MAHABHARATA CONDENSED INTO ENGLISH ... - Mandhata Global

This appears to me to be a very sound maxim. And one of my greatest difficulties in the
task I have undertaken has been to try and preserve something of the "musical
movement" of the sonorous Sanscrit poetry in the English translation. Much of tile
Sanscrit Epic is written in the well-known Sloka metre of sixteen syllables in each line,
and I endeavoured to choose some English metre which is familiar to the English ear, and
which would reproduce to some extent the rhythm, the majesty, and the long and
measured sweep of the Sanscrit verse. It was necessary to adopt such a metre in order to
transfer something of the truth about the Maha-bharata. into English, for without such
reproduction or imitation of the musical movement of the original very much less than a
half truth is told. My kind friend Mr. Edmund Russell, impelled by that enthusiasm for
Indian poetry and Indian art which is a part of him, rendered me valuable help and
assistance in this matter, and I gratefully acknowledge, the benefit I have derived from
his advice and suggestions. After considerable trouble and anxiety, and after rendering
several books in different English metres, I felt convinced that the one finally adopted
was a nearer approach to the Sanscrit Sloka than any other familiar English metre known
to me.
I have recited a verse in this English metre and a Sloka in presence of listeners who have
a better ear for music than myself, and they have marked the close resemblance. I quote a
few lines from the Sanscrit showing varieties of the Sloka metre, and comparing them
with the scheme of the English metre selected.