Ranchi, May 15: After Mundari, Santhali and Kurukh, it is time for a translated copy of the Bible in Mal Paharia language.

A revised version of the Bible in Sanskrit is also expected by next year.

Translation work in Mal Paharia has been completed and now the initial process for its publication has started.

Bible Society of India auxiliary secretary (Jharkhand) Soma Bhatkar said the revised version of the Bible in Sanskrit was prepared by a retired Ranchi University professor, S. Kujur.

The first version of the Bible in Mal Paharia has been prepared by a group of the Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church at Dumka.

“It took more than three years to complete the translation work for the revised Sanskrit version and two years to complete the translation of the Bible in Mal Paharia,” she said.

Sources of the Jharkhand unit of Bible Society of India said that the matter typed was being keyed in after which the Bible would be published in Bangalore. “Typing and proof reading is over. Once the matter is composed, it will be sent for publication,” an official said.

Sources at the Bible Society of India office said that the work of translating the Bible requires proper training.

“It is not easy to translate the Bible. A translator is selected by a committee and imparted a two-week spec- ial training. A person hav- ing an idea of Greek and Hebrew language is preferred for the work as the original Bible is available in Hebrew, while Greek was the first language in which it was translated,” said an official.

Kujur, who is presently an associate of St Albert’s College, told The Telegraph that translating the Bible was a pleasant experience for her.

She said that the Hindi translation by Father Kamil Bulke and similar work by local Sanskrit scholar Baneshwar Pathak helped her a lot in her work.

“While the translation of Father Bulke is in prose, Pathak’s translation is in the form of poetry. Both the translations helped me form an idea about how to translate and I could do the work successfully despite being engaged in two research work at the same time,” Kujur added.