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15 - Translator's Epilogue - Mahabharata · Philosophy and Faith

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Speaker 1: Translator's epilog. Ancient India, like ancient Greece, boasts of two
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Speaker 1: great epics. One of them, the Mahawalad, relates to a
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Speaker 1: great war in which all the warlike races of northern
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Speaker 1: India took asher, and may therefore be compared to the Iliad.
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Speaker 1: The other, the Ramayana, relates mainly to the adventures of
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Speaker 1: its hero vanished from its country and wandering for long
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Speaker 1: years in the wilderness of southern India, and may therefore
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Speaker 1: be compared to the Odyssi. It is the first of
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Speaker 1: these two epics, the Iliad of ancient India, which is
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Speaker 1: the subject of tile foregoing pages. The Great War which
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Speaker 1: is the subject of this epic, is believed to have
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Speaker 1: been fought in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ.
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Speaker 1: For generations and centuries after the war, its main incidents
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Speaker 1: must have been sung by birds and minstrels in the
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Speaker 1: courts of northern India. The war thus became the center
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Speaker 1: of a cycle of lizens, songs and poems in ancient India. Evenice,
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Speaker 1: charle Magne and Arthur became the center of lizens in
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Speaker 1: medievali Rome and then, probably under the direction of some
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Speaker 1: enlightened king. The vast mass of lizens and poetry accumulated
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Speaker 1: during centuries was cast in a narrative form and formed
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Speaker 1: the epic of the great Varat nation, and therefore called
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Speaker 1: the Mahavadad. The real facts of the ore had been
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Speaker 1: obliterated by age, legendary heroes had become the principal actors, and,
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Speaker 1: as is invariably the case in India, the trade of
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Speaker 1: a high moral purpose, of the triumph of virtue and
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Speaker 1: the subjugation of vice was woven into the fabric of
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Speaker 1: the great epic. OHI should have been thankful if this epic,
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Speaker 1: as it was thus originally put together some centuries before
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Speaker 1: the Christian era, had been preserved to us. But this
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Speaker 1: was not to be. The epic became so popular that
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Speaker 1: it went on growing. With the growth of centuries. Every
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Speaker 1: generation of poets had something to add. Every distant nation
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Speaker 1: in Northern India was anxious to interpolate some account of
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Speaker 1: its deeds in the old record of the international war.
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Speaker 1: Every preacher of a new creed desired to have in
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Speaker 1: the old epic some sanction for the new truths. He
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Speaker 1: inculcated passages from legal and moral codes were incorporated into work,
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Speaker 1: which appled to the nation much more effectively than dry
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Speaker 1: codes and rules about the different castes and about the
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Speaker 1: different stages of human life were included. For the same purpose.
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Speaker 1: All the floating mass of tales, traditions, listens, and meats
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Speaker 1: for which ancient India was famous found a shelter under
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Speaker 1: the expanding wings of this wonderful epic, and as Krishna
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Speaker 1: worship became the prevaling religion of India after the decay
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Speaker 1: of Buddhism, the old Epic caught the complexion of the times,
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Speaker 1: and Krishna cult is its dominating religious idea in its
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Speaker 1: present shape. It is thus that the work went on
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Speaker 1: growing for a thousand years after it was forced, compiled,
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Speaker 1: and put together in the form of an epic, until
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Speaker 1: the crystal reel of the epic itself was all but
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Speaker 1: lost in an unending morass of religious and deductiveata Lizends,
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Speaker 1: tales and traditions. When the michief had been done and
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Speaker 1: the epic had nearly assumed its present proportions, a few
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Speaker 1: centuries after Christ, according to the late doctor Boehler, an
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Speaker 1: attempt was made to prevent a further expansion of the work.
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Speaker 1: The contents of the epic were described in some prefetory verses,
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Speaker 1: and the number of couplets in each book was stated.
