invented the printing press in the 1450s, and the first book to ever be printed was a Latin language Bible, printed in Germany. Gutenberg's Bibles were surprisingly beautiful, each printed leaf was later colourfully hand-illuminated. 

Much ado about God's word 

The first hand-written English language Bible, by an Oxford professor and theologian, John Wycliffe,  who opposed the teachings of organised Church, infuriated the Pope so much that he ordered his bones to be exhumed and crushed, 40 years after his death. But several followers of Wycliffe wanted the Bible should be understood in their native language. Among them was John Hus, who defied the Roman church by possessing a non-Latin copy of the Bible. Hus was burnt alive in 1415, with the pages of the English manuscript used to kindle the fire. 

However, 100 years later, in 1517,  Martin Luther became the first person to translate and publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the German people. Many more were burnt alive, before the Bible was printed in English, by the Anglican Church, during the reign of King Henry VIII, who thumbed his nose at the Pope by renouncing the Roman Church; not for the love of God, but for the refusal of the Church to let him marry his mistress. In matters of gospel; change is embraced, for reasons entirely human. The Bible Society of India has been active since 1811. It controls the publication, translation and distribution of the Bible into different Indian languages; from Marathi to Mundari, Boro, Sindhi and Santhali by a battery of expert translators, who work from its many auxiliary units, undertaking 70 translation projects at a time. The story of the translation of the Bible and its publication is also the history of printing in India. Missionary Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, who landed in Tranquebar in the beginning of the 17th century, did the very first translation of the Bible into an Indian language — Tamil. The Serampore Mission Press in Bengal, then a Danish colony, became world’s largest for oriental fonts in many Asiatic languages, including Chinese, Burmese, Javanese and Malay. It produced over two lakh books between 1800 and 1832. The printing that began with “God's words”, inadvertently, created a battleground for many political wars to be waged; especially for independence. But the control over the Bible outlived these. 

Proliferation of the Quran

The story of the sacred book of Islam is quite different. The Quran came to India with Arab traders as early as 7th century AD, to coastal Malabar and the Konkan-Gujarat. In the North, Islam came through Turkish invasions, around 12th century. The printing of the Quran is decentralised. Dr Imam Umer Ahmed Iliyasi, Chief Imam, All India Imam Organisation, a voice of over half a million Imams of India, says, “Religion is not for hiding, it is for anyone who loves the Quran to propagate it, they can print it, it's common to keep the Quran in all homes and masjids. From Arabic, it is translated into many languages, all over the world. We don't really call it translation, we call it tafseer, its not anuvad/tarjuma, loosely it can be understood as interpretation.” The responsibility for authenticity rests with the publisher and the translator, whose name must be mentioned with the text. “We don't impose restrictions; religious books are to be read, not just to be kept as decoration pieces,” he adds.   The Buddhists too are not too particular about who prints their books. “No one has a monopoly on the publishing of Buddhist texts, anyone can translate and publish these. The responsibility rests with the author and publisher. In India, Motilal Banarsidass publish a large number of Buddhist texts and books. Usually, masters of theology, with deep knowledge of Buddhism write the books and articles and those with mastery over languages indulge in translation," informs Ven Nagasena, Secretary, Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre, Leh, follower of the Theravada sect.  

Not-so-liberal Hindu text  

The Arya Samajis have their Arya Prakashan, publishing the Vedas and their translations, now. They  even lay claims to an eLibrary, Chaukhamba Parakashan, Varanasi. A few publishers from Pune publish the sacred Sanskrit texts, the Puranas and the Upanishads, and their authentic translations. But, the most well-known publishers of the sacred books of the Hindus — the Ramayana and the Mahabharata — the Geeta Press, Gorakhpur, came into the publishing business rather late, in 1923. It became big from 1926 onwards, with the publication of their journal Kalyan, which became a vehicle to propagate right-wing Hindu ideology. It moved beyond the moral universe associated with religion to enter the political arena, mingling the two. Their production was cheap and high quality; almost each Hindu household had books published by them. They continue to publish the religious texts translated into 16 to 17 languages, and employ about 300 people, though, the production workers went on strike several times, for getting low wages for doing God's work. “We have our translators and scholars, but people are free to translate or interpret the Hindu texts; there is no controlling body,” says its head of the translation unit.  The statement has to be seen in the context of recent years, when  Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History had to be removed from book shelves under right-wing pressure. Theological assertion often results in the circumscription of freedom. 

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