William Buck (translator)

William "Bill" Buck (1933-1970) was an American writer who produced novelized translations into English of the Sanskrit epic poems Mahabharata and Ramayana. A translation of Harivamsa was unfinished at his death. Little is known of his life.

According to the publisher's preface to the 2012 republication of Buck's translations of Mahabharata and Ramayana, Buck was in 1955 inspired by reading a 19th-century translation of Bhagavad Gita, in a state library in Carson City, Nevada. He discovered that a proposed 11-volume Indian publication of Mahabharata was at risk for lack of funds, and subsidized it. He began to study Sanskrit, and to make his own translations. He later wrote:

My method in writing both Mahabharata and Ramayana was to begin with a literal translation from which to extract the story, and then to tell that story in an interesting way which would preserve the spirit and flavor of the original.^[1]

Buck's translations have been praised by Levi Asher ^{[2][Note 1]} and others.^[3]

He may or may not have been related to the American Sanskrit scholar Carl Darling Buck (1866-1955). There seems to be no evidence either way.

Publications

• Buck, William (June 12, 2012) [1967]. Mahabharata (3rd ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520227040. Retrieved November 5, 2016. 
• Buck, William (June 12, 2012) [1967]. Ramayana (35th Anniversary ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520272989. Retrieved November 5, 2016. 

References

Notes