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Speaker 1: The total number of couplets, according to this metrical preface
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Speaker 1: is about eighty five thousand, but the limit so fixed
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Speaker 1: has been exceeded in still later centuries. Further editions and
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Speaker 1: interpolations have been made, and the Epic, as printed and
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Speaker 1: published in Calcutta in this century, contents over ninety thousand couplets,
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Speaker 1: excluding the supplement about the race of Hurry. The modern
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Speaker 1: reader will now understand the reason why this greet Epic,
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Speaker 1: the greatest work of imagination that Asia had produced, has
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Speaker 1: never yet been put before the European reader in a
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Speaker 1: readable form. A poem of ninety thousand couplets, about seven
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Speaker 1: times the site of the Iliad and now Dissiput together
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Speaker 1: is more than what the average reader can stand, and
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Speaker 1: the heterogeneous nature of its contents does not add to
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Speaker 1: the interest of the work. If the religious works of
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Speaker 1: Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, the philosophy of Hobbes and Lockey,
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Speaker 1: the commentaries of Blackstone and the Ballads of Percy, together
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Speaker 1: with the tractarian writings of Newman, Cabel, and Bussey, who
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Speaker 1: are all thrown into blank verse and incorporated with the
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Speaker 1: paradise lost. The reader would scarcely be much to blame
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Speaker 1: if he failed to appreciate that delectable compound. A complete
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Speaker 1: translation of the Mahafara, therefore into English verse is neither
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Speaker 1: possible nor desirable, but portions of it have now and
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Speaker 1: then been placed before English readers by distinguished writers. Dan
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Speaker 1: Milmann's graceful rendering of the story of Null and tamante
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Speaker 1: He is still read and appreciated by a silic circle
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Speaker 1: of breeders, and Sir Adinernald's beautiful translation of the concluding
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Speaker 1: books of the epic is familiar to a large circle
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Speaker 1: of Englishmen. A complete translation of the epic into English
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Speaker 1: prose has also been published in India, and is useful
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Speaker 1: to Sanskrit scholars for the purpose of reference. But although
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Speaker 1: the old Epic thus has been spoiled by unlimited expansion,
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Speaker 1: yet nevertheless the leading incidents and characters of the real
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Speaker 1: epic are still discernible, uninjured by the mass of foreign substance
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Speaker 1: in which they are embedded, even like those immortal marble
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Speaker 1: figures which have been recovered from the ruins of an
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Speaker 1: ancient world and now beautify the museums of modern Europe.
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Speaker 1: For years past, I have thought that it was perhaps
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Speaker 1: not impossible to exhume this varied epic from the superincumbent
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Speaker 1: mass of episodical matter and to restore it to the
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Speaker 1: modern world. For years past I have felt a longing
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Speaker 1: to undertake this work, but the task was by no
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Speaker 1: means an easy one. Leaving out all episodical matter. The
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Speaker 1: leadinarrative of the epic forms about one fourth of the work,
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Speaker 1: and the complete translation even of this leading story would
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Speaker 1: be unreadable, both from its length and its prolixeness. On
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Speaker 1: the other hand, to contence the story, the shorter limits
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Speaker 1: would be not to make a translation, but virtually to
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Speaker 1: write a new poem. And that was not what I
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Speaker 1: desired to undertake, nor what I was competent to perform.
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Speaker 1: There seemed to me only one way out of this difficulty.
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Speaker 1: The main incidents of the epic are narrated in the
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Speaker 1: original working passages, which are neither diffused nor antily products,
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Speaker 1: and which are interspersed in the lidingarrative of the epic.
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Speaker 1: At that narrative itself is interspersed in the midst of
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Speaker 1: more lengthy episodes. The more carefully examine the arrangement, the
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Speaker 1: more clearly it appeared to me that these main incidents
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Speaker 1: of the epic would bear a full and unaveraged translation
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Speaker 1: into English verse, and that these translations, linked together by
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Speaker 1: short connecting notes, would virtually present the entire story of
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Speaker 1: the epic to the modern reader in a form annudin
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Speaker 1: limits which might be acceptable. It would, be, no doubt,
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Speaker 1: a condensed version of the original epic, But the condensation
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Speaker 1: would be affected not by the translator telling a sorts
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Speaker 1: story in his own language, but by linking together those
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Speaker 1: passages of the original which describe the main and striking incidence,
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Speaker 1: and thus telling the main story as told in the
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Speaker 1: original work. The advantage of this arrangement is that in
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Speaker 1: the passages presented to the reader, it is the poet
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Speaker 1: who speaks to them, not the translator. Though vast portions
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Speaker 1: of the original are escaped over those which are presented
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Speaker 1: are the portions which narrate the main incidence of the
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Speaker 1: epic under describe those incidents as told by the poet himself.
