New Delhi, July 27 -- Scholar Dr Robert Gafrik, who spent five years translating the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Slovak, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appreciation of his work during his recent visit to Slovakia gave the translation "a second life" by turning it into a bridge in India-Slovakia diplomatic relations.

He made the remarks during an interview to ANI.

Dr Gafrik, a scholar at the Institute of World Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, said translating the Upanishads was intellectually demanding due to the complexity of the texts and their long tradition of interpretation. He said he chose to follow the traditional Indian interpretation of Adi Shankaracharya while translating the philosophical tex...