Translating India to India: Travelling translations, Patanjali Ayurveda, and the visual language of spiritual consumerism

Abstract This paper addresses the geography of translation by exploring the language of ‘spiritual consumerism’ in India. Drawing on examples from the Indian company Patanjali's ‘saffron capitalism’, we trace the politically, culturally, and religiously charged nature of ‘travelling translation’ and ‘self‐translation’. Our focus is on commercial language that has journeyed and returned ‘back home’, validating notions of Indian uniqueness in the context of globalisation and the rise of Hindu nationalism. This overarching theme is developed by way of three other arguments. First, we show the utility of bringing recent developments in translation studies to bear on geographical debates on globalisation and glocalisation. Second, we offer an expanded view of translation. With their many colours, fonts, and other devices, the Hindi and English texts found on Patanjali's products offer a complex and lively ‘visual language’. Our discussion shows that an understanding of the placing and patterning of this visual language sheds light on the complex character of ‘spiritual consumerism’. Third, in contrast to the emphasis on transgression, novelty, and resistance associated with earlier work on postcolonial translation, we draw out the splicing of nationalism, capitalism, and cosmopolitanism, and illustrate how Patanjali is creating and packaging a language of Hindu/Indian/global branding.