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Speaker 1: This is the plan I have generally adopted in the
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Speaker 1: present work, except in the three books which describe the
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Speaker 1: actual war, Books eight, nine, and ten. The under nine
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Speaker 1: books of the translation are complete translations of selected passages
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Speaker 1: of the original work. I have not attempted to content
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Speaker 1: these passages, nor to expand them. I have endeavored to
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Speaker 1: put them before the English reader as they have been
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Speaker 1: told by the poet in Sanskrit. Occasionally, but rarely, a
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Speaker 1: few redundant couplets have been lived out, or a long
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Speaker 1: list of proper names or obscure allusions has been shortened,
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Speaker 1: And in one place only at the beginning of the
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Speaker 1: fifth book, I have added twelve couplets of my own
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Speaker 1: to explain the circumstances under which the story of Savigry
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Speaker 1: is told. Generally, therefore, the translation may be accepted as
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Speaker 1: an unabridged, though necessarily a free translation of the passages
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Speaker 1: describing the main incidence of the epic. From this matod,
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Speaker 1: I have been compelled to depart much against my wish
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Speaker 1: in the three books describing the actual war. No translation
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Speaker 1: of an epic relating to a great war can be
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Speaker 1: acceptable which does not narrate the main events of the ore.
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Speaker 1: The War of the Mahavarat was a series of eighteen
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Speaker 1: battles fought on eighteen conjugative days, and I felt it
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Speaker 1: necessary to present a reader with an account of each
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Speaker 1: day's work. In order to do so, I have been
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Speaker 1: compelled to contents, and not merely to translate selected passages
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Speaker 1: for the transitions of the ore. Unlike the other, incidents
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Speaker 1: of the epic have been narrated in the original with
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Speaker 1: almost inconceivable polexity and andless reputation, And the process of
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Speaker 1: condensation in these three books has therefore been severe and thorough.
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Speaker 1: But nevertheless, even in these books I have endeavored to
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Speaker 1: preserve the character and the spirit of the original. Not
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Speaker 1: only are the incidents narrated in the same order as
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Speaker 1: in original, but they are told in the style of
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Speaker 1: the poet as far as possible. Even the similes and
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Speaker 1: metaphors and figures of speech are all or mostly adopted
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Speaker 1: from the original. The translator has not ventured either to
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Speaker 1: adopt his own distinct style of narration or to improve
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Speaker 1: on the style of the original with its own decorations.
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Speaker 1: Such is the scheme I have adopted in presenting an
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Speaker 1: epic of ninety thousand Sanskrit couplets in about two thousand
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Speaker 1: English couplets. The excellent and deservedly popular prose translation of
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Speaker 1: the Odysseum Homer by Messrs Butcher and Lang often led
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Speaker 1: me to think that perhaps a prose translision of these
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Speaker 1: selected passages from the Mahavarad might be more acceptable to
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Speaker 1: the modern reader. But a more serious consideration of the
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Speaker 1: question dispelled that idea. Homer has an interest for the
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Speaker 1: European reader which the Mahavarat cannot lay claim to. As
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Speaker 1: the father of European poetry, he has a claim on
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Speaker 1: the veneration of modern Europe which an Indian poet can
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Speaker 1: never pretend to. To thousands of European readers, Homer is
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Speaker 1: familiar in the original two hundreds of thousands. He is
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Speaker 1: known in various translations in various modern languages. What Homer
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Speaker 1: actually wrote a numerous class of students in Europe wished
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Speaker 1: to know, and a literal prose translation therefore is welcome.
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Speaker 1: After the Great Epic has been so often translated in verse.
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Speaker 1: The case is very different, with the Mahavaraed practically unknown
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Speaker 1: to European readers, and the translators of Homer themselves gracefully acknowledge.
