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charm and an attraction; and the morals inculcated in these tales sink into the hearts of a naturally religious people, and form the basis of their moral education. Mothers in India know no better theme for imparting wisdom and instruction to their daughters, and elderly men know no richer storehouse for narrating tales to children, than these stories preserved in the Epics. No work in Europe, not Homer in Greece or Virgil in Italy, not Shakespeare or Milton in English-speaking lands, is the national property of the nations to the same extent as the Epics of India are of the Hindus. No single work except the Bible has such influence in affording moral instruction in Christian lands as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in India. They have been the cherished heritage of the Hindus for three thousand years; they are to the present day interwoven with the thoughts and beliefs and moral ideas of a nation numbering two hundred millions. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, 13th August 1893 THE RAMAYANA AND THE MAHABHARATA ROMESH DUTT. 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. Rornesh 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. The following is a list of the various editions of " The Mahabharata": S. K. RATCLIFFE 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
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MAHABHARATA CONDENSED INTO ENGLISH
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Skill in arms attained these prince
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Mighty sword and ample buckler, pon
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And with equal skill his rapier did
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Angry word is coward's weapon, Arju
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Is he soil of chariot-driver? Doubt
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THE mutual jealousies of the prince
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And the princes bowed unto him and
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And her golden bridal garland, carr
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Bright Immortals gaily crowding vie
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Holy men subsist on wild fruits, in
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Like wild elephants of jungle rushe
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Brahmans, and the brothers reported
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FEAST AND SACRIFICE Jumna's dark an
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And on subjects great and sacred, o
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Ill beseems the good Yudhishthir, r
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Lowered Krishna's eye and forehead,
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"Done this glorious rajasuya, joy a
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DURYODHAN came back from the Imperi
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Sacred looks! with holy water dewed
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For they censure not a woman, when
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I have borne a child unto him, nobl
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Now once more the teaching cometh,
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Leave me not alone on wide earth, l
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Epic, impart a moral instruction to
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Aswapati, glad and grateful, take t
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Maiden! speak unto the rishi, and t
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"Monarch!" uttered then the rishi,
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Answered then the loving husband, a
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YAMA from the prince's body, pale a
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"Have thy object," answered YAMA, "
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Then she rose and tied her tresses,
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From the north the proud Duryodhan,
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Trained in war by mighty Arjun, tra
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Hark again this wondrous sabre, sha
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"That is Arjun's monkey-standard, h
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Pure is she in thought and action,
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MAHABHARATA BOOK VII UDYOGA (The Co
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VALADEVA'S SPEECH Krishna's elder V
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Ancient Drupad wields his weapon pe
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Stretch thy hands, O Kuru monarch!
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Exiled into Varnavata, destined unt
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Then in gentler voice Vidura sought
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If in past in thoughtless folly onc
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Drupad proud and peerless monarch w
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But the fiercer darts of Drona pier
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For the wrongs and insults offered
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Licked his mouth the vengeful Bhima
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Mounted on their milk-white charger
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Dawned a day of mighty slaughter an
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And his younger, fierce Duhsasan, t
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Karna, though he loved not Bhishma
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Stoutest wrestlers in the armies, f
Page 107 and 108: Brave Nakula's sign was red deer wi
Page 109 and 110: Didst thou in the council chamber w
Page 111 and 112: Moments passed of voiceless sorrow
Page 113 and 114: Heavy on this bleeding bosom sits t
Page 115 and 116: Like an onward sweeping wildfire sh
Page 117 and 118: Ill it fared with Pandav forces, do
Page 119 and 120: KARNA AND ARJUN MEET Sights of red
Page 121 and 122: Ay, the son of Jamadagni, kings of
Page 123 and 124: Pale with anguish, wrathful Karna f
Page 125 and 126: Pardon if the blood of anger mantle
Page 127 and 128: Stung to fury and to madness, faint
Page 129 and 130: "Brothers, kinsmen, hero-warriors,"
Page 131 and 132: Ancient feud and hatred linger afte
Page 133 and 134: Men from stall and loom and anvil,
Page 135 and 136: And her tears like rains of summer
Page 137 and 138: Kings and princes, noble warriors,
Page 139 and 140: Didst thou, mother, bear the hero f
Page 141 and 142: meets, then take up a good many pag
Page 143 and 144: With his greetings did Yudhishthir,
Page 145 and 146: Round the altar's holy lustre moved
Page 147 and 148: But the bard and ancient rishi who
Page 149 and 150: Seek and find the brave Satyaki who
Page 151 and 152: the concluding books of the Epic is
Page 153: This appears to me to be a very sou
Page 156 and 157: them down, but he never seems to go
Page 160 and 161: Introduction by W. Max-Müller. 189
Page 162 and 163: IDA, a form of sacrificial offering
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