A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan, born in 1929 in Mysore, British India, was a prominent linguist, poet, and translator known for his significant contributions to South Asian literature and linguistics. He grew up in a multilingual environment, mastering Tamil, Sanskrit, English, and Kannada. Ramanujan earned his graduate degree in theoretical linguistics and later obtained his PhD from Indiana University in 1963. His academic career flourished at the University of Chicago, where he played a crucial role in establishing the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations.
Ramanujan is celebrated for his English translations of classic Indian literature, including the Tamil anthology *Kuruntokai* and Kannada poems from the medieval period. His works often sought to capture the essence of the original texts while making them accessible to English-speaking audiences. Notable publications include *Folktales from India* and several original poetry collections that fuse Indian and American literary styles. His themes frequently explore mortality, nature, and cultural identity. Recognized with several awards, including India's Padma Shri, Ramanujan's legacy continues through the A. K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation, honoring his lasting impact on the field of translation and South Asian studies.
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Subject Terms
A. K. Ramanujan
Indian-born poet and scholar
- Born: March 16, 1929
- Birthplace: Mysore, British India (now India)
- Died: July 13, 1993
- Place of death: Chicago, Illinois
As a poet and scholar, Ramanujan made numerous cross-disciplinary contributions to the fields of linguistics, anthropology, history, and literature. His scholarship has contributed greatly to academic study of the languages and literatures of Tamil and Kannada, and he is particularly remembered for his translations of classic Indian literature.
Areas of achievement: Poetry, literature, scholarship
Early Life
Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was born in Mysore, British India, in 1929. His family spoke Tamil, Sanskrit, and English, and Ramanujan also learned Kannada, a language spoken mainly in the southwest Indian state of Karnataka, where Mysore is located. Ramanujan attended D. Bhanumaiah’s High School and later Maharaja College of Mysore. He continued his studies at Deccan College in Pune, earning a graduate degree in theoretical linguistics, then traveled to the United States in 1959 to attend Indiana University, where he earned his PhD in linguistics in 1963. Ramanujan married Molly Daniels, with whom he later had two children.
While completing his doctorate, Ramanujan began to work at the University of Chicago in 1961, specializing in South Asian languages, and was appointed assistant professor a year later. At the University of Chicago, he served in the Department of Linguistics and notably helped to develop the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, which he chaired from 1980 to 1985.
Life’s Work
Ramanujan received significant attention and praise from fellow scholars for his English translations of classic literature from the Indian subcontinent. The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classic Tamil Anthology (1967), his first published translation, made the classical Tamil poetry anthology Kuruntokai (ca. 100–300 CE) accessible to an English-reading audience. Acknowledging the limits of translation, Ramanujan strove to render the poetic elements of the Tamil text in modern English while retaining the imagery and effect of the poems.
As he was fluent in several Indian languages and familiar with many more, Ramanujan translated works from a variety of regions and cultures, expanding the breadth of Indian literature available for study in English. Speaking of Siva, first published in 1973, contains translations of free-verse poems originally written in Kannada between 900 and 1100 CE. Ramanujan’s Folktales from India: A Selection of Oral Tales from Twenty-Two Languages (1991) collects folklore originally written or told in a variety of languages and includes translations of written stories, adaptations of oral tales, and rewritten versions of stories from earlier English-language texts. Languages represented within the collection include Punjabi, Urdu, and Rajasthani.
In addition to publishing numerous English translations of Indian literature, Ramanujan became known for fusing Indian and American styles in his own poetry. The Striders (1966), his first collection of original poetry, displays traces of Tamil in its tone and conventional Indian metaphors. He went on to publish several more volumes of poetry, including Relations (1971), Selected Poems (1976), and Second Sight (1986). The Collected Poems of A. K. Ramanujan was published posthumously in 1995. Ramanujan’s poems, which typically concern themes of mortality and impermanence, the cyclic forces of nature, and the tension between institutional time and personal time, have inspired numerous critical studies by scholars of Indian, postcolonial, and Asian American literature.
Ramanujan published widely in a variety of anthologies and journals and is known particularly for such scholarly papers as “Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?” (1990) and the controversial “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation” (1987), the latter of which was removed from the Delhi University curriculum in 2011 following protests from conservative Hindu groups. He served as a visiting lecturer at institutions in the United States and throughout the world, speaking about subjects related to Indian language and literature as well as his own poetry. In 1983, he was honored with a fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Significance
Ramanujan reinvigorated South Asian studies in India and the United States by reintroducing the literatures and languages of Tamil and Kannada to a discipline that was largely focused on Sanskrit texts. Through his translations, poems, and essays, he promoted the study of these languages and made significant contributions to international scholarship. In 1976, the government of India awarded Ramanujan the title of Padma Shri, a civilian award recognizing his scholarly contributions. The A. K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation, first awarded by the Association for Asian Studies in 1996, was named in his honor.
Bibliography
Bhatnagar, Manmohan Krishna, ed. The Poetry of A. K. Ramanujan. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2002. Print. Provides diverse perspectives on Ramanujan’s poetry with a series of scholarly essays on his biography, his search for identity, and his Buddhist beliefs.
Biswas, Soutik. “Ramayana: An ‘Epic’ Controversy.” BBC News South Asia. BBC, 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 2 Mar. 2012. Explores the controversy caused by Delhi University’s decision to remove Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas” from the curriculum following religious protests.
King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991. Print. Includes chapters that track Ramanujan’s evolving poetic style, providing both in-depth close readings and broad overviews of his poetic collections.
Ramanujan, A. K. Uncollected Poems and Prose. Ed. Molly Daniels-Ramanujan and Keith Harrison. Delhi: Oxford UP, 2001. Print. Reveals Ramanujan’s creative process through a collection of previously unpublished manuscripts.