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Speaker 1: We have tried to transfer not all the route about
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Speaker 1: the poem, but the historical truths into English. In this process,
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Speaker 1: Homer must lose at least half his charm, his bright
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Speaker 1: and equable speed, the musical current of the narrative, which
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Speaker 1: like the river or visit, flows from an undiscoverable source,
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Speaker 1: and mirrors the temples and the palaces of the unforgotten
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Speaker 1: gods and kings. Whout the music of Verse, only a
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Speaker 1: half truth about Homer can be told. Another earnest worker
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Speaker 1: of the present day, who is endeavoring to interpret to
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Speaker 1: modern Englishmen the thoughts and sentiments and poetry of their
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Speaker 1: Anglo section ancestors, has empatically declared that of all possible
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Speaker 1: translations of poetry, a merely prose translation is the most inaccurate. Prose,
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Speaker 1: says mister Stockford Brook further on, no more represents poetry
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Speaker 1: than architectured as music. Translations of poetry are never much good,
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Speaker 1: but at least they should always endeavor to have the
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Speaker 1: musical movement of poetry and to obey the laws of
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Speaker 1: the verse they translate. This appears to me to be
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Speaker 1: a very sound maxim and one of my greatest difficulties
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Speaker 1: in the task I have undertaken has been to try
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Speaker 1: and preserve something of the musical movement of the sonorous
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Speaker 1: Sanskrit poetry in the English translation. Much of the Sanskrit
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Speaker 1: Epic is written in the well known slowcometer of sixteen
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Speaker 1: syllables in each line, and I endeavored to choose some
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Speaker 1: English meter which is familiar to the English here, and
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Speaker 1: which should reproduce to some extent the rereadom the Majesty
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Speaker 1: and the long and immediate sweep of the Sanskrit wars.
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Speaker 1: It was necessary to adopt such a meter in order
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Speaker 1: to transfer something of the truth about the Mahawarat into English,
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Speaker 1: for without such reproduction or imitation of the musical movement
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Speaker 1: of the original ary, much less than half a truth
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Speaker 1: is told. My kind friend, mister Edmund Russell, impelled by
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Speaker 1: that enthusiasm for Indian poetry and Indian art which is
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Speaker 1: a part of him, rendered me valuable help and assistance
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Speaker 1: in this matter, and I gratefully acknowledge the benefit I
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Speaker 1: have derived from his advice and suggestions. After considerable trouble
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Speaker 1: and anxiety, and after rendering several books in different English matters,
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Speaker 1: I felt convinced that the one finally adopted was a
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Speaker 1: nearer approach to the Sanskrit Sloca than any other familiar
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Speaker 1: English meter known to me. I have recited a verse
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Speaker 1: in this English meter and the sloka in presence of
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Speaker 1: listeners who have a better year for music than myself,
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Speaker 1: and they have marked a close resemblance. I caught a
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Speaker 1: few lines from the san striet showing varieties of the
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Speaker 1: Sloka meter and companying them with the scheme of the
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Speaker 1: English meter selected Yisha kuntishu Ta srimane Ihama Damapan Daba,
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Speaker 1: yhabud Thro Mahindrasha, Kurunamayisha, Rakshita Mahwarred one fifty three fifty seven.
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Speaker 1: Yet I doubt not through the ages, one increasing purpose
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Speaker 1: runs and the thoughts of man are wadened with the
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Speaker 1: process of the suns Locksley Hall Malan Sa, Samupudaya, kan
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Speaker 1: Janim Samalamakritam Avatin Nataturangam, Drapati, varadar Shava Mahwarred one sixty
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Speaker 1: nine seventy four. Vegians of the days departed, shadowy phantoms
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Speaker 1: feeled my brain. Those who live in history only seemed
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Speaker 1: to walk the earth again. Belfry of brooches asurayam Ivasuriina
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Speaker 1: nriwatam Iva bay Yuna vasitom laditan Jeva Krishnaidam Zadohina Mawarad
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Speaker 1: two thirteen thirty four. Quaint old town of toil and traffic,
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Speaker 1: Quaint old town of art and song memories, hornedy pointed
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Speaker 1: gables like the rooks that round Dee trong Niuremburg Hapan
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Speaker 1: doo Hamaharaj Khashi kim Zamobek Shassi Puttrina Viva Shaya te
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Speaker 1: Saduna arivirid you ta Nijitana Mahawarred two twenty sixteen. In
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Speaker 1: her ear, he whispers gaily, if my heart by signs
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Speaker 1: can tell Maiden, I have watched it daily, and I
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Speaker 1: think TA lovest me well, Lord of Burleigh. It it
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Speaker 1: be too much tassium that, even with the help of
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Speaker 1: dissimilarity in meters, I have been able to transfer into
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Speaker 1: my English that sweep and majesty of verse, which is
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Speaker 1: the charm of Sanskrit, and which often sustains and elevates
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Speaker 1: the simplest narration and the plainest ideas. Whether the support
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Speaker 1: of these sustaining wings, my poor narration must often plow
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Speaker 1: through the dust, and I can only ask for the
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Speaker 1: indulgence of the reader, which every translator of poetry from
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Speaker 1: a foreign language can which reason ask, if the story
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Speaker 1: as told in the translation is sometimes but a plain,
