The Great Indian Epics : $b The Stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
History
The Great Indian Epics : $b The Stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
Epic literature, Sanskrit -- Adaptations; Heroes -- India -- Fiction; Hindu mythology -- Fiction; India -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“After this, Mulla Shi and Nakib Khan together accomplished a portion,”
and another was completed by Sultan Haji Thanesari by himself. Shaikh
Faizi was then directed to convert the rough translation into elegant
prose and verse, but he did not complete more than two sections.
The Haji aforesaid again wrote it, correcting the errors which had
appeared in his first translation and settling the conjectures which
he had hazarded. He had revised a hundred sheets, and, nothing being
omitted, he was about to give the finishing touch when the order was
received for his dismissal, and he was sent to Bakar. He now resides in
his own city (Thanesar). Most of the scholars who were employed upon
this translation are now with the Kauravas and Pandavas. May those
who survive be saved by the mercy of God, and may their repentance be
accepted.
“The translation was called ‘Razm-nama,’ and, when fairly engrossed
and embellished with pictures, the nobles had orders to take copies,
with the blessing and favour of God. Shaikh Abul Faizi, who had already
written against our religion, wrote the Preface, extending to two
sheets. God defend us from his infidelities and absurdities.”[129]
III. _English Versions of the “Mahabharata.”_--For full details of
this epic the reader may be referred to “The ‘Mahabharata’ of Krishna
Dwaipayana Vyasa,” translated into English prose by Pratab Chandra Roy
(Calcutta), of which several volumes have been published.
A tolerably detailed account of the poem, with a running commentary,
occupies about 500 pages of vol. i. of the “History of India,” by J.
Talboys Wheeler.
A summary of all the eighteen sections of the epic is to be found in
Sir Monier Williams’s “Indian Epic Poetry” (Williams and Norgate,
1863).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Having presented to the reader the foregoing condensed epitomes of
the great Hindu Epics, it only remains for me to offer a few brief
observations upon some of the more abiding features of the national
life and the religious and moral sentiments of the Hindus, as
illustrated by these gigantic poems, in which we see, as in a mirror,
an unconscious reflection of the ideas and tendencies, the intellectual
cravings and the moral instincts, of the age to which they belong.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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