THE MAHABHARATA
CONDENSED INTO ENGLISH VERSE
By Romesh C. Dutt
(1899)
TO
THE RIGHT HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER
WHO HAS DEVOTED
HIS LIFETIME TO THE ELUCIDATION OF
THE LEARNING, LITERATURE, AND
RELIGION OF
ANCIENT INDIA
AND HAS RECOGNISED AND VINDICATED WHAT
IS
TRUE AND GREAT AND ENNOBLING IN
MODERN INDIA
THIS
TRANSLATION OF THE RAMAYANA
IS DEDICATED AS A
SINCERE TOREN OF THE
ESTEEM AND REGARD OF MY
COUNTRYMEN
A NOTE ON
THE LATE ROMESH C. DUTT
ROMESH CHUNDER DUTT, to whom English readers are indebted for the
condensed metrical version of the ancient Indian epics given in this
volume, was one of the most distinguished sons of modern India. He came
of a Hindu family standing high among the Kayasths, second of the great
castes in Bengal, was born in 1848, and grew to manhood amid influences
of deep spiritual disturbance. In those days an Indian youth who had
felt the call of the West encountered the sternest opposition from both
his own family and the community, if hie avowed his ambition of making
the voyage to Europe. Romesh Dutt, having passed through the Presidency
College, Calcutta, took his fate into his own hands. Accompanied by two
friends, both of whom after wards rose to eminence in Bengal, he
secretly took ship, came to London, entered for the Indian Civil
Service, and took third place in the open examination of 1869. He was
the first of his race to attain the rank of divisional commissioner, and
long before his retirement in 1897, at the end of twenty-five years'
service, had made a high reputation as an administrator. He sat for a
time in the Bengal Legislative Council, and, in recognition of his
official work, received the Companionship of the Indian Empire. He died
on November 30, 1909, at Baroda, the capital of the important Native
State which he had served with brilliant success as revenue minister and
dewan.
The influences which determined his literary activity were primarily
European. As a student in Calcutta he had made acquaintance with the
English classics, and later, while at University College, had read the
poets insatiably. Nevertheless his first successes were achieved in his
mother tongue. He wrote in Bengali poems and plays, historical and
social novels, and aroused a storm of protest within the orthodox
community of his Province by publishing a Bengali translation of the Rig
Veda. In English, of which he had complete mastery, his first complete
essay was a history of civilisation in Ancient India, which, though not
a work of original research, fulfilled a useful purpose in its day. When
freedom from Government service gave him the opportunity he set himself
to writing the Economic History of India and India in the
Victorian Age, the two together forming, his chief contribution to
the subject which he, more than any other Indian of his time, had made
his own. In these books, as in others of kindred theme and purpose,
there is much criticism of British administration, strongly felt if
temperately expressed. Apart from this, its more controversial side, the
work of Romesh Dutt is valuable mainly in that it has helped to reveal
to his own people no less than to ours, the spiritual riches of ancient
India.
S. K. RATCLIFFE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following is a list of the, various edition of "The Ramayana:
"The Ramayana," edited by S. Goressio (with Italian translation). 10
vols. 1843-58, 1859-60 (Calcutta), 1888 (Bombay).
English
translations: by Kirtee Bass. 5 vols. Serampore, 1802.
"The Ramayuna
of Valmeeki, in the original Sungscrit, with a Prose Translation and
Explanatory Notes." W. Carey and J. Marshman. 1806-10.
An English
translation for "Nirvachanothara, Ramayanum" (i.e. the "Uttara Ramayana
"attributed to Vúlmíki, with Commentary). Madras, 1880.
Free English
translation by R. T. H. Griffith. 5 vols. 1870-75.
Translation into
English Prose. Edited by Manmatha Nath Dutt. 1889, 1892-94.
Condensed
into English Verse by Romesh Dutt. 1899 (Temple Classics), 1900.
Works on:
Sir M. Williams, "Indian Epic Poetry, with full Analysis
of the Ramayana and Mahabharata." 1863.
J. T. Wheeler, "History of
India." 1867, &c.
J. C. Oman, "Struggles of the Dawn, the Stories
of the Great Indian Epics, Ramayana," &c. 1893. "The Great Indian
Epics," &c. 1894, 1899 (Bohn).
The following is a list of the various editions of " The
Mahabharata":
Complete edition, Calcutta, 1834-39, 4 vols.; Bombay, 1863;
re-edited, with commentary by Nitakantha Govinda, 1890.
Translations
into English Prose, by Protap Chandra Roy, 1883; (Sanscrit text of
Maharshi Vyas, with complete English and Hindi translations, 1902,
&c.).
"Virtue's Triumph; or, The Mahâ-Bhârata." By Rai Bahadur,
P. Anunda Charlu. 1894.
Prose literal translation, by Manmatha Nath
Dutt. 1895.
Condensed into English verse by Romesh Dutt (Temple
Classics). 1898. The same, with Introduction by W. Max-Müller.
1899.
(Many English translations of portions of the whole epic have
been published.)
Works on:
H. H. Wilson," Essays on the Religion of the Hindoos."
1862.
Sir M. Williams, "Indian Epic Poetry," &c.
1863.
Wheeler, "The Vedic Period and the Mahabbarata."
1867.
Buehler and Kirste, " Indian Studies, Contributions to the
History of the Mahabharata." 1892.
J. C. Oman (see above).
V.
Fausboll, "Indian Mythology, according to the Mahabharata in Outline"
(Oriental Religions Series, Luzac, vol. i.). 1903.
"Raganama
Ramkrishna Bhaguvata," an attempt to analyse the Mahabharata from the
higher Brahminical standpoint. 1905.
Chintamani Vinayaka Vaidya, "The
Mahabharata; a Criticism." 1905. "Epic India; or, India as described in
the -'Mahabharata and Ramayana." 1907.
CONTENTS
MAHA-BHARATA
|