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Speaker 1: simple and homely narrative for any artistic decoration, I have
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Speaker 1: neither the inclination nor the necessary qualification. The crisp and
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Speaker 1: ornate style the quaint expression that chiseldored, the new coined
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Speaker 1: phrase in which modern English poetry is rich, would scarcely
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Speaker 1: soothe the translation of an old epic whose predominating characteristic
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Speaker 1: is its simple and easy flow of narrative. Indeed, the
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Speaker 1: Mahwarret would lose that unadulted simplicity which is its first
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Speaker 1: and foremost feature, if the translator ventured to decorate it
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Speaker 1: with the art of the modern day, even if he
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Speaker 1: had been qualified to do so. For if there is
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Speaker 1: one characteristic feature which distinguishes the Mawarra as well as
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Speaker 1: the other Indian epic, the Ramayan, from all later Sanskrit literature,
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Speaker 1: it is the grand simplicity of its narrative, which contrasts
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Speaker 1: with the artificial graces of later Sanskrit poetry. The poetry
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Speaker 1: of Kalidas, for instance, is ornate and beautiful and almost
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Speaker 1: scintillates with similes in every verse. The poetry of the
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Speaker 1: Mavarat is plain and unpolished, and scarcely stoops to a
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Speaker 1: simile or a figure of speech, unless the simile comes
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Speaker 1: naturally to the poet. The great deeds of godlike kings
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Speaker 1: sometimes suggests to the poet the mighty deeds of gods.
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Speaker 1: The rushing of warriors suggests the rushing of angry elephants
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Speaker 1: in the echoing jungle. The flight of whistling arrows suggests
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Speaker 1: the flight of sea birds, the sound and movement of
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Speaker 1: surging crowds, such as the heaving of willows. The erectitude
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Speaker 1: of a warrior suggests a tall cliff. The beauty of
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Speaker 1: a maiden suggests the soft beauty of the blue lotus.
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Speaker 1: When such comparisions come naturally to the poet, he accepts
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Speaker 1: them and notes them down, but he never seems to
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Speaker 1: go in quest of them. He is never anxious to
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Speaker 1: beautify and decorate. He seems to trust entirely to his
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Speaker 1: grand narrative, to his heroic characters, to his cheering incidents,
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Speaker 1: to hold millions of listeners in perpetual trial. The majestic
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Speaker 1: and sonorous sanscrit meter is at his command, and even
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Speaker 1: this he huses carelessly and with frequent s lips known
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Speaker 1: as usha to letter grammarians. The poet certainly seeks for
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Speaker 1: no art to decorate his tale. He trusts to the
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Speaker 1: lofty chronicle of eygun heroes to unchain the listening mankind
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Speaker 1: and what heroes in the delineation of character, the Mavart
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Speaker 1: is far above anything which you find in later Sanskrit poetry, indeed,
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Speaker 1: with much that is fresh and sweet and lovely. In
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Speaker 1: later Suscrit poetry there is little or no portraiture of character.
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Speaker 1: All heroes are cast much in the same heroic mold.
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Speaker 1: All lobsee heroines suffer in silence and barn with fever.
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Speaker 1: All fools are shrewd and impudent by turns. All names
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Speaker 1: are heartless and cruel and suffer. In the end, there
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Speaker 1: is not much to deay distinguished between one warrior and another,
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Speaker 1: between one tender woman and her sister. In the Mahavart,
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Speaker 1: we find just the rivers. Each hero has a distinct individuality,
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Speaker 1: a character of his own, clearly discernible from that of
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Speaker 1: other heroes. No work of the imagination that could be named,
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Speaker 1: always excepting the Iliad is so rich and so true
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Speaker 1: as the mahwarret in the portraiture of human character, not
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Speaker 1: in torment and suffering as in Dante, not under overwhelming
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Speaker 1: passions as in Sakespeare, but human character in its calm, dignity,
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Speaker 1: of strength and repose, like those immortal figures in marble
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Speaker 1: which dancientstarnd out, and which modern sculptures have vainly sought
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Speaker 1: to reproduce. The old Kurumoner treated Astra sightless and feeble,
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Speaker 1: but majestic in his ancient grandeur. The noble grandsire Vishma Death,
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Speaker 1: subduer and unconquerable in the Oar, The dotty drona venerable
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Speaker 1: priest and vengeful warrior, and the proud and pureless archer
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Speaker 1: Karn have each a distinct character of his own which
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Speaker 1: cannot be is taken for a moment. The good and
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Speaker 1: royally deistir i omit the final a. In some long
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Speaker 1: names which occur frequently, the tiger wasted Vema and the
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Speaker 1: helmuturing June are the Agamemnon, the Ajax and the Achilus
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Speaker 1: of the Indian epic. The proud and unelding do you then,
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Speaker 1: and the fierce and fiery to Sassan stand out foremost
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Speaker 1: among the wrathful sons of the feeble old Kurum owner,
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Speaker 1: and Krishna possesses a character higher than that of Ulysses,
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Speaker 1: unmatched in human wisdom, ever striving for righteousness and peace,
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Speaker 1: he is toorrow and unrelenting in war when war has begun.
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Speaker 1: And the women of the Indian Epic pauses characters as
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Speaker 1: marked as those of the man, the stately and majestic
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Speaker 1: Queen Gandhari, the loving and doubting mother Preta, the proud
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Speaker 1: and scornful Dropody nursing her rats till her wrongs are
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Speaker 1: fearfully revenged, and the bright and brilliant and sunny Suvadra.
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Speaker 1: These are distinct images penciled by the hand of a
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Speaker 1: true master in the realm of creative imagination. And if
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Speaker 1: the characters of the mahwarate In present themselves on the reader,
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Speaker 1: the incidents of the epic are no less striking. Every
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Speaker 1: scene on the shifting stage is a perfect and impressive picture.
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Speaker 1: The tournament of the Princes, in which Urgin and Karn,
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Speaker 1: the aquilius and actor of the Indian Epic, first met,
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Speaker 1: and each marked the other for his foe, the gorgeous
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Speaker 1: bridal of Dropothy, the equally gorgeous coronation of it Isture,
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Speaker 1: and the death of the proud and boisterous Sisupal. The
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Speaker 1: fatal game of dice and the scornful wrath of Dropody
20:30
Speaker 1: against our insulters. The calm beauty of the forest life
20:34
Speaker 1: of the Pandeps, the cattle lifting in much a land
20:37
Speaker 1: in which the gallant Urchin threw off his disguise and
20:40
Speaker 1: stood forth as warrior and conqueror. And the Homeric speeches
20:44
Speaker 1: of the warriors in the Council of War on the
20:46
Speaker 1: eve of the great contest. Each scene of this venerable
20:49
Speaker 1: old epic impresses itself on the mind of the hushed
20:52
Speaker 1: and astonished reader. Then follows the war of eighteen days.
20:57
Speaker 1: The first few days are more or less uneventful and
21:00
Speaker 1: have been condensed in this translation often into few couplets,
21:03
Speaker 1: but the interest of the reader increases as he approaches
21:06
Speaker 1: the final battle and fall of the grand old fighter
21:09
Speaker 1: of Vishma. Then follows the steering story of the death
21:12
Speaker 1: of Virgin's gallant boy and Urchin's fierce revenge, and the
21:16
Speaker 1: death of the priest and warrior Dothy Drona. Last comes
21:19
Speaker 1: the crowning event of the epic, the final contest between
21:22
Speaker 1: Arjun and Kern, the heroes of the epic, and the
21:25
Speaker 1: war ends in a midnight slaughter and the death of Derudan.
21:30
Speaker 1: The rest of the story is told in this translation
21:32
Speaker 1: in two books describing the funerals of the deceased warriors,
21:35
Speaker 1: and it is to sacrifice. The poems of Homer, says
21:41
Speaker 1: mister Gladstone, differ from all other known poetry in this
21:45
Speaker 1: that they constituting themselves an encyclopedia of life and knowledge
21:49
Speaker 1: at the time when knowledge, indeed, such as lies beyond
21:52
Speaker 1: the bounds of actual experience, was extremely limited, and when
21:55
Speaker 1: life was singularly fresh, vivid, and expansive. This remark applies
22:00
Speaker 1: with even greater force to the Mahaward. It is an
22:03
Speaker 1: encyclopedia of the life and knowledge of ancient India, and
22:07
Speaker 1: it discloses to us an ancient and forgotten world, a
22:10
Speaker 1: proud and noble civilization which has passed away. Northern India
22:14
Speaker 1: was then parceled among warlike races, living side by side
22:18
Speaker 1: under their warlike kings, speaking the same language, performing the
22:21
Speaker 1: same religious rites, and ceremonies, rejoicing in a common literature,
22:26
Speaker 1: rivaling each other in their schools of philosophy and learning,
22:29
Speaker 1: as in the arts of peace and civilization, and forming
22:32
Speaker 1: a confederation of Hindu nationians, unknown to and unknowing the
22:36
Speaker 1: outside world. What this confederation of nations has done for
22:39
Speaker 1: the cause of human knowledge and human civilization is a
22:42
Speaker 1: matter of history. Their inquiries into the hidden truths of religion,
22:47
Speaker 1: embombed in the anciento puniciats, have never been excelled within
22:51
Speaker 1: the last three thousand years. Their inquiries into philosophy, preserved
22:55
Speaker 1: in the Psychia and the Bedanda systems, where the first
22:58
Speaker 1: systems of true philosophy which the world produced, and their
23:02
Speaker 1: great works of imagination, the Mahwar and the Ramayan, will
23:06
Speaker 1: be placed without hesitation by the side of Homer by
23:09
Speaker 1: critics who survey the Word's literatures from a lofty standpoint
23:13
Speaker 1: and just impartially of the ways stand out by the
23:16
Speaker 1: hands of man in all parts of the globe. It
23:19
Speaker 1: is coarsely necessary to add that the discoveries of the
23:22
Speaker 1: ancient Hindus in science and especially in mathematics, are the
23:25
Speaker 1: heritage of the modern world, and that the lofty religion
23:28
Speaker 1: of Buddha, proclaimed in India of five centuries before Christ
23:32
Speaker 1: is not a religion of a thard of the human race.
23:35
Speaker 1: For the rest, the people of modern India know how
23:38
Speaker 1: to appreciate their ancient heritage. It is not an exaggeration
23:42
Speaker 1: to state that the two hundred millions of windows of
23:44
Speaker 1: the present day cherish in their hearts the story of
23:47
Speaker 1: their ancient epics. The Hindus cours beliefs man or woman,
23:51
Speaker 1: high or low, educated or ignorant, whose earliest recollections do
23:55
Speaker 1: not cling around the story and the characters of the
23:57
Speaker 1: great epics. The almost illiterate, the oil manufacturer or confectioner
24:02
Speaker 1: of Bengal spells out some modern translation of the Mahavarate
24:05
Speaker 1: to while away his leisure hour. The tall and stalwart
24:08
Speaker 1: peasantry of the Northwest know of the five Banda brothers
24:12
Speaker 1: and of their friend the Rteas Krishna. The people of
24:16
Speaker 1: Bombay and Madras cherries with equal order the story of
24:19
Speaker 1: the Righteous War. And when the traditions entiales interspersed in
24:23
Speaker 1: the epic, and which spoil the work as an epic,
24:26
Speaker 1: have themselves a charm and an attraction, and the morals
24:30
Speaker 1: inculcated in these tails sink into the hearts of a
24:32
Speaker 1: naturally religious people and form the basis of their moral education.
24:37
Speaker 1: Mothers in India know no better to him for importing
24:40
Speaker 1: wisdom and instruction to their daughters, and elderly men know
24:44
Speaker 1: no rich a storehouse for neverting tales to children than
24:47
Speaker 1: these stories preserved in the epics. No work in Europe,
24:51
Speaker 1: not Homer in Greece, or Virgil in Italy, not Sixpere
24:54
Speaker 1: or Milton in English speaking lands, is the national property
24:57
Speaker 1: of the nations to the same extent as the epics
24:59
Speaker 1: of a In the art of the Hindus, no single
25:03
Speaker 1: work except the Bible has such influence in affording moral
25:06
Speaker 1: instruction in Christian lands as the Mahwarat and the Ramaan.
25:09
Speaker 1: In India, there have been the cherished heritage of the
25:12
Speaker 1: Hindus for three thousand years. They are to the present
25:16
Speaker 1: day interwoven with the thoughts and beliefs and moral ideas
25:19
Speaker 1: of a nation numbering two hundred millions. Rameshdad University College, London,
25:27
Speaker 1: thirteen Tugusts, eighteen ninety eight and of the translator